Chapter 106: The Merchant of Death
The relationship between Korea and Iran had steadily deteriorated since the 2020s.
This was because Korea had reduced its exports to Iran and diversified its oil imports for risk management, as the US sanctions on Iran showed no signs of easing.
Despite the price advantage, Korea had chosen other countries such as UAE, which was a thorn in Iran’s side.
Korea had its own reasons.
Iran had seized several ships belonging to Korean shipping companies, including oil tankers, that passed through the Strait of Hormuz.
After tedious negotiations, the crew members were released and the ships were returned later, but the oil or goods were often missing.
They protested, but they only got absurd excuses that it was because of pirates.
—How can pirates attack when we are anchored at Bandar Abbas port? Is this exposing the incompetence of the Iranian army and the Revolutionary Guards?
Anyway, these things piled up and Korea’s trade with Iran continued to decline.
The decisive blow was delivered by the high-tech drones.
These drones were first supplied to Saudi Arabia and played a major role in driving out the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Coincidentally, Iran had suffered a huge loss while supporting the Houthi rebels and had to withdraw from Yemen.
That would have been tolerable, but Korea, for some reason, supplied drones to UAE and Israel as well.
Yu Ji-ha was given the nickname of the Merchant of Death and became widely known around this time.
—The drones sold to Israel are effectively killing civilians in Gaza. Did you say they were efficient? Congratulations.
—The number of drones scattered by Korea in the Middle East has already exceeded 50,000. These drones are a clear threat to the peace of the Middle East and should be immediately expelled.
—If a Muslim sheds a liter of blood, a Korean should shed a hundred liters to balance it out.
However, these threats from the Middle Eastern Muslims did not materialize.
Fortunately, the Second Korean War broke out and all attention was focused on the Korean Peninsula.
Many countries were happy that Korea had gone into its own endgame, but Korea quickly occupied North Korea and ended the war.
There were a few incidents after that, but Korea’s drone exports did not stop.
It was really infuriating.
—Those damn drones are so tough and agile. They are invincible against our warriors and rockets are useless against them. We need massive artillery fire from regular armies.
—We have to stop Korea’s drone exports by putting pressure on their government. A few tens of thousands of drones are killing hundreds of millions of Muslims.
However, there was an opinion that it was impossible to put pressure on the government at the point where Korea’s leader was replaced by Yu Ji-ha.
What good would it do to politically threaten a dictator who had absolute support from his people?
The only thing that seemed to have some influence was oil, but that was like strangling their own necks.
Korea’s oil imports from the Middle East were a considerable amount.
At this point, Iran’s hardliners began to emerge.
Iran was the country that suffered the most damage from Korean drones and its trade volume was shrinking day by day.
In short, they had nothing to lose.
However, Iran was wary of Korea’s international influence and military power that had grown rapidly in recent years.
Especially, they were concerned about missiles equipped with antitron warheads.
They did not think they had such capabilities internally, but they prepared countermeasures thoroughly.
They imported anti-aircraft missiles from China and other places and deployed them at nuclear power plants and nuclear facilities.
This was also considering the possibility that Korea’s Cheonghae Unit would come near their coast and launch antitrons.
Of course, it would be best to solve it through dialogue, and Iran’s religious leader knew that well.
—What is the point of fighting between us and Korea in East Asia? It would be better to put pressure on Korea’s oil supply and find a solution.
—At least they have to stop supplying drones to Israel. If they don’t accept this, we have to stop oil exports immediately.
While they were doing this, an incident occurred.
Israel, Iran’s archenemy, launched cruise missiles at their nuclear facilities.
Fortunately, they succeeded in intercepting them with anti-aircraft missiles, but Israel had another purpose.
Before the cruise missiles were intercepted, containers were separated and dozens of drones were released.
The security forces at Natanz nuclear facility immediately responded, but they were no match for the drone system that had collapsed North Korea’s regular army.
Many researchers were killed and even the power supply system that powered Natanz exploded and was deemed irrecoverable.
One of Iran’s main nuclear facilities was disabled for the time being.
Israel’s public broadcaster claimed that this was a legitimate military response and praised the Korean-made drones.
—It’s a really amazing weapon. It disabled the enemy’s facility without any casualties.
—It’s very cheap and efficient compared to using air force power. We will introduce more drones in the future.
It was efficient, indeed.
They had disabled a nuclear facility with a few cruise missiles and dozens of drones.
Compared to Israel, which was satisfied and patted its belly, Iran was going crazy.
How much money did they put into the Natanz research center!
The public opinion in the country was boiling with anti-Korean sentiment, and the situation worsened when the Black Metal incident broke out.
—The world has turned its back on Korea. Now is the time to provoke them without much backlash.
