Chapter Text
Time flowed steadily, like the great Yellow River, which fed his body from ancient times, from the waters of which he rose, woven from black soil and millions of souls, long gone, living and unborn, who fell in battles in the vast expanses of the empire, which was called the center of the world. Centuries succeeded each other in a circle, like seasons: summer followed spring, like flowering followed rising, winter replaced autumn, and then the Heavenly Empire plunged into chaos, into a storm of uprisings and wars, ripening imperceptibly, like undercurrents, but breaking through with unstoppable power, like the waters of his rivers in floods: the blind element of time crushed in its whirlpool anyone, from a low-born peasant to a royal nobleman, the thrones of the Sons of Heaven collapsed under its pressure – until it elevated a new emperor to the throne, who returned the waters of time to their original course, turning chaos into order, calling for spring from the kingdom of the dead.
Yao could hardly remember the times when turmoil had bent him to the ground, shackling his being with a nightmare of decline, when the fruits of centuries-old prosperity withered like flowers slain by a sword, and the confidence in his own immortality dissipated. He survived the first fall, divided into three parts for half a century, and reunited again – coups and dynasties succeeded each other, waves of nomads swept in from the north – one of such waves absorbed him into the greatest earthly empire; he outlived it, throwing off the invader rulers. Centuries of hardship have hardened him like metal; and although hundreds of millions of his children were terrified by rebellions and wars, as he was when he was still a child, washing his feet in the waters of pearl and jade rivers, the coming decline did not make him tremble. One thing remained unchanged: no matter what he went through, a decline was always followed by a flourishing. The state remained the Center of the World, invariably conquering the barbarians washing its shores, if not with weapons, then with culture and time. Absorbing tribe after tribe, absorbing influences from outside, grinding it, turning it to its advantage, remaining the eternal Celestial Empire.
That was before the barbarians from the iron-clad ships began tearing him apart.
A pillar of flame shot up in the air.
Yao shook the deep frying pan, throwing noodles, vegetables and meat into it, flavoring everything with sauce – the flame died down, carrying aromas through the kitchen of his Shanghai apartment – gingery, sweet and spicy, filling the mouth with saliva.
The Yangtze Delta sparkled in the rays of the summer sun flowing into the endless sea: its shine reached the windows of skyscrapers on the embankment, like the sounds of a vibrant city of many millions. Yao had been busy since morning, baking and boiling ingredients, meat, vegetables and shrimps – everything that was required to welcome the guest.
He could have ordered it all, the courier would have come loaded with chow mein noodles, hot and sour soup and a dozen steaming dishes after only twenty-five minutes – but cooking always relaxed him, cleared his mind – he needed it on his only day off so much.
If Ivan brings what he promised, he would still have enough impressions and shivers for today.
Shivers – that was how one could describe the last thirty years that had changed his life; a bright flash, a rapid, unimaginable growth compared to what he had to endure until now.
One hundred years of humiliation, one hundred years of blood and endless pain: at the end of another dynasty, this was inevitable. How many hardships he endured, what he had not seen in two thousand years; where others disappeared without a trace, he arose, so it was and so it would always be...
But never, never had those he called barbarians turned him inside out, feeding on the blood and body of his people. Accustomed to consider himself the center of the world, he could not defend himself, could not even say a word against the roar of guns and the strength of the fetters of unequal treaties, while the court, steeped in luxury and corruption, blindly looked at the torment of millions of his children, as the barbarians reaped the sweet fruits of his – which seemed so stupid, so damned now! – arrogance.
The children of a long-dead empire that ruled on the other side of the world gained knowledge that made their weapons deadly, and their thirst for enrichment insatiable – he rejected it, considering himself superior to any barbarians – until he paid with enslavement, suffering and mind clouded from opium.
Old fool.
The kitchen hatchet rattled against the board, chopping up the pork, and Yao was almost done. Already prepared dishes were smoking on the table, and the appetizer would not have time to cool down by the time Ivan arrived.
Nothing lasts forever: the dynasty disappeared overnight, burying a thousand-year-old empire with it. Afterwards fate brought him decades of civil wars and an invasion, due to which the scar on his back had not healed for the past seventy years: except that now he was tormented not by distant Europeans, but by his younger brother, with whom only one sea separated him. War again, tension – and the last push: peace and order finally came to his land along with the authority of the red banners, finally, his people finally have stood up, now everything was behind, now...
PAIN
Yao froze, breathing heavily; for a second it seemed to him that he had run a knife over his fingers – but the vegetables cut into strips lay in front of him, not stained with blood.
Only his hands trembled a little, and a muddy fear swirled in his soul.
He shook his head, wiped sweat from his forehead with his forearm – he needed to hurry before Ivan would appear on the threshold – the one who used to head this city, and now – his whole country, gave Yao an indirect but understandable hint: their frequent meetings with Ivan were extremely important, and in order to achieve the goals set by the party, Yao should not have neglected any of them – especially those that took place in private, behind closed curtains.
He needed no explanation to understand what the chairman meant.
