Dear Comrade

Chapter 3. bubble (5)

Chapter 3. bubble (5)

“Yeah… I got a call this morning from my comrade who is serving in Pyongyang about something he asked me to check. It is said that foreign engineers have already come to the place you mentioned, and there are strict guards standing there.”

“Then my guess is correct. Ask them to call you regularly.”

“All right. And one more thing…”

“what?”

At Jeonghwan’s question, Hyerim Yoo seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then opened her mouth as if she had made up her mind.

“I have received a call from Paik. So… not for Comrade Jeong-hwan, but only for me.”

“……okay? I’m not really interested in Yu’s personal secrets. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to say it.”

….even if you don’t say anything, you can clearly guess what it’s about.

Soon after Yoo Hye-rim shut her mouth, Jung-hwan turned to the hotel TV to announce the upcoming news.

I should make an announcement around this time…. At the moment I was thinking, Hyerim Yoo did something that exceeded his expectations once again after a while.

“…No, I’ll let you know. Comrade Jeong Hwan is now holding the chain of my life. Now, I have made up my mind to trust and follow Comrade Jeong Hwan, not the Baekje, the leader, or the Republic.”

“…………!”

Jeonghwan turned his head at her declaring words and looked at her.

Although Junghwan thought she had made up her mind to some extent since the last time she said that she would stay by his side instead of a hundred pedestal at the banquet hall, he still didn’t trust her 100%.

Because Jung-hwan, who returned from the future, already knew, but Yoo Hye-rim didn’t tell herself a secret she thought he didn’t know (yet).

So, I haven’t even made a plan to get rid of Kim Jong-il yet…

However, it seems that she is now sincerely determined to entrust her life to Jeonghwan.

“What the Patriarch had conveyed to me was… this was it. ‘Calm down, Master Yu. We have a body to do bigger things’, ‘Are you going to forget your duty to the Republic by being caught by the illegitimate son of a leader?’, ‘Don’t forget what we swore to our country’…… …”

“Hmm, is that so? So, what was Yu’s answer?”

Jeonghwan knew exactly what those seemingly absurd words meant, but he deliberately pretended not to know and asked her as if he were testing her.

In response to his question, Hyerim Yoo spoke in a more determined tone than before.

“Comrade Jeong Hwan said that the pedestal was a much bigger piece of timber than he thought.”

“…………”

“Right now, there are many people who have their own ideas for the future of our republic, and Comrade Baek is one of them, but that Yu Hye-rim chose Comrade Jeong Hwan, and I will never be wrong… I did.”

Jeonghwan didn’t respond to her confession, which he confessed with his own determination, but he felt a corner of his heart warming up.

‘But it’s too early to fully trust her.’

At least to tell me about the plan to oust Kim Jong-il that I’m thinking about right now.

…because she hasn’t divulged her last secret yet.

And the moment she thought it was Jeonghwan, she made a decision while struggling to get over the last bastion in her heart.

Hyerim Yoo revealed her, no, the last secret of ‘them’ in a difficult voice while biting her lip.

“And… I have one more thing to tell you. I… no, me and Comrade Baek Seung-cheol and other Russians…”

“stop. You can just say that.”

At Jeonghwan’s quiet words, Hyerim Yu contorted her face, then spoke again in a determined voice.

“no. Comrade Jeonghwan should know. Maybe my bloodlines in the republic are in danger… But, nonetheless, Comrade Jeong-hwan, no, I must say to Comrade Jeong-hwan, who will lead this republic…”

“I am already well aware of Yu’s loyalty. I know what to say, so you can stop.”

“No, Comrade Jeonghwan doesn’t know, me and the Paekche…”

“No, I know.”

I calmly calmed Yoo Hye-rim, who was still showing her expression that she did not understand English, and said that.

And the next moment, the words that fell from my mouth turned her expression whiter than her new blouse.

“Aren’t you trying to say that you, Senior Comrade Baek Seung-cheol, and 250 Frunze alumni who studied in Russia are spies who infiltrated the Republic?”

