The Emperor's Shipyard

The harbor at Port Arthur had transformed into the heart of a new, monstrous war machine. The familiar sounds of a busy naval base were drowned out by the sheer, overwhelming scale of the operation unfolding. The entire bay was crammed with ships, a fleet so vast and varied it defied belief. The grim, grey ironclads of the Beiyang Fleet, their hulls scarred and patched from the Battle of the Yellow Sea, stood as stoic guardians over a chaotic collection of military transports, commandeered merchant steamers from Shanghai and Hong Kong, broad-beamed coastal junks, and even hundreds of fishing boats, all requisitioned for a single, terrifying purpose. It was as if the Emperor had decided to lift the entire coast of Northern China and hurl it across the sea.

On the shore, tens of thousands of soldiers from the newly disciplined Second Army drilled relentlessly. The air was thick with the dust of their marching feet, the shouts of their officers, and the metallic clang of rifles being field-stripped and cleaned. Prince Gong, having arrived from Beijing to witness the final preparations, stood on a hill overlooking the harbor, his face a mask of utter astonishment.

"By the spirits of our ancestors…" he breathed, turning to Li Hongzhang who stood beside him. "I have built railways, opened mines, and managed the finances of the Empire. But I have never seen anything like this. It is as if the entire nation is being put onto boats."

Li Hongzhang nodded, his gaze sweeping over the incredible scene. "The Emperor has requisitioned every vessel from Tianjin to the Yangtze capable of crossing the sea. He calls it 'the People's Fleet.' A curious term." The old statesman sighed, a sound of weary admiration. "He told me that a war of this magnitude cannot be fought by the army alone. He said it must be fought by the entire nation, so that every fisherman and every merchant feels that this victory belongs to them. It is as much about politics as it is about logistics."

Down on the docks, the subject of their conversation was proving Li Hongzhang's point. Qin Shi Huang was not in a command tent, studying maps. He was on the wharf, personally inspecting the loading process, his slight frame moving with a focused intensity that drew the eye amidst the chaos. He was flanked by Meng Tian and a group of harried-looking engineers and quartermasters who scurried to keep up with him, scribbling frantically in their notebooks. The Emperor was not issuing grand orders; he was solving practical, granular problems with a chilling, obsessive efficiency.

He stopped before a large British steamer where soldiers were using a crane to lower massive crates into the hold. "Halt!" he commanded. The foreman immediately ordered the crane operator to stop. QSH pointed at the crates. "Quartermaster, what is in these containers?"

The quartermaster, a man sweating profusely despite the cool autumn air, bowed low. "Ammunition, Your Majesty! For the field artillery!"

"And you are loading it on the lower decks?" QSH's voice was dangerously quiet. "Foolish. Utterly foolish. A single hull breach from a mine or a torpedo boat, and the first thing to be ruined by seawater is our ammunition. The army will land on the beach with useless cannons." He fixed the man with a glare that made him flinch. "Unload it. Reload these three ships according to the new mandate. Ammunition and medical supplies go on the upper decks, sealed in waterproofed canvas. Food and fodder can go below. The men's lives depend on their bullets more than their rice."

He moved on without waiting for a reply, leaving the quartermaster shouting new orders. He next stopped where a team of carpenters was hastily modifying a merchant ship to carry cavalry horses.

"The ramps," QSH stated flatly, not even looking at the chief carpenter. "They are too steep. An angle of more than twenty degrees on a swaying gangplank will cause the horses to panic. They will slip, they will break their legs." He turned his cold eyes on the carpenter. "I will not have my cavalry crippled before they even reach the shore. Tear them down. Rebuild them with a shallower gradient and add cross-slats for footing. See to it personally."

This was the mind that had once standardized the axle widths of every chariot in China to create a unified empire. He understood that victory was not just a matter of grand strategy, but of a thousand mundane details executed with perfect precision. Logistics were not part of the war; logistics were the war.

The psychological transformation of the army was just as profound. In a makeshift camp near the docks, the rehabilitated Colonel Feng, now clad in the simple uniform of a common soldier, sat cleaning his rifle alongside a young recruit from the Second Army.

"I am still terrified," the young soldier admitted, his voice barely a whisper. He had seen the executions on the parade ground, and the memory haunted his sleep. "They say the Japanese will fight to the death to defend their homes."

Feng, whose face was now lean and hard, all the bloat of arrogance and privilege gone, finished cleaning his bolt before replying. "Good," he said, his voice raspy. "Be terrified. Fear keeps you low to the ground. Fear makes you check your rifle twice before you sleep. Fear keeps your bayonet sharp." He looked at the boy. "The Gongzi Army was brave and proud. They sang songs of their own glory the night before the battle. Now they are dead, and their bones are being picked clean by Korean crows. We are afraid, and we are alive. I would rather be a live dog than a dead lion."

"But what if we fail?" the boy asked. "What if the Emperor is wrong?"

Feng stopped his work and looked around them. He gestured with his head toward the endless lines of soldiers drilling, the rows upon rows of cannons being loaded onto ships, the forest of masts that choked the harbor. He pointed toward the distant, small figure of the Emperor, who was now personally showing a gun crew how to more efficiently stack shells.

"Fail?" Feng said, a strange new light in his eyes—not hope, but a kind of grim certainty. "Boy, you still don't understand. The Emperor does not fail. We are not soldiers in an army anymore, marching for a general's glory. We are cogs in a great machine. A machine of his own design. And the entire machine is now pointed directly at the heart of Japan."

As dusk began to settle, QSH gathered his senior commanders on the bridge of his new flagship. He had not chosen one of the ironclads, but a fast, commandeered passenger liner, the Hai-lung, which had been stripped of its luxuries and fitted with powerful telegraph equipment. He valued speed and communication over armor for himself.

He stood before them as they assembled, the setting sun casting a long, imposing shadow from his small frame. "The fleet is ready," he said simply. "The army is ready. The winds are favorable."

He unrolled a detailed nautical chart of the Japanese coastline near Nagasaki. "Our landing zone will be here," he said, his finger tapping a series of wide, sandy beaches to the south of the city. "Their coastal defenses are concentrated on the main harbor entrance. They will expect a direct naval assault. We will land where they are weakest. We will achieve tactical surprise, and the city will be surrounded before their main armies can be mobilized to meet us."

He rolled up the map and looked at each of his commanders in turn—Admiral Ding, Meng Tian, the generals of the Second Army. His eyes burned with an intensity that seemed to scorch them.

"Let me be clear. This is not a battle for a city. This is not a conquest for territory. This is a punitive expedition. We are there to break the will of the Japanese people and to shatter the myth of their 'living god.' You will show them the meaning of total war. You will show them the price of their aggression. You will show them the wrath of the Dragon."

His voice dropped to a low, powerful command. "The invasion begins. At dawn, we sail."