Thirty years of growth led him to a heyday that his ancient thinkers never dreamed of: he turned the lives of hundreds of millions of yesterday's peasants upside down, whose ancestors had seen nothing but rice fields for centuries, and now moved to cities shining with neon, integrating into the mechanism of the greatest factory of the world. The coast was overgrown with skyscrapers that soared up to the very sky, the human sea was seething, companies and factories were born and bloomed out of the blue – might filled him like endless streams of investments, drunken his blood, he ran, ignoring the barely visible (for now) echoes of pain, on and on...
During these years, for the first time in a great while, he was able to eat fill.
His current chairman came when growth, although not so vigorously, was still seething in his veins, offering him the realization of a dream, wanting to connect billions of people of Eurasia with him, to engird them with a single thread of fate with him. The gigantic transport project was staggering in its scale, recalling the ancient paths that connected it with the land powers of bygone times, opening the way for the fruits of his land to the far west. The soul burned, remembering the greatness inherent in him for so many hundreds of years: he could find it again, as the European barbarians taught him – filling the markets with his goods, braiding countries and continents with a silk net.
Braiding him with a net too, thin and barely visible: it cost him many efforts not to let the chairman know that he felt its barely noticeable pressure on his throat.
The revival of the nation – that was what they prophesied to him from high tribunes. He had to take the place that he had gained through suffering after so many years of humiliation, bloodshed and working his fingers to the bone. Squeeze out the imperialists – not through predatory greatpowerness, but through mutually beneficial cooperation; but he would need reliable allies to realize his ambitions, whose access to energy resources would not be complicated by any political upheavals, so common to those whom he so sought to surpass...
Just a couple of years – and the desire for rapprochement on the part of Ivan's boss became even stronger.
They began to see each other regularly face to face after that notorious case with the certain peninsula, which pulled apart his northern neighbor with "Western partners" for the foreseeable future: just non-committal friendly meetings – there was even something funny in the fact that their relations improved so much precisely when they both abandoned the tenets of Marxism, but when they were committed to building of communism, things came to a direct clash. Yao slowly took up with Ivan, weaving him, at first incredulous, with networks of friendliness, filling the vacuum of communication (he knew that Ivan had lacked it lately, and an important connection that seemed unbreakable after so many trials and tribulations was covered with cracks) – for his own good, for the joy of the chairman; for the ever-increasing tension of Western partners – the blood boiled pleasantly at the thought that his actions could cause fear in them.
Yao tossed the pork and mixed vegetables wrapped in rice paper into the simmering oil in the pan, and the spring rolls sizzled as they fried on all sides.
Activity on the domestic front did not lag behind the outer one: they decided to start the revival with getting rid of his ancient scourge, cleaning out corrupt officials at all levels; the chairman and the commission under his control worked tirelessly, not bypassing officials at the highest levels – high-profile trials followed one after another, thrilling in their scope: not a single plunderer of the national property should have escaped the all-seeing eye of the Communist Party, not a single wrongdoer...
The Commission, created a year later, sought to achieve the same thing – it was then that a vague uneasiness settled in his soul, and the feeling of anxiety (barely noticeable – he had to strain to feel it, as if he was stepping on a quagmire) only grew with each year.
The slower the growth became, the more clearly the distortions were exposed, which were previously paid a minimum of attention, the more it spread through his veins, plunging into foggy fear. The chairman vowed to correct these distortions by rallying the party around him, surrounding himself with loyal supporters. The modern time required modern solutions: the limitation on the term of office was removed, giving the chairman the opportunity to continue to confidently resist external and internal challenges – this should have been reassuring, but there has not been such a situation – the rise of one person above all the others, more and more unlimited powers – since that very era…
...Since that very era, from (muddy) memories of which horror chilled his soul, and the bitterness of betrayal seized his heart.
The anxiety grew stronger, the feeling that thin threads were twisting around him more and more with every invisible movement grew as well. It wasn't that he had never felt their pressure: but, weakened over the past forty years, they began to slowly tighten again.
Soon he had another reason for meeting with Ivan, one that the chairman did not need to know about.
When Yao laid out the dishes and food on the table and had already taken off his apron, the doorbell rang.
***
“He has just been re-elected, and he already pulls stunts like that!”
Ivan arrived clearly not in the mood – he entered the apartment frowning, hung the scarf thrown over his shoulder on a hook with sharp movement, and when he got to the table, he furiously dipped the spring roll into one of the saucers – it crunched when Ivan bit it off and began to grind it with his jaws.
“I understand there were reasons. The population is aging and all that – you can't just turn a blind eye to it. But just up and raise the age of retirement by five years...” Ivan grimaced; it seemed to Yao that the chopsticks in his hands could crack.
“You said it yourself, it was necessary”
Yao said this in Mandarin – he was still not quite used to the fact that when talking with other representations, one could speak their native language and understand it, and some even switched to it themselves; now it was taught by millions all over the world, like in the olden days, – joy and pride overwhelmed his soul from this. Ivan was one of the best who spoke his language, so he immediately threw a displeased look at Yao.
“He promised not to. And this is not for the first time” An angry cut with chopsticks. “Yes, they said that pensions would grow, but now one first have to live up to this. I feel that everyone is annoyed, not just liberals and intelligentsia – maybe protests would even take place. But they would hardly pay attention to them…” He frowned his blond eyebrows, exhaled loudly through his nose, looking away.