—If we cut off the oil supply to Korea and seize their ships, they will have no choice but to raise their hands.
Iran’s goal was only to stop Korea’s drone exports, so the sanctions were limited and cautious.
If it had been a few years ago, it might have been different, but Korea had become so strong that even the US was wary of it.
Their fundamentals were not very solid and there were doubts about their military projection, but it was not bad to be careful.
—What happened to China and Japan? Even if they are stupid, they should have realized by now. Korea is a power in East Asia.
—However, it would be difficult to project military power to Hormuz because of the distance. We have to poke at that weakness.
Iran’s plan to sanction Korea was quite concrete and secretive.
The religious leader, Suleiman, was not a fool.
But the cyber craze that swept the world inevitably hit Iran as well.
They were fools who had a ridiculous dream of applying Islamic law, Sharia, to all countries, but their combat power was certain because of their fanaticism.
Major government offices were seized in an instant, and after a fierce battle, Suleiman was captured.
A disaster occurred where the leader of a country was caught by thugs.
They claimed as follows:
—We will completely drive out the culture of the West, including Korea, that has infiltrated Iran.
—We will completely exclude human-like creepy dolls and drones from Muslim society.
—We will neutralize all religions other than Islam and leave nothing but Sharia courts.
Iran was originally a system of religious and political unity, but they were determined to transform it into a theocratic state.
There was no way there would be no backlash since there were reformists inside, and they seized Korea’s oil tankers in collaboration with the Revolutionary Guards and blocked the Strait of Hormuz.
It was not completely blocked, but being checked itself was very annoying.
They were bound to pick on all sorts of things and sometimes be dragged to Iran’s port.
As soon as the Strait of Hormuz was blocked, news spread across the world and each country entered into countermeasures.
Especially Korea was in trouble.
This was because they relied on this strait for more than 70% of their oil demand.
The oil price, which had been maintained at $150, showed a sharp rise and knocked on the door of $200.
Each country blamed Korea for being responsible for Iran’s actions.
—Not everyone can imitate the death merchant. As the leader of a country, he should have stopped at a reasonable point, considering the political repercussions.
—Is he planning to plunge the Middle East into the pain of war, following East Asia? We urge him to stop exporting drones and pursue peace.
—This time, it’s not easy to deal with it because the distance is so far… If he uses the mass driver, no one will believe his words anymore.
The public opinion in Korea was not good either.
The oil imported from the Middle East was directly linked to the quality of life.
This was not a problem that could be solved by projecting military power.
Especially for a big country like Iran.
So he was on alert for Yu Ji-ha’s response from both domestic and foreign sources, and he entered a countermeasure meeting with a few officials.
…
“How much oil stock do we have now?”
“We have over 150 million barrels in total, and we can last up to 130 days.”
It increased by about 15 days from before, because electric cars were widely distributed.
Future Automobile Group, which failed to receive the black metal battery, entered the liquidation process along with the death of Chairman Yu Gyeong-seok, and Silla Auto ate it up bit by bit.
There was no problem with the acquisition because Yu Ji-ha had a huge financial line behind his political back.
Silla Auto was in the process of replacing the factory equipment while declaring the end of the internal combustion engine by sweeping out the existing management team and leading the distribution of electric cars.
It was quite a contrast when Chairman Yu Gyeong-seok ran away with only a few affiliates, including Silla Auto, decades ago.
Anyway, according to the Minister of Industry, the deadline was 60 days.
He submitted a report that most of the domestic industries would stop if oil supply was not resumed within 60 days.
“60 days is too long. I’ll solve it in ten days.”
To solve the conflict with Iran in ten days means to use military options.
But Iran was a country located far away in the Middle East.
No matter how powerful and fast Kim Gu-ham was, going to the Strait of Hormuz alone was nothing but suicide.
Because the ground-to-ship missile sites nearby were enormous.
The participants of the countermeasure meeting knew this, but they kept their mouths shut.
They thought the president must have some details, since he was the president.
He asked Arma, who represented Yu Ji-ha’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who attended the meeting.
“By the way, you said that the psychers who captured Suleiman are showing strange behavior?”
“Yes. They are surrounding the Korean embassy in Iran with Revolutionary Guards forces. It seems like they are trying to burn it down.”
Burning down the embassy means declaring war.
But it was not only because of their blind hatred for Korea that they showed such behavior.
The Muslims, who accounted for 98.5% of Iran, were truly terrified of the androids working at the Korean embassy.
Arma reported on their trends.
“According to Muhammad and the Quran, humans are God’s creation and cannot be replaced by anything. You should never imitate them with dolls or monsters that resemble humans.”
