The First Bitter Harvest

The mountains of Kyushu were silent, but it was a heavy, watchful silence. Lieutenant Tanaka Isoroku, his face now lean and hard, lay on a ridge overlooking a narrow path, the pine needles cool against his cheek. Below, the last of a small Qing patrol disappeared around a bend. A moment later, a series of sharp, cracking sounds echoed through the valley—the unmistakable report of Murata rifles. It was followed by a few brief, panicked shouts in a foreign tongue, then silence once more.

A young guerilla, a farmer's son named Kenji whose face was still soft with youth, crawled up beside him, his eyes shining with a fierce, triumphant light.

"A perfect ambush, Lieutenant!" he whispered, his voice filled with pride. "Just as Lord Kuroda instructed! Another five of the invaders are dead! They will soon learn to fear these mountains! They will learn that every step they take is a step toward their grave!"

Tanaka did not share the boy's elation. He continued to stare down the pass, his gaze fixed not on the site of the ambush, but on a small village nestled in the valley beyond—a collection of a dozen thatched-roof houses surrounded by neatly tended rice paddies.

"And what will be their reply, Kenji?" Tanaka asked, his voice low and devoid of warmth. "We killed five of their soldiers. They are a scouting party. Now, watch what their Emperor does to two hundred of our countrymen who had nothing to do with it."

Kenji's triumphant smile faltered. "What do you mean, Lieutenant? The villagers will praise us as heroes! We are fighting for them!"

"Are we?" Tanaka murmured, a bitter taste in his mouth. "Let us see."

An hour passed. Then, they appeared. Not a small patrol, but a full company of Qing soldiers, two hundred strong, marching up the valley road from the direction of Nagasaki. They did not move like men expecting a fight. They moved with a grim, methodical purpose, their banners furled, their steps heavy. They surrounded the small village, blocking all paths of escape.

From their vantage point, Tanaka and his men watched as the Qing soldiers, led by a grim-faced officer, went from house to house, dragging the inhabitants out into the village square. There was no negotiation, no questioning. The women and younger children were roughly separated and herded into a weeping, terrified group. Every man and boy who looked to be over the age of sixteen was forced to his knees in the center of the square, their hands bound behind their backs.

The Qing officer unrolled a scroll and began to read, his voice carrying up the mountainside on the clear air, the words translated into stark, simple Japanese by a collaborator.

"By order of the Son of Heaven, the Dragon Emperor. A patrol of the Imperial Army was attacked and murdered in this valley. The price for this act of cowardly assassination will be paid by you. This is the new law. For every one of our soldiers that falls to a shadow, a village will be erased. There will be no exceptions."

The villagers stared, their faces a mixture of confusion and terror. The headman, an old man with a face like a wrinkled walnut, tried to protest. "But we saw no one! We are simple farmers! We have nothing to do with this!"

The officer ignored him completely. He gave a sharp, single command.

A line of twenty Qing soldiers raised their rifles. The first volley was not a ragged mess; it was a single, disciplined crash of sound that echoed through the valley like a clap of thunder. The first row of kneeling men collapsed forward into the dirt. The women screamed, a high, piercing sound of collective agony.

Another volley. And another. The executions were carried out with a cold, mechanical efficiency that was more terrifying than any passionate rage. It was not an act of anger. It was an act of policy.

Kenji, the young guerilla, was shaking beside Tanaka, tears of helpless rage streaming down his face. "Monstrous…" he choked out. "They are demons! Not men! How can they do this?"

"Because it works," Tanaka said, his voice as cold and dead as the stones he was lying on. He forced himself to keep watching, to burn every horrific detail into his memory. This was the true face of his enemy. "He is not trying to win our hearts. He is not trying to pacify us. He is turning our own people against us. He is making them choose. Look."

After the last shot had been fired, the Qing soldiers did not leave. They marched the wailing women and children away, down the road toward the coast and the waiting ships that would take them to labor camps in China. Then, a detachment of soldiers went from house to house with torches. Within minutes, the entire village was ablaze, the flames consuming the simple homes, the storehouses of grain, the history of generations. The Qing officer watched until the roofs began to collapse, then ordered his men to march away, leaving behind nothing but smoke, ashes, and a silence that was far worse than the screams.

Up on the ridge, Kenji was sobbing openly now. "Why? Why would they do this to us?"

"To send us a message," Tanaka said, finally pushing himself up. "And now every villager in this province who sees us will not see a hero of the resistance. They will see a death sentence for their own sons. They will see their homes burning. The Chinese Emperor… he does not fight with soldiers. He fights with fear itself. He is poisoning the very earth beneath our feet, making it hostile to us."

The small band of guerillas looked at their leader, their own faces pale with horror and a new, terrible understanding. The glorious war of resistance they had imagined had, in a single afternoon, become a nightmare. Their every victory would now be paid for in the blood of the innocent people they were trying to save.

That evening, back at a Qing army encampment, two soldiers sat by a fire, cleaning their rifles in silence. They were part of the company that had carried out the reprisal.

"I did not join the army for this," the younger of the two finally said, his voice low. "Killing soldiers in battle… that is one thing. That… that was butchery of farmers."

The older soldier, a veteran sergeant, spat into the fire. "Be quiet," he growled, though his own hands were not entirely steady. "The Emperor's orders are absolute. Disobey, and you join them in the dirt. It is that simple." He paused, looking into the flames. "But did you see it? Did you see the looks on the faces of the other villagers we passed on the march back? The ones who heard the shooting and saw the smoke?"

"They looked terrified," the young soldier said.

"No," the sergeant corrected him. "Not just terrified. I looked into their eyes. They weren't looking at us with hatred. They were looking past us, up at the hills where the assassins hide. It's a horrible business. But the old man in Beijing… he's right. It works."

He finished cleaning his rifle and began to reassemble it, the metallic clicks sharp and final in the night air. The moral certainty of their cause had been replaced by a grim, brutal pragmatism. They were cogs in a machine of terror, and they knew it. And they knew it was a machine that would not be stopped.