They were silent for a moment – the silence was filled only with the crunch of eating spring rolls and jiaozi dumplings; waves of indignation emanated from Ivan, so amusing for Yao – he had long forgotten what it was like to be angry at the inability to influence at least something. Little by little, the indignation calmed down: what was the reason for this, whether dumplings, or the forgiving nature of his northern neighbor, Yao did not know.
“Sorry. I just arrived, and I'm already loading you down with my... problems”
“It’s nothing. At times it's nice to deal with a member of a culture where the style of communication is so straightforward. It's always great when you don't have to guess what the interlocutor has on their mind” Yao paused, chewing on warm noodles in chu hou sauce. Someone like Alfred Jones would not have caught the sarcasm in these words, continuing to enjoy his meal, but this was not to be counted on with Ivan: he again bored him with a purple gaze for a couple of moments, until he suddenly snorted and rolled his eyes.
“Oh, now not only you would know what's on my mind! Because literally just now all my phone conversations, calls and traffic...” He interrupted, swallowing noodles, grimaced again. “Okay, that's it, I told you – enough about me”
Yao froze without bringing the dumpling to his mouth. Ivan's words reminded him of something he'd told him a couple of years ago – about a counterterrorism bill so ambitious in its toolkit that Russia didn't even have the equipment to implement it. Ivan laughed then, telling about the plans of his authorities; but right now…
“They have found a way, haven’t they?”
Ivan nodded, heavily and briefly. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I think your handymen helped them. It was just a couple of years ago that they began to actively strengthen “cybersecurity cooperation”, remember?” Yao nodded. “I don’t know the details, but judging by some signs, this is it”
Yao became thoughtfull. The fact that Ivan's authorities could do now – access all his call and text records for six months – seriously limited him, and they hardly planned to stop there. This was expected; but still – irritation stabbed him from the inside – if Ivan's Internet would be limited to the same extent as his, he would have to change his plans...
The sight of Ivan plunged into the mope distracted him. It was unlikely that only these new rules could make him so gloomy, many other measures must have been taken – and suddenly something stirred in his soul, similar to his characteristic attentiveness, not exactly it, but rather... He did not contemplate, leaning forward, towards his interlocutor.
“You know, completely blocking access is still impossible. This did not work out even in my case, and where are your, as you put it, handymen, before mine. As the ancient Chinese proverb says” He put on a serious and proud look, as he always did when he was preparing to quote something from his culture. “Even a high mountain can not block the sun. So it is unlikely that you will start having problems with your memory, like last time”
Ivan looked up at him – and Yao, despite all his condescending opinion about the excessive openness of Europeans, could not distinguish what kind of emotion was read in him.
However, after a moment the ambiguity disappeared: Ivan shook his head, smiling sadly.
“I understand. It’s just, you know... It's all so annoying. That they treat me like...”
“...Like a small child?” Yao said softly; understanding sounded in his voice.
That look again – this time amazed; Ivan looked at him for a couple of moments, stunned, without moving, when suddenly warmth flickered in his violet eyes, and the corners of his lips seemed to barely rise. The cheekbones became a little rosy. He glanced down at the bowl of soup in front of him.
Yao could not help but notice how the atmosphere, quite a bit, but changed.
He decided not to show it yet.
“Yes, exactly like this. Okay” Ivan exhaled, leaning on the table again and propping his chin with his palm. “It remains only to wait for as little as six years, and we'll see who will be next. He will not be able to run for election for the third time in a row, and it is unlikely that he will have time to do something irreparable in such a period” His relaxed face suddenly darkened. “And yours, as I see…plans to stay longer?”
Yao was in no hurry to answer. He chewed slowly on the noodles he had scooped up with his chopsticks.
Talking about the chairman had brought him nothing lately but a vague feeling of being out of his element. It was not typical for him to be so passionately indignant at the actions of his superiors, as Ivan was (he wondered if he would have become the same if the Communist Party had also lost power at his place back then? However, recalling the origin of Ivan’s current leadership, Yao was not sure that the loss of power really took place...), neither with outsiders, nor even mentally, with himself. However... there was one advantage in communicating with Ivan – it was not necessary to lay out his thoughts and feelings in plain text so that he would understand everything correctly.
“He promises to lead my nation to a new stage of development. I feel he is striving... for the accomplishments and glory of Chairman Mao”
A serious, anxious look in brown eyes – he really didn’t have to explain anything to Ivan: he leaned on the table, moving his palm in Yao's direction.
“What can I say” He chuckled mirthlessly. “As the old Russian proverb says: “It takes a superpower to live in a superpower”
Yao snorted, shaking his head, stirring the rest of the chow mein into the bowl.
“You made it up just now”
“But that doesn't make it any less true, does it?” Ivan smiled one of his rare smiles: wide and mischievous, and Yao realized that the feeling he had felt earlier increased threefold. “Hey, with my outpourings of the heart, I completely forgot to say how amazingly delicious everything is here” He glanced around the table and the leftover food in his half: crispy spring rolls, already cold, but still fragrant soup, noodles mixed with meat and vegetables. “Did you do all this yourself today? Even sauces?”
“No, not the sauces… I prepared them yesterday” Yao drew himself up, noticing smugly how purple eyes widened in admiration. “But everything else is fresh, meat and shrimp were brought to the market only this morning. Wait” Fear suddenly stirred in him. “Were there dumplings with shrimp on your plate? I did it with shrimp and with pork, but it seems that I didn’t mix it, and put the ones with shrimp for myself...”