“……………………”

“Isn’t it the Russian National Security Council (Комитет Государственной Безопасности: KGB) or the KGB? They have been uncomfortable with the republic moving toward the one-person worship system of leader Kim Il-sung since long ago, so they had a very cold relationship with the party. You must have approached money or grades as bait when you were studying in Frunze?”

“Hey, how… what the hell…”

During the short time spent with me, Hyerim Yoo was surprised, or sometimes astonished, at the many things I showed her.

However, the expression of surprise that Hye-rim Yoo showed me in the meantime was quite a bit of hemostasis compared to what appeared on the face of her who is standing in front of me now.

Even if the dead ancestors came back alive, they would not be able to show that kind of expression.

– How the hell does Comrade Jeonghwan, who is only the leader’s illegitimate child, know of such a thing? Could Comrade Junghwan be a ghost or a goblin?

The thought of ……. appeared on Hyerim Yoo’s face as it was, but I waited for a while for her to settle the surprise and think rationally.

Eventually, as Hyerim Yoo reached the only conclusion that her common sense could explain, I opened my mouth again when my face was tired of doubt and fear.

“Relax, Master Yu. I’m not like the double spy who infiltrated you by the Bowibu. Of course, it is not affiliated with anywhere else, such as the Staff Reconnaissance Bureau or the Party’s External Intelligence Investigation Department.”

“…are you telling the truth?”

“Sir, it is said that it is our republic that makes children criticize their parents, but do you think there are spies like me? Before the trust issue, can’t Kim Jong-Il, the suspicious Kim Jong-Il, get so much precious foreign currency from just one spy so he can escape abroad?”

She was not surprised when I called Kim Jong-il’s name for the first time without even giving it a formal title, perhaps because the shock had not yet been resolved.

But I didn’t care either.

Because of her confession a while ago, Hyerim Yoo and I have become comrades in the same boat, both literally and in the true sense.

Frunze University coup,

In the world where Jung Hwan lived, it is known as a rebellion started in 1992 by international students from Frunze University in the Soviet Union.

Since the 1980s, North Korea has signed an agreement with the Soviet Union to train high-level political and military officers, and has sent dozens of its elites every year to the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in the Soviet Union to study.

And those who have been educated in the Soviet Union, a leading socialist country, rise to elite positions in North Korean society thanks to their original abilities and background.

The problem was that, rather than being a socialist country, most of them were recruited from the Soviet Union, which was dissatisfied with North Korea, which had already become a hereditary dictatorship of Kim Il-sung, and most of them were planted in North Korea.

“…Comrade Jeonghwan, are you really? Really, you don’t inform the party about me or the hundredth comrade…”

“Sure. They are people with the goal of changing the republic. like me.”

‘……Well, my goals are a little different, but anyway, it’s right to aim for the overthrow of the system.’

International students who returned to their home countries as Soviet spies planned a coup with dissatisfaction with North Korea becoming a Stalin-style, one-man, dictatorship.

At a military parade planned in 1992, they planned to blow up the podium where Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il had delivered speeches with tanks, but failed due to the intervention of the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces.

And soon, Kim Jong-il, who was mad at the fact that there was an assassination attempt against him, and that he was among the officers he sent to study abroad, dried up the seeds of the international students from Frunze University over five years and never sent foreign students outside again.

This was the end of the Frunze University coup that Junghwan learned from his previous life.

‘I had them in mind from the beginning. After all, in order to cause a coup d’état, it’s not even worth half a penny if Nana, Yu, and Manager Kim are all united together.’

The party and the military are already full of Kim Jong-il’s friendly forces, no matter where they are.

Whether in South Korea or North Korea, no, the standard of a coup d’état anywhere in the world is to plant one’s own people in the elements.

And even if a coup d’etat succeeds, it is not as good as not having a coup d’etat if you do not have the ability to (properly) manage state affairs by seizing power after that.

In other words, what Jung-hwan needed was a supportive force to support him, and it was perfect for those from Frunze University who were dissatisfied with Kim Jong-il, well-educated and competent, but with networks spread across the party, military, and government.

It was all part of the plan to cast bait on Hyerim Yoo, who had been assigned as her own bodyguard, to select her and form a pipeline with them.

the problem is…….

“…do you think Comrade Paik will follow Comrade Jeong Hwan?”

