Short, Light, Free

Chapter 54: Game of Destruction I

My name’s Goudan. I am a university student awaiting graduation.

My buddy Dahai and I have known each other since we were young. We studied in the same elementary, middle school, and high school.

Right before our high school graduation, under the influence of alcohol, we recklessly chose to major in the hardest specialization in university — Chinese Cultural Studies.

That’s right, history, basically.

Ancient writings were hard to comprehend, and history, official and unofficial, was always tangled and complicated.

There were only 27 students majoring in Chinese Cultural Studies.

Not because it was difficult, but because our nation has long been destroyed.

Funny but lamentable.

There’s only one mainland China, made up of three nations.

Two big and one small.

We’re part of the small nation, clasped in the middle.

2,000 years ago, we were attacked by two powerful neighboring countries.

Our soldiers were unable to resist their firearms.

The two supernations chose to initiate World War One outside of our country walls.

Troops lined up in our territory from both ends, and the last to get pushed out of our border would win. Naturally, our land would be the reward.

We were completely helpless no matter the outcome.

Our nation was like a plate of meat held between two fang-bearing predators.

The war lasted for eight years and despite the high casualties on both ends, there wasn’t a clear winner.

There were accumulated corpses and armors waiting for us to clean up once the battle ended.

Throughout that eight years, every single citizen lived in fear and trepidation that our nation would be taken over and everyone would be captured and turned into slaves.

No one knew how much tribute our old king had offered to both supernations.

Basically, apart from necessities like food and water, everything else was presented as gifts to our neighbors.

They had no intention of stopping, however. Any hesitation would encourage the enemy to reinforce their attacks.

The seemingly endless battle finally came to a stop on the eighth year when King Chalk ascended the throne after our old king fell ill.

King Chalk stopped paying tribute to both nations.

Instead, with a few companions, he paid the respective kings a visit.

He shared his theory regarding the war with them separately.

The next morning, both nations withdrew their forces.

There have been many versions and speculations about what truly happened, but all were consistent in their praises.

Some called him the God’s emissary while others coined him the smartest man in the world.

The most reliable and palatable version explained how King Chalk rationalized the cons of war with the fact that both nations’ treasuries had been experiencing a steep reduction. He also pointed out that their families were under tremendous pressure as citizens were forced into joining the army and sacrificing their lives.

The way he laid out these scenarios was remarkable. Any wrong word could’ve easily gotten him killed.

His logical reasoning must have moved both nations since none actually flew into a rage.

He then compared the pros and cons of using eight or more years in exchange for a small piece of land.

Of course, these were all to ease them into his real proposal.

So what was King Chalk’s hidden trump?

Turning war into business.

His first target was left baffled, but after some explanation, he accepted on the condition that the other party was in favor as well.

Needless to say, King Chalk set off to the other nation and repeated his proposal the next day.

On the following day, both nations retreated.

Turning war into business was King Chalk’s way to end the battle and allow both nations to send and station merchants on both ends of our country.

To unify our currency and promote commerce.

Both parties had a year to accumulate capital and the one with a more than half lead would take the win and be rewarded with our land.

The judge was none other than King Chalk. He was willing to step down as a king and have the winner do as he pleased.

This was appealing to both parties since there was nothing to lose.

The real winner, however, was King Chalk.

The withdrawal of forces on both ends instantly lifted the fear of citizens from all three nations.

King Chalk then made use of the gold, silver, and other treasures he hadn’t offered as tribute by having blacksmiths convert them into a type of green copper coins.

Within a week, the green copper coins were evenly distributed among all citizens.

And with the two nations’ stationing of merchants, manufacturing jobs were created for our citizens as a new channel of income.

Citizen life improved quickly, and their laborious but stable days lasted for a whole year.

The day of competition arrived and King Chalk stood in between the merchants from both nations with a cold smile.

He had been informed that in order to win, both nations turned to making counterfeit coins.

The result was 13 versus 16 tonnes of copper coins so there wasn’t any winner.

Both parties knew something fishy was going on but none was willing to admit that they had cheated.

The coins were piled outside the city walls on both ends. King Chalk picked a coin up and smiled. “I’ll redesign them to prevent forgery. Return to your country, report to your king, and come again next year.”

All he did was add some decorative designs on the coins before having the merchants collect them.

Just like that, the competition was held every year and the coins were, too, reformed annually.

When both parties finally felt something amiss, our small nation had already become the most stable bridge between the merchants and the citizens.

Any news surfacing in one nation would first pass through our country before reaching the other nation.

Both wanted to launch an attack, and in return, they were flooded with citizens’ complaints.

They did not discard that idea, however, and both parties mobilized their troops.

Their target wasn’t our nation but our imperial palace.

King Chalk was held captive on our own execution ground.

Our smart king then came up with the excuse that both nations had different types of equipment that they used for the death penalty. This excuse successfully halted their plans and allowed King Chalk to ultimately die a natural death.

He passed away at 63. He had worked hard his whole life so he had no family to mourn for him.

A statue of him was built in our nation’s central park for all to visit and pay homage to.

After his demise, our nation no longer had another king.

Nevertheless, the rivalry between both supernations never ended, and the judging right was handed over to the merchants from all kinds of banks stationed in our country.

Also, both nations never stopped cheating.

Despite the absence of an army and a king, our nation became the third supernation, sandwiched between the original supernations.

2,000 years passed in the blink of an eye and our nation has moved away from agriculture and advanced into the era of science and technology.

Nothing else changed, however, and this piece of history became part of our course syllabus and was constantly being reanalyzed and reorganized.

The average citizen wouldn’t be interested to investigate our history, but the 27 of us would never forget all that happened.

There were only 27 of us partly because there was a lot of memorization work, recording and analyzing history, and ancient writings. Another reason was that the graduation exam of this course was the hardest of all.

Because our national culture was not a part of other nations’ educational syllabus, our exam invigilators were from a local bank.

And this bank — Green Coin Bank — was unrivaled.

Its logo was precisely that green copper coin, without the decorative designs, that King Chalk held in his hands 2,000 years ago.

My buddy and I would be taking the exam tomorrow but we still have no idea what would be asked.

All we know was that there hasn’t been any successful graduate in five years.

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