“Let me try”
Yao caught up a dumpling with chopsticks, dipped it in the sauce, handed it to Ivan – he expected that he would take it with his chopsticks, but suddenly Ivan leaned forward and gently took Yao by the wrist – a huge palm closed at the base of his thin one, – directing his hand to his mouth, swallowing white dough in dark shiny leaks; catching up Yao's gaze for a moment.
The feeling that had previously flickered between them spilled out again, now filling the space completely; Yao felt the warmth rising up his arm from the place where Ivan held it (and did not let go, chewing), how the needles of excitement tingled his soul. Sliding his gaze over the ashen tufts, over the prominent muscles of his arm bent at the elbow, Yao came to a realization...
…That he was very curious about where all these could lead.
***
In the past thirty years, as his economy grew at an unprecedented pace, he began to be treated very differently.
If they respected strength in ancient times, now money had become the new religion of mankind: any doors opened in front of sums with numerous zeros, and those of the representatives who used to stare after him at meetings with a blank look literally ran after him in the hope of agreeing on investments in his industry. Alfred Jones, a very young representative, who raised the ability to earn money to a religious form, made it the basis of his society and entwined the whole world with networks of his influence, recognized him as an equal, showering him with green banknotes and proposing a merger of economies for the sake of the prosperity of all mankind, – and although such a dizzying rise was intoxicating, the trappings of a superpower fit Yao as if tailor-made for him, and experiencing a sense of power and superiority again turned out to be as natural for him as breathing. Despite such a young, even infantile, age, Alfred Jones had a business acumen and political flair, which, despite his so touching faith in the ideals of liberal democracy, made him a person it was a pleasure to do business with (at least until recently) – so different, they seemed to speak the same language, the language of the great powers; Jones understood him perfectly, guessing thoughts before he had time to voice them.
But only Ivan Braginsky was able to understand some things that he would not say out loud.
To Ivan's delight, Yao could help him with more than just lunch after a long journey. After the meal (Yao ate everything to the last crumb), he handed him his laptop, and Yao set about installing a program that helped to detect connected surveillance of the device and identify its source – not only those who worked for the Communist Party understood cybersecurity at his place, after all.
When it was Ivan's turn to fulfill the promise, the blood raged inside from anxiety – he sat on the couch, hid his uneasiness, squeezing the fabric of his trousers on his knees; let out a gasping breath.
The old video player from the nineties was already prepared in the morning.
They decided that a videotape would be more reliable than any electronic device, much less a file that could be transferred over the net. Ivan bent down almost to the very floor, inserting the tape into the receiver, sat on the couch next to Yao, switching modes on the TV screen and setting up the player. The curtains were tightly drawn, filling the entire room with orange light.
Anxiety rose to the throat even more when the first frames appeared on the screen, which Ivan painstakingly recorded on film.
The huge square in front of the gates of the Forbidden City was filled with people.
Yao caught his breath.
The human sea – young, inspired faces that surrounded the Monument to the People's Heroes – with banners, with bandages on their foreheads, waving flags, chanting slogans in the daylight, sleeping in tents at night. They were full of hope, hope that filled them with faith in change and a just future, which then ignited a weak spark in his soul, – a spasm passed through his heart: memories that were previously cloudy, like chalk badly wiped from a blackboard, through the stains of which one could still make out the outlines of hieroglyphs with an effort, gradually showing through in their clarity, lively and colorfully – anxiety swirled in Yao's soul, overtaking him more and more with each frame.
The camera panned over the soaring statue of a woman holding a torch.
Suddenly not only faces in civilian clothes appeared on the square; soldiers in green uniform pushed them, but the human wave did not give in, offering resistance. A bad premonition – or a bad memory – popped up in his soul: he knew what would happen now, a muddy fear stirred up...
Tanks in the streets, sounds of gunfire and screams, wide avenues filled with running people – Yao pressed his hands to his mouth sharply.
The trembling shook his whole body.
Blood, on the avenues and in hospitals, motionless, bleeding red bodies – they were hastily put on gurneys attached to bicycles, carried away from the road, away, from the tank columns rushing at people-grains. Burning armored carriers, barricades of buses and trucks, piled up bicycles and lifeless bodies on them, screaming and shooting – pain washed over Yao in waves like black poison from an open scar, the existence of which was hidden so securely that he barely remembered it – but pain seeped into his soul with a vague anxiety, appealing to thoughts and feelings that would remain in him forever.
A column of tanks was moving along the avenue, slowly, unstoppably.
The camera panned to zoom in on them – snatching a man in the middle of the road with two bags in hands; the column stopped in front of him, frozen in confusion.
The person did not move.
The tank tried to go around him, but the man only jumped from side to side in response, swinging the bags, and then climbed onto the hull, trying to reach those who were sitting on the other side of the hatch. One couldn't really see what was going on – the one capturing it on video was too far – but the man got off, as if stepping aside – and again throwing himself in front of the tank as soon as it started to move...
The screen went blank as the pain in his heart became unbearable.
