Chapter 109: Turning 1.5 Billion into Enemies
The situation in the Strait of Hormuz seemed to be resolved, at least on the surface.
The Korean navy’s fourth Daemado-class ship had withdrawn, and a peace fleet led by the US and the UK had taken its place.
Iran had no power to protest against this measure, so the oil transportation through the Strait continued without any interruption.
It had been less than five days since the oil tanker was hijacked, and the crisis was over.
But the real chaos was about to begin.
The problem was especially serious in Iran, where the Pyschics group that caused this incident and the religious leader Suleiman had died.
There was a nominal president, but he was a person who had pursued secular policies with the support of the US and faced a lot of backlash from the people.
When he announced Suleiman’s death at a press conference, a huge protest broke out in Tehran.
—We must avenge Suleiman! We did not give up!
It was unclear who they wanted to exact revenge from, since the culprit had not been identified yet.
What mattered to the Iranian people was something to vent their immediate anger.
The US had pointed to Yu Ji-ha as the mastermind behind this incident, but there was no evidence.
It was not possible to corner a president of another country with mere suspicion, and the international community was focused on another topic.
It was Korea’s aggressiveness that was revealed in this incident.
In the West, they admitted that Iran had given them a pretext, but they argued that Korea’s response was excessive.
—Shooting a gun because someone punched you is not self-defense. Korea’s method is too violent.
—Thanks to the new bomb that destroyed the Iranian navy, pirates are rampant in the Strait of Hormuz. I wonder how they will cope with this.
—It’s not that other countries can’t do it, but they don’t. Reality is not a hero movie, and Korea should restrain itself.
To put it roughly, they meant don’t show off your strength recklessly.
At the UN General Assembly, they decided to give Yu Ji-ha the first speaker in the general debate.
It was unusual considering that Brazil had been giving the first speech as a tradition.
Political commentators diagnosed that it was not a keynote speech but a stone throwing for tearing him apart.
—If Korea’s president attends this assembly, he will face tremendous attacks from various countries.
—France is especially eager. They will try to make the keynote speech a scene of Korea’s humiliation.
—He must know this situation well, so he won’t attend this assembly either.
Usually, heads of state do not miss the opportunity to attend the UN General Assembly and give a speech.
Even if the podium turned into a bed, even if there was no one listening, there was meaning in having such an opportunity.
But Yu Ji-ha had never attended an assembly because he had clashed with the UN before.
The media that liked to criticize him often wrote editorials saying that Hitler was also a coward and he had a lot in common with dictators.
However, Yu Ji-ha did not go to the assembly because he did not need to do so.
The speeches there were mostly standardized with topics such as peace, human rights, and environment, which had nothing to do with him.
“It’s funny that a dictator who is full of war, human rights oppression, and environmental destruction is pretending there.”
However, regardless of this perspective, Korea’s status had risen considerably.
There was a saying among international diplomats.
The order of keynote speeches at the UN General Assembly is proportional to the blood shed by a country.
The blood must be that of foreigners, not their own people.
The more wars a country has fought, the more powerful and prestigious it is.
If you think about the history of the current UN permanent members, it was not wrong.
The US, UK, France and others claimed human rights and freedom now, but decades ago they waged wars and massacred people for their own interests.
Was there any bitter reflection on that?
Not at all.
That’s why when various countries criticized Korea for this incident, the third world reacted cynically.
-France, who harshly criticized Korea and Yu Ji-ha, surprisingly did all kinds of atrocities while granting independence to their colonies. I bet it’s worse than China’s One Belt One Road project.
France’s government was furious and its media started to write radical editorials.
—Is it okay to do that in 2030? It’s not because we were called Hitler that we actually have to follow him, right?
However, the cause of this incident was Iran, who suddenly hijacked an oil tanker.
While acknowledging that Korea’s response was excessive, the countries were busy with their calculators.
Wasn’t Korea, who shared various new technologies and concepts, more suitable to be a friend than Iran, where Muslims shouted jihad?