“According to their ideology, the Korean embassy in Iran is a blasphemous existence that threatens their identity.”
“Blasphemy…”
This happened because Yu Ji-ha had replaced most of the administrative departments.
The Ministry of Unification and the Ministry of Leisure were completely abolished and their work was transferred to other departments, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs succeeded in surviving, but there was an administrative vacuum due to the diplomats being dragged to Terra Island.
They were replaced not by other diplomats, but by androids, including Arma.
Some argued that androids could never replace diplomats, but the embassies were running well.
Most of the work was routine, and the occasional emergencies were handled by following the instructions from the Blue House, so there was no problem even if the diplomats were absent.
Of course, there were sensitive issues such as diplomatic negotiations or covert diplomacy, but Yu Ji-ha did not care.
“It doesn’t matter if we are ridiculed for not conforming to international diplomatic conventions. The important thing is how quickly we acquire information and take appropriate measures. Everything else is irrelevant.”
The whole country was immersed in efficiency and sprinting, as Yu Ji-ha became the president.
Most critics praised his ability, but separately said he had limits.
Of course, there was a limit.
The limit was the day when the Human Alliance destroyed the Plague and achieved peace.
Anyway, Yu Ji-ha’s actions accumulated and caused extreme anger among the Iranians.
The drones were just an excuse, and in fact, they were disgusted by the androids roaming around the sacred land of Muslims.
The androids, who had received almost infinite praise in places like Korea or Japan, were almost taboo in Islamic society.
Of course, Arma knew this and warned him in advance, but Yu Ji-ha did not take it seriously.
Even if they caused trouble, it would only be to detain oil tankers, which could be easily solved by the Cheonghae Unit.
But if the fanatical psychers in Iran intervened, the story would change.
Yu Ji-ha emphasized to the Minister of Industry.
“From now on, or maybe some places have already raised it. Freeze the oil price based on yesterday noon. The deadline is until I give further instructions. Tell them not to think of getting even 10 won more. It’s all from domestic reserves anyway.”
The ministers and Bae Seong-min, the chief of staff, were very tense.
Loading hafnium-2 warheads meant declaring to blow up Iran.
How much power would it have if you mounted a new type of gunpowder that had an explosive power of 300kg per gram of TNT on a warhead that size?
It would be enough to guarantee a tactical nuclear weapon level.
And that without any radiation risk!
The Minister of Defense asked cautiously.
“Mr. President, can we replace all the missile containers of the Daemado-class 4th ship with hafnium-2 warhead types?”
“Send it to the Strait of Hormuz as soon as the work is done. The rest will take care of itself.”
It sounded like artificial intelligence would take care of blowing up Iran on its own.
The ground-to-ship missiles they had?
The Daemado-class 4th ship had two iron beams with full output mounted on it.
Unless they poured out hypersonic anti-ship missiles, it was impossible.
The oil price would not go down for a while.
The Minister of Defense bowed his head silently.
“I will follow your orders.”
“Everyone go do your work and tell the Kremlin that we need some oil. They will give us as much as we need.”
President Putin would not ignore this crisis situation and try to help as much as possible.
Everyone left the meeting room and only Arma remained.
“Notify them through the embassy for the last time. We don’t want war, but we won’t avoid it either.”
“I’m sorry, Master, but I think I’ll be damaged by being beaten when I leave the Saadabad Palace after notifying them with an android.”
He saw through Sibiri satellite that Tehran city was full of waves of protests.
Of course, they were anti-Yu Ji-ha, anti-android, anti-drone protests.
Iran was just the beginning. Most Muslims had a negative attitude toward drones and androids. There were also many criticisms from Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Eventually, Israel was the only country that had a positive attitude toward drones in the Middle East.
Literally turning more than half of the Middle East into enemies.
That was the price he paid for selling drones as a death merchant.
Of course, Yu Ji-ha had no intention of paying that price at all.
“Take this opportunity to take over Afghanistan. Weren’t Tajiks and Iranians from the same race?”
“The roots of their race are the same, but their psycher emergence rates are completely different. You can consider them separated.”
“That’s fine. Warn them one last time.”
An android who played the role of an ambassador entered into Saadabad Palace in Tehran.
But what greeted him was not Iran’s president or religious leader, but rocket launchers from security guards.
Even if his frame was black metal, other parts could not withstand the explosive power of rockets.
As the android fell to the ground, countless Iranians surrounding the palace cheered.
“Inshallah! Inshallah!”
“Allahu Akbar!”
That was the start, and the Korean embassy in Iran immediately closed and transferred all the data to the artificial satellite and closed the building.
And a black ship suddenly appeared in the Strait of Hormuz, where dozens of oil tankers weighing hundreds of thousands of tons were tied up.
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