Yao hunched over, pressing his palms to his eyes, breathing quickly and shallowly. Pain and sorrow broke through like a river through a broken dam, suppressed for so many years, erased for so many years, as if they did not exist at all – he almost forgot; almost abandoned the memory of those June days, absorbed in making money, consuming the endless variety of goods that the market offered him. Shame and bitterness corroded his heart; hopeful faces were replaced by lifeless bodies in the streets, the bullets that flew at them seemed to tear him apart – he felt tears come out of his eyes, roll down his cheek...
A heavy hand rested on his shoulder.
Yao removed his hands from his face. He turned slowly, meeting Ivan's gaze.
Ivan squeezed his shoulder, gently but firmly – and looked him straight in the eyes. The blond brows were furrowed.
“They loved you”
Genuine sympathy and bitterness burned in the violet gaze.
Yao just stared at him for a few moments.
He did not remember the last time he had been overwhelmed by such a violent, such a raging sea of emotions – and therefore he did something completely uncharacteristic for himself.
He moved closer to Ivan, took him by the chin – and pressed his lips to him.
At first it seemed as if he was kissing a stone statue: Ivan did not move, did not respond to the confident movements of his lips – several lingering moments passed, during which vague uncertainty took its root; Yao was already thinking of pulling away – when suddenly he was grabbed by the shoulders and waist with a powerful jerk, pressed (too tightly), pulled him in a kiss: now he barely had time to respond to furious movements, to the tongue penetrating into his mouth, to his palms... Something seemed to explode inside Ivan, blossomed with extraordinary vigor – he ran his hands along his body, along his back, along his waist and below, everywhere, not caring about any propriety at all; a thought flashed somewhere in the back of Yao’s mind – his calculation that he hadn't gotten laid for a long time turned out to be correct – when suddenly Yao found himself overturned on the couch, and Ivan – hanging over him with purple eyes sparkling with hunger.
He was kissed again before he had time to recollect himself. Large hands were already stroking his abdomen and chest, making him let out convulsive breaths, dispersing the heat through his body, erasing any coherent thoughts. Something hit his lower back painfully, some object – Yao twisted his arm, pulled the remote control out from under him – it hit the parquet with a clatter, forcing Ivan to shudder and cast a glance at it, tear himself away from him for a moment – and something suddenly changed in his eyes.
A sort of hesitation crept into his gaze. He froze, confused, looking at Yao, as if he was suddenly restrained by something, as if... Yao felt a wave of irritation boil up in him – why the hell did he stop after he knocked him over on the couch like some damsel, almost undressed him, after now his groin was aching with arousal – and violently grabbed him by the collar, pulling on himself.
“If you stop, I’ll kick your joints out so hard that not a single chiropractor would help” he almost growled, feverishly unbuttoning his shirt, almost ripping it, breathing quickly and heatedly.
The hunger flared up again in purple eyes – Ivan didn't need to be told twice.
***
Some time later, when the clarity of thought returned to him, Yao was surprised to find…
…That he didn't plan it.
He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, without a single piece of clothing. The pain was becoming more and more noticeable against the background of the waning euphoria: Ivan, who now went limp, crushing him with his weight and breathing into his neck, as if had been raving mad when it came to the closest contact – however, a few minutes ago, he didn’t give a damn about that, scratching red stripes on his back and shuddering from sweet, desperate thrusts.
No, he didn't plan it at all.
Their meeting with Ivan today was not the first in which the air between them was as if charged with something, and today at dinner it became completely clear what it was – and to both of them. What happened was not a surprise, he liked it, and yet... It happened so quickly – without preparation, without any decision from his side...
This realization made him feel uncomfortable. He was already sick and tired of the heap of vague feelings – he moved, trying to get up, but Ivan misunderstood him – and only wrapped his arms around him, dropping a kiss on his hair, – his eyes opened wide – locking him in his arms, from which it was possible to get out only by knocking the owner of these arms out of action.
Yao decided to try something different.
“Ivan” He moved, pressing on his hand. “Let me go, I want...” to have some space. “I want to take a shower”
He did not react for several moments that felt like an eternity.
“Ah” The hug weakened; now it was possible to crawl out from under him, to smooth the disheveled black strands. Ivan got up – he did not look into his eyes. “Then I’ll go after you… May I?”
Yao nodded vigorously as he hurriedly got off the couch, heading towards the corridor as soon as possible.
Even before he left the room, a sense of shame swept over him – for running away after what he himself had initiated, leaving Ivan alone like this. It was hard not to notice how tension filled the air, how Ivan no longer exuded relaxation, but rather confusion and embarrassment... Yao stopped before reaching the door.
The thought came to him – this was only...
…This was only for his benefit.
Such a sharp turn in their relationship would bring him nothing but numerous benefits, and a personal connection would be just one of them. Now he would not have to worry that his memory problems would worsen if they suddenly stopped watching videos due to a change in political course – and this could well happen to Ivan: not now, but after some time, given his more and more frequent complaints about his superiors – but most importantly...
...The most important thing was that his rear areas would be closed.
That the task that the chairman entrusted to him would be more than completed – and with such a margin of safety that they did not even dream of aiming at.
That his ambitious plans, in which he imagined himself engirding the whole world, tying himself to it with a single thread of fate, would be brought to life – and that now he would change places with those who once subdued him to their will.