And these criticisms were buried when Yu Ji-ha held a press conference and revealed the new bomb.
“This new explosive is called Hafnium-2. It is a different element from hafnium, and it requires a large-scale ether wave accelerator, a Pyschics, and tantalum to produce it…”
The international price of tantalum, which was already expensive, soared.
***
In the original history, humans did not use hafnium-2 to counter the Plague.
It was because if you gather tantalum that received energy pumping to a certain size or more, it would cause a collapse phenomenon.
This meant that there was a limit to the destructive power of the warhead, which was a serious drawback for a high-performance explosive.
It was not for nothing that humans used hydrogen bombs.
Anyway, hafnium-2 was not very powerful in terms of producing more than tactical nuclear weapons, but it had a significant meaning at this point.
As soon as he revealed the production method, each country started to prepare laws related to Pyschicss.
“Pyschics Leakage Prevention Act… I wonder how fast the bill will pass.”
Pyschics was important for producing hafnium-2, as well as tantalum.
Hafnium-2 was transformed from tantalum by absorbing a lot of ether waves shot by a blaster.
This process involved a huge amount of energy pumping, which could cause an explosion of the research facility if something went wrong.
Yu Ji-ha did not know the original history well, but he could guess that a lot of lives were sacrificed in the process of making hafnium-2.
“Isn’t it almost like grinding Pyschicss?”
“There is no other way to make it without doing that.”
The United Human Federation could make hafnium-2 in large quantities easily and safely through a supermassive particle accelerator.
But other countries without technology had to hire blasters and shoot ether waves directly at tantalum to make hafnium.
Shooting ether waves was a very hard task, similar to sprinting and having sex at the same time for humans.
Most Pyschicss were not even alpha-class, so the output of ether waves was low and the efficiency was not good either.
Nevertheless, the politicians’ desire to secure hafnium-2 was very high.
It didn’t take long for executive orders from heads of state to come down in various countries.
From now on, all Pyschicss had to get permission to travel abroad.
Even France, which valued freedom and human rights, signed this bill.
Of course, protests broke out everywhere, but the French president was busy suppressing them.
“In the end, freedom and human rights are flexible in front of interests.”
If it was a new kind of clean nuclear bomb, France’s behavior was not incomprehensible.
He just wished that they would express their desires more honestly.
It was like the United States or Russia.
Arma summarized the protests that came from various countries and showed them to him.
“It seems that the United States has finally lost its patience. They are angry that you shared the method of making such a dangerous weapon without consulting them.”
“Does that mean they gave up since they are not calling?”
“It’s more likely that they will try to tame you in earnest.”
“Are they going to put a bomb necklace around my neck?”
“China or Japan might think that’s possible.”
“China… The Second Sino-American War just ended not long ago.”
“The protests from Taiwan don’t mean much to the United States. The current China does not have the power to challenge the US hegemony. The US knows that better than anyone.”
The US showed that there were no eternal enemies or friends in front of interests.
“So they are trying to restrain me, who doesn’t listen to them? By joining forces with China and Japan?”
“They don’t need to join forces. They just need to scratch your nerves and make you slip up.”
“Well, they are right next to me…”
If you keep scratching your opponent’s nerves, something will go wrong.
The US was more likely to use China or Japan to restrain Korea than to take action directly.
The actual time to act would be after the inauguration of the new president.
It was probably because the Democratic Party was leading the Korean restraint.
On the other hand, he had spread the method of making Hafnium2, but that didn’t mean anyone could make it.
Even if they prepared tantalum or cycer, it would be hard to start researching the ether wave accelerator without their help.
Arma estimated that Hafnium2 was first used in 2050 in the original history.
Considering that the timeline was moved forward, it would be hard to make it before 2040.
In other words, the use of terrorist groups that the US was worried about was impossible from the start.
“But there are places that are researching ether wave accelerators on their own, right?”
“Yes. Most of the major powers… Especially the UN permanent members have started researching ether. They will be able to make ether wave accelerators within five years without our help.”