“No, but I’ll make you follow.”

“I know that Comrade Jeonghwan is not a good person, but it is better to be careful.”

At the voice of Hyerim Yoo, who seemed to care for him like a mother, Jeonghwan laughed.

……… I didn’t see it that way when I first saw it, but now that I see it, it has a pretty soft side.

“don’t worry. You even passed over to me in the end, didn’t you? Others will soon be too. Until then, all we have to do is build up our strength here in Japan and wait.”

“Yes? Yes…”

Leaving her blushing with her head bowed slightly, Jeonghwan turned his head back to the TV.

At the same time, the news that he had been waiting for for so long was coming out on NHK.

– Today, the Ministry of Finance announced that it is considering a rate cut to stimulate the economy, which has been sluggish due to the appreciation of the yen. In addition, he foretold that the regulations on real estate loans at all banks would be eased, and for the goal of stabilizing the lives of the homeless ordinary people…..

Jeonghwan smiled contentedly as he finally saw his plan, which he had been drawing a sketch, outline and start up.

“Now then, shall we come and earn some money?”

Baek Seung-cheol, you will soon learn that no matter how scary your gun is, it cannot be more fearful than money.

Five years until 1991, when the bubble burst, his heart pounded already at the thought of tearing it apart from this crazy Japanese archipelago.

Order makes millionaires, but chaos makes billionaires.

In fact, the land price of Japan, centered on Tokyo, was already rising quite rapidly due to the economic boom in the 1970s and booming exports.

However, the following year, the interest rate cut and the easing of real estate regulations announced by the Japanese government in 1986 were like throwing the tanker into a sea of fire.

At a time when the proverb that land prices never go down (?) was accepted as an tacit truth, when the lock was lifted, all wealth began to flow into the real estate market in an instant, regardless of whether it was a business or an individual.

When winter passed and spring of 1986 arrived, a hot speculation frenzy had already begun to blow across the Japanese archipelago.

However, even in the midst of this storm, Jeonghwan and his agent Heo Young-joon were moving to preempt only the places where land prices would rise the most, as if picking them up with tweezers, and Junghwan’s primary goal was the subway.

“Soon, East Japan Railway (East Japan Railway Co., Ltd., JR East) will start expanding the line of the Yamanote Line.”

Courtesy Heo Young-jun, who met Jung-hwan again at a cafe in Minato-ku, just bowed his head and was busy jotting down the words of this mysterious young man in his Jeonju.

Now, more pathetic questions such as ‘how did you know’ or ‘how did you know that something like that would happen and put money in it’ didn’t come out of his mouth any more.

Because what Junghwan had already said became a reality, and it was actually appearing in front of him, who was skeptical until a few months ago.

“Not only here in Minato-ku, but also near the Imperial Palace (皇居) where Chongryon is located, land prices are rising. Not only that, but Asakusa, Ikebukuro, Ueno, and Odaiba…all will be redeveloped. It doesn’t matter what the price is. Real estate development companies have already smelled it.”

“In addition to Tokyo, land prices in Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya and Yokohama are already rising. No, not only real estate, but also golf courses, golf memberships, hotels, resorts…”

“But the most important thing is the railroad.”

Jeonghwan spoke as if to swear at Heo Young-joon, who had become hazy as he watched the unbelievable things come true.

“Japan is a country of railroads. Among them, the Yamanote Loop Line that runs through central Tokyo is literally the Golden Road Go. We must secure the land.”

At Jeonghwan’s quiet but strict words, Heo Young-jun showed a firm determination and nodded his head vigorously.

“I will do it at any cost.”

“Our ultimate goal is not real estate, but our initial portfolio is a straight line of real estate. Don’t waste your money. In my main job, and in the side job I mentioned last time…”

Watching Heo Young-jun bow his head deeply and disappearing out of the cafe, Jeong-hwan sip his coffee again.

Minato-ku, Roppongi, and Aoyama, seen from the windows under our feet, looked like pots boiling with light.

‘If it is like this for three years, money that is not enviable of Kim Jong-il’s slush fund will be collected.’

Unwittingly, Junghwan smiled brightly as he imagined such optimism.

But, as always, things didn’t go as planned .