The key to fulfilling his dream was now in the same room with him – and he had to be the damn fool to miss it.
“Ivan”
He felt rather than saw him half-rose on the couch, looking at his back in confusion.
“You don't have to wait for me” Yao turned his head – not so much that Ivan could see his face; but enough to notice the tousled tufts out of the corner of his eye. To get his attention. “I think… That I’ll leave the door open”
He left with those words, leaving them hanging in the air, feeling the tension with his bare skin, – but now, instead of discomfort, it evoked only excitement.
In additional materials to the original text, I provided many links to articles and videos, from where I took any given information. But since they are all in Russian, I can’t bring them here, so you, guys, have to take my word for it.)
I think that before proceeding to the footnotes I need to tell you on which basis I built the character of Yao Wang, because if the character of Russia is easy for me to build – haha, I live here – the image of America too, because the history of this state is very short (to put it mildly), then China is a completely different matter. The state is more than two thousand years old, crapload of landmark events happened there, while the country is not at all close to me culturally, so no matter how much I read Wikipedia and history textbooks, I still got the feeling that the acquired knowledge is rather superficial. After reading numerous articles and watching videos, I came to the following conclusions.
If we divide the history of the modern state of China into "before" and "after", then the dividing line would be the arrival of Europeans and the enslavement of China in the 19th century. Prior to this, the entire Chinese history, starting from the turn of the eras (from the Qin dynasty), developed according to a roughly similar scenario: a large empire was founded, experienced its heyday, then fell into decline, which was accompanied by uprisings and wars, and ceased to exist as a result of a series of uprisings / external invasion / all the above mentioned, then disintegrated, and then the whole chain started again – and about four times like this. And not only did China sorted it out and gathered together all this time, but also its statehood was not interrupted, and its influence in the region was incomparable with other Asian neighbors. Nomads, Vietnamese, Japanese, Koreans felt the cultural influence of China, and China has always been a superpower in its region; Moreover, if some conquerors managed to seize the country and establish a dynasty there (Yuan, Qing), then after a couple of dozens or hundreds of years the Chinese matrix digested them, they all became Sinicized, adopted the language, fashion, ethics, and so on.
BUT.
Then, in the first half of the 19th century, Europeans came to China in full-scale and began something that is called "one hundred years of humiliation" in Chinese historiography, when the state was turned into a semi-colony of "devils from across the sea", the Chinese were made addicted to opium, the Europeans exported them for hard labor in their colonies, and all this was accompanied by military defeats, uprisings with millions of victims, foreign invasions, general collapse and sliding into the abyss – in general, all hell broke loose. Everyone who could, drained strength from China, and that very Japan, which China considered its “little brother” throughout history, began to westernize after the Meiji restoration, created a fleet and an army according to the European model and inflicted a military defeat on China at the end of the 19th century, which was a blow for the Chinese, from which they (or rather their pride) could not recover anymore. It was painful, but tolerable when Europeans tyrannized them, but if the Japanese were able to beat them, goddamn Japanese, who would not know either culture or literacy without them, then it’s all over, the game is up, something needed to be changed, and urgently. As usual in such cases, the ruling elite did not want to change either anything or almost nothing in the Chinese medieval social order, which naturally led to a revolution, and then to decades of civil war, which was interrupted by the Japanese invasion, and then resumed again, and everything ended with the Communists coming to power in 1949 and the foundation of PRC.
That is, all this hell was not just endless uprisings and wars, it was also a continuing trauma of national humiliation, which has left a huge imprint even in the modern Chinese mentality. But the misadventures of the Chinese did not end in 1949, because if the Chinese, after the victory in WW2 and the end of the civil war, thought that life would finally be better, then Mao Zedong had completely different plans for them. The dude had a full blast, first calling for criticism of the party, and then repressing those who dared to do it (the Hundred Flowers Campaign), deciding to build communism faster than the Soviet Union and starving thirty million Chinese to death (the Great Leap Forward), allowing everyone young to destroy everyone old and everything old (the Cultural Revolution). After the death of Mao, reasonable people finally came to power with Deng Xiaoping in charge, they introduced economic reforms, the omnipotence of the Communist Party was preserved, but the shift to a market economy was carried out, which gave birth to explosive growth that made China the way we know it today.
After that, in the 2010s, China fell into the middle income trap, when the resources of catch-up growth were already depleted, and it took stable democratic institutions, the establishment of the private property and so on in order to shift from middle-income economy to high-income one. But then Xi Jinping came to power and instead of that declared that "we are a great power and now we are fighting for geopolitical influence against the decaying West".
What is the result?
Yao Wang in my work is a man who has seen a lot of shit, including the unification and disintegration of his own state, and by the 18th century he is a very self-confident old man, hard bitten, very condescending towards all other representatives. He would consider all those around him to be barbarians, and himself the Celestial Empire and the center of the world, which could endure any adversity, bend anyone and always end up in the catbird seat, simply because he is a goddamn superpower. But then a hundred years of humiliation came when it dawned on him that this was not the case, and his arrogance brought him a century of suffering, wars, uprisings and the status of some third-rate state – after many hundreds of years of existence as a hegemon on a huge piece of Eurasia. All his fears and all his deepest feelings grow from this, and if for Russian society there is no worse marker than being a “Nazi”, then for the Chinese the most terrible word is “imperialism” and “colonialism”.