The efficiency would be bad, but they would accept it for such a weapon. That would be the thought of the leaders of each country.
This trend started with the development of railgun cannons.
Despite Japan’s miserable failure, each country raised their enthusiasm for cannon production.
After all, it worked.
Even if the efficiency was low, even if there was a limit to the life of the cannon, it didn’t change that it was a railgun.
Each country wanted to have a railgun at any cost.
Even though a railgun with no range and firing speed was no better than an anti-ship missile.
“It’s not bad to accept some offers and secure resources while they are trying to get resources from us.”
In fact, each country was trying to contact them through various channels to find out how to make ether wave accelerators.
There were even countries that wanted to hand over their entire mining rights.
There was no need to announce that there was a limit to the destructive power of Hafnium2 warheads here.
“Just accept some offers and secure resources.”
“What about Africa’s offer? Seven countries have contacted us so far.”
“Africa? Hmm… What resources do they have there?”
According to Arma’s collected data, there was nothing they didn’t have.
Especially Congo and Angola had a lot of resources, but they were suffering from civil wars and China’s interference.
Lately, the alliance had given up on the one-on-one, but the forces that had been taking advantage of their fault had collaborated with the military and staged a coup, making a mess of things.
He shook his head as he looked over the situation in the local area.
“Wouldn’t it be a disaster if we went in there?”
“It would be like a world war with Korea as the enemy.”
There were more than a few companies that had sucked up Africa’s resources.
Those resource companies were exploiting the locals ruthlessly with their own country’s military power behind them.
There were various regulations on conflict minerals, but that didn’t stop smuggling.
The buyers had no reason to tie their own arms and legs.
There was a hole somewhere in the regulation law, and the resource companies were making good use of it.
He decided that there was no need to intervene after looking at the data.
The resources were scarce, but that was a problem that could be solved when the mining front moved to Mars.
“Let’s focus on Afghanistan for now. How far along is the schedule?”
“The anger of the Muslim society is about to explode. To trigger a terror, we just need to stimulate them a little and let them go.”
The Hormuz Strait crisis had been resolved, but of course everything was not over.
The Muslim’s anger against drones and androids had not subsided at all, and hatred for Yu Ji-ha had been added.
Iran had been shattered, and there were forces that secretly rejoiced, but anyway they were fellow Muslims.
There was this passage in the Quran.
—Fight against those who do not believe in God.
—Fight until the whole world worships God.
Here, God obviously meant Allah, and this was an excuse for the terrorists.
Now it was time for those terrorists to focus on Korea.
They would target Korea instead of America and commit indiscriminate terror.
Of course, this was also what Yu Ji-ha intended.
To secure the Tajik people, he had to eventually occupy Afghanistan, but he needed a reason for that.
Of course, the Taliban had tried to kidnap Yu Ji-ha in the past and received China’s support to commit terror.
But that was in the past, and it was not easy to hold them accountable now.
So he needed a new reason.
He needed a huge terror that would make sense for Yu Ji-ha to invade Afghanistan in anger.
For example, something like 9.11.
“Pick some suitable people from the local area and replace them.”
“How about crashing a passenger plane into the headquarters building? We’re planning to move anyway.”
“That’s fine.”
The Silla Group headquarters was scheduled to move to Mega City South, so most of the staff were gone.
The building was going to be sold, but it would be perfect as a stepping stone for invading Afghanistan.
Of course, for this process, Arma’s manipulation was needed.
No one would believe that Korea had neglected its guard against Muslims.
“Use dummies for the corpses and clean up the traces as quickly as possible.”
“I’ll contact the hospital.”
The dummies produced by BioBag were very hard to distinguish from humans unlike androids.
They were so realistic that they would be mistaken for humans unless they opened their skulls, and they played a big role in creating fake Yu Ji-ha’s death.
These dummies were not known to the world and should not be known either.
They had to be used for self-made dramas in the future.
One of the reasons why Yu Ji-ha couldn’t replace the leaders of various countries with dummies was partly because of that.