Therefore, when Xi starts resorting to great-power rhetoric, it is like music for Yao’s ears because: a) he has already been a superpower for many hundreds of years; b) the promise to “take and show” this decaying West mixed with the horrifying trauma of humiliation (together with some positive aspirations, such as the desire for his people to live well) make just a hell of a cocktail of motivation. At the same time, Yao is very afraid of falling behind – due to the hundred years of humiliation, the Chinese have formed an idea that can be described as “laggards are beaten”: the modern average Chinese is a person who is socially approved to study the best in order to enter a prestigious university, to get a profitably job, to work like mad in order to achieve a lot, otherwise he would fall behind everyone, and then something terrible would definitely happen – the sky would fall on earth or something like that. And these ideas are common both in society and at the state level, and it is generally considered that you need to be ahead of the curve, otherwise everything would fall into hell and a hundred years of humiliation would come back, all the Chinese would be enslaved and colonized again – in general, such a neuroticism.
But this is coupled with a slowdown in economic growth, an exposure of problems that were not visible when the economy grew by ten percent every year, in connection with which Xi Jinping decided to strengthen personal power by creating a cult of personality similar to that of Mao – that is why quite understandable associations and fears arise in Yao, creating the ground for rapprochement with Ivan on the basis of preserving his own sanity (Ivan, as we know, has exactly the same tendencies in exactly the same historical period). All this is complicated by the fact that China pursues certain, let's say, aims regarding Russia, which stem from China's imperial ambitions and the inequality of our cooperation (to put it mildly). So, this was how I shaped Yao’s character.
Footnotes time (there are a lot of them, but they are entertaining, I took care of it):
- The Yangtze Delta, flowing into the endless sea, sparkled in the rays of the summer sun – the Yangtze basin covers about a fifth of China's territory, and about a third of the country's inhabitants live there. Along with the Huang He (its basin is considered the place where the Chinese ethnic group was formed), the Yangtze is the most important river in the history, culture and economy of China.
- His current chairman came when growth, although not so vigorously, was still seething in his veins, offering him the realization of a dream, wanting to connect billions of people of Eurasia with him, to engird them with a single thread of fate with him – shortly after coming to power, Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Project, the largest infrastructure project in history. It covers over 70 countries, 63% of the world's population and 40% of the world's gross domestic product. The ultimate goal of the initiative is the integration of China, Central, Western, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe into a single economic space by creating infrastructure, expanding trade and cultural exchange. And, of course, world domination.
- The revival of the nation – that was what they prophesied to him from high tribunes. He had to take the place that he had gained through suffering after so many years of humiliation, bloodshed and working his fingers to the bone – In 2012, Xi put forward the concept of the Chinese Dream about the great revival of the Chinese nation, which formed the basis of the current socio-political course of the PRC. According to Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party is the driving force behind the realization of the "Chinese dream", and the building of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the only way to revive the Chinese nation. The only thing that distinguishes Xi Jinping's program from the "Road Map" of his predecessors is a distinct appeal to Han nationalism. The rise of Han nationalism is one of the dominant trends in modern China. The appeal of China's leaders to the patriotism and nationalism makes it possible to keep the country from social upheavals and solve one of the main political tasks – if not to increase, then at least to maintain the positive image of the CPC at a level acceptable for solving the problems of governing the country.
- Squeeze out the imperialists – not through predatory greatpowerness, but through mutually beneficial cooperation; but he would need reliable allies to realize his ambitions, whose access to energy resources would not be complicated by any political upheavals, so common to those whom he so sought to surpass – Russian state-owned publication Gazeta.ru writes the following: “Since the beginning of the active phase of the so-called “Turn to the East” in 2014, the Russian and Chinese authorities have gone toe-to-toe on all key foreign policy issues. For China, this format of relations is especially valuable. In any case, Moscow remains an important partner for Beijing, since it is from Russia that most of the hydrocarbons needed for the Chinese economy come from, says Mikhail Karpov, a sinologist and author of scientific publications on the Chinese economy. His colleague, sinologist Andrey Vinogradov, also points to the fact that Russian hydrocarbon supplies to China are practically not threatened by any external factors, which cannot be said about other suppliers.” How to say that your country is a gas pump without saying that your country is a gas pump.)))
- Activity on the domestic front did not lag behind the outer one; they decided to start the revival with getting rid of his ancient scourge, cleaning out corrupt officials at all levels – Chinese corruption is their real spiritual bond. After coming to power, Xi launched an anti-corruption campaign, the victims of which were many high-ranking officials, but which was by no means open and transparent, and at the end of which it somehow turned out that the positions of Xi's supporters in the party strengthened, and the positions of everyone else weakened. What a coincidence.
- The Commission, created a year later, sought to achieve the same thing – it was then that a vague uneasiness settled in his soul – already in 2011, Xi repeatedly said that the country's unity was threatened by color revolutions like those that broke out in the Middle East (this reminds me of certain someone). A year after coming to power, he announced the establishment of the National Security Commission under the CPC Central Committee. Based on Xi's comments, external and internal threats would be perceived by this Commission at an angle of ideological rivalry with the West. This is a very closed body, in which not only representatives of the power bloc are represented, but also the ideological and economic ones.