No matter how good the technology was, it was impossible to reproduce all the experiences and memories that countless politicians had accumulated.
There was bound to be something awkward somewhere, and this would cause suspicion of the dummy.
Even Yu Ji-ha, who was using the body of a chaebol third generation as a dummy, was eventually exposed by his mother.
If he used them widely and got caught, the aftermath would be no joke.
Yu Ji-ha checked his final plan and gave instructions.
“Let’s finish it by April. We have a lot to do.”
Next was Manchuria.
***
This Hormuz Strait crisis had announced Korea’s status to the world and at the same time provoked the backlash of the Muslims.
The president of Iran, instead of resolving the situation, incited hatred against Korea and tried to use it to strengthen his power.
At this point, there was only one card that Iran could use against Korea.
It was oil.
Suleiman had used that method too, but he failed miserably, and now only the way of controlling oil exports through OPEC remained.
There were many countries in OPEC that had no special feelings for Yu Ji-ha, but the influential ones were Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.
Especially Saudi Arabia had a strong voice, but Iran tried hard to persuade them despite their bad relationship.
However, the crown prince Mohammed knew the sentiment of his country and couldn’t exclude Yu Ji-ha completely.
He gathered the ministers of each department and held a meeting, and came to the following conclusion.
“The support of 1.5 billion Muslims is important, of course. We have a responsibility to comfort Muslims as we are the center of Islam. But completely excluding Korea is suicide. We will declare neutrality in this incident.”
Saudi Arabia’s declaration of non-participation in OPEC meeting made the production cut itself uncertain.
Iraq was friendly to Iran and they had a lot of conversations and agreed on an informal production cut.
But their efforts were foiled when Russia intervened.
The Kremlin watched the situation and announced it directly.
—We will supply oil to Korea at a reasonable price. The deadline depends on the agreement between the two sides and we will not limit the export volume.
Just in time, Russia’s ESPO pipeline was laid in North Korea, and Iran’s threat completely lost its light.
Now Korea could get oil and gas directly from Russia.
Also, Korea’s resource agency started exploring resources in Siberia, attracting a lot of expectations.
—There is enough oil buried in this area to last for at least hundreds of years.
—But I don’t know where our territory ends… I’m worried that Russia might suddenly get up and take it away.
—Don’t worry about that. The presidential office told us to explore as much as we want. Just don’t go beyond Lake Baikal.
—Wait, is our territory all east of Lake Baikal?
No one could answer that question except one person, so they all pretended not to know and focused on exploration.
The scale of the project was limited, so they formed a consortium with private companies and naturally led the rise of related stocks in KOSPI.
Jobs also increased significantly and it was called a happy spring for Koreans.
However, unlike the domestic situation, the eyes looking at Korea from abroad were only cold.
He had made so many enemies by causing so much trouble.
Especially the hatred in the Middle East reached its peak, and Saudi Arabia and UAE, which had close ties with Korea, were busy suppressing this sentiment.
They had to introduce nuclear fusion plants right away, but what would they do by setting up an opposition structure?
Saudi Arabia was looking for a source of income after oil, and Korea was rated as the best partner to lead the fourth industrial revolution.
Above all, unlike many Western countries, Korea did not impose any restrictions on exports.
—What do you want? We’ll sell anything if you pay us money.
Korea’s attitude caused severe controversy in Europe and elsewhere, but Yu Ji-ha had no intention of changing his policy.
And now he was not in a position to bow to the pressure of other countries.
In the past, he might have cared about exports, but now other countries had to care about Korea.
Even Japan, an economic powerhouse, suffered severe damage after breaking ties with Korea and regretted it in business circles.
The world was running on purely economic logic, and Korea had a considerable advantage in that field.
However, regardless of that, forces that hated Korea began to gather.
They were mainly rebel forces who were hit by drones that entered the Middle East.
In addition, Taliban from Afghanistan and former IS members joined them to form a considerable size.
The purpose of these forces was one.
—God is angry. Kill Yu Ji-ha!
Hundreds of terrorists began to target Yu Ji-ha.
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