- The slower the growth became, the more clearly the distortions were exposed, which were previously paid a minimum of attention, the more it spread through his veins, plunging into foggy fear – as I've written already, after decades of unimaginable growth, China is slipping into the middle income trap. You can find out about the problems in the current Chinese economy on this YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Caay18H9QvY
- The chairman vowed to correct these distortions by rallying the party around him, surrounding himself with loyal supporters – as I already wrote, instead of building institutions, Xi Jinping shifted to strengthening the top-down command structure and tightening the already not very tender regime, and generally set to “make China great again”.
- I understand there were reasons. The population is aging and all that – you can't just turn a blind eye to it. But just up and raise the age of retirement by five years – Ivan refers to the pension reform in Russia announced in 2018, the essence of which was to increase the retirement age by 5 years for both sexes. The attitude of Russians to raising the retirement age was unconditionally negative, which was noted, among other things, by the ideologists of the reform. It is also important that the reform was announced three months after the presidential elections in 2018, when Putin was re-elected for a fourth (or fifth?..) term, which in summation affected the attitude of Russians towards him – a steady decline in his rating began precisely with an increase of the retirement age in 2018 and has not ended, in general, so far.
- Oh, now not only you would know what's on my mind! Because literally just now all my phone conversations, calls and traffic – it is referred to the infamous Yarovaya Law (or the Yarovaya-Ozerov package) – two bills adopted in Russia in 2016. On July 1, 2018, they came into force giving the government the authority to oblige telecom operators to store records with the content of phone conversations, SMS and Internet traffic of users for a period of 6 months (information about the facts of receiving and transmitting messages is stored for three years). The law caused dissatisfaction among opposition organizations and protests, however, few. The funniest thing in this whole situation is that after the adoption of the Yarovaya Law, it turned out that there were no technical capabilities for its implementation in Russia at the moment, and its financial implementation would simply bankrupt telecom operators and Russian users.
- I think your handymen helped them. It was just a couple of years ago that they began to actively strengthen “cybersecurity cooperation”, remember? – As part of cybersecurity cooperation, Russia, together with China, began developing the Red Web Internet control system in 2016. The joint development of the Red Web filtering and Internet control system is being carried out by Russia and China on the basis of government agreements on cooperation in cybersecurity issues.
- And yours, as I see…plans to stay longer? – In 2018, China adopted amendments to the constitution: a provision was removed, according to which the President of the PRC could only hold office for two five-year terms. This allows Xi Jinping to be re-elected for a third five-year term in 2023. Again, this reminds me of certain someone.
- I feel he is striving... for the accomplishments and glory of Chairman Mao – In 2021, a resolution was adopted at the plenum of the CPC Central Committee, which stated that the country has undergone "historic transformation" and has been able to achieve prosperity under the leadership of Xi Jinping. In particular, the successes of the current leader of the PRC in the field of economy, foreign policy, ecology, as well as in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic were noted. At the same time, Xi Jinping was officially put on a par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping – the only Chinese leaders who issued similar "historic resolutions" in 1945 and 1981, respectively. The next day, a Chinese Communist Party spokesman told on a briefing that Xi Jinping would henceforth also be referred to as "the helmsman of the Chinese renaissance" in China. Until that moment, only the founder of the PRC, Mao Zedong, was awarded the title of "helmsman".
- Alfred Jones, a very young representative, who raised the ability to earn money to a religious form… recognized him as an equal, showering him with green banknotes and proposing a merger of economies for the sake of the prosperity of all mankind – in 2009, the American establishment voiced the idea of forming a "big two" of superpowers of the USA and China, designated as "Chimerica" - a neologism based on the word merger, which describes the symbiotic economic and political relations between China and America. However, China remained true to the concept of a multipolar world and rejected this proposal, seeing it primarily as a means of sharing responsibility for the dominant US foreign policy, with which it often disagrees. We can say that the potential Chimerica is the subjective wish of the American side.
- The huge square in front of the gates of the Forbidden City was filled with people – The 1989 Tiananmen Square events, also known as the "the June Fourth Incident" in China and the "Tiananmen Square massacre" in the West, were a series of (mainly) students protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square that lasted from April 15 to June 4, 1989. In the early morning of June 4, the protests were suppressed by the People's Liberation Army of China with the use of firearms and armored vehicles by decision of the political leadership of the country. Estimates of the death toll range from a few hundred to several thousand and thousands of people injured. Considered a watershed event, reaction to the protests set limits on political expression in China that have lasted up to the present day. The Tiananmen Square protests are one of the most censored topics on the Chinese intranet, researchers even consider that such media control has led to the fact that modern Chinese youth are mostly unaware of what happened on June 4, 1989.
- The camera panned over the soaring statue of a woman holding a torch – a ten-meter statue erected in Tiananmen Square in Beijing during the 1989 Tiananmen Square events. The statue was created by students of the Beijing Academy of Arts using styrofoam and papier-mâché over metal rebar. It was destroyed by the Chinese army during the suppression of demonstrations. Several copies of it have been created since then, which are located in different cities of the world.
I feel something symbolic that the work was written and the first part of it was translated right before Chinese anti-“zero tolerance policies” protests, where people demanded Xi Jinping to step down and CPC to become a thing of the past.