Tyranny of Steel

Itami sat in a building set within the northeast borders of the Ming Dynasty. She had a frustrated expression on her pretty face as she sat across from the Joseon King. Their discussion was being mediated by the Ming Emperor. The trio of Asian monarchs had gathered today to discuss a solution to the ongoing war in the Korean Peninsula. 

Six months had passed since Berengar's victory day celebrations had ended, and while the Kaiser was busy mechanizing his armed forces in preparations for his invasion of the Anangpur Empire. Itami was stuck in a brutal stalemate. 

Despite her best efforts, the Japanese Empress and her soldiers had failed to push into the north. Every attempt to do so was met with a fierce exchange of gunfire between the Joseon Insurgents and the Imperial Japanese Army.

Tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers lie dead in this campaign, and hundreds more fell with each day. She had even been forced to withdraw her soldiers from the occupied cities in the south and move them northward towards the front lines. A strategy which ultimately backfired.

As her forces redeployed from the south, to support the war effort in the North, the German Empire made use of their Joseon proxies to arm, and supply would-be rebels in the Japanese occupied territory. Fighting an insurgency on two fronts, Itami was forced to withdraw her forces south of what was once known as the 38th Parallel in her past life, and deal with those who dared to rebel against her rule. 

Since the Japanese Empress did not have the manpower to fight a two front war, she had begrudgingly met with the Joseon King to settle their dispute in a way that favored her Empire. She sipped from the tea provided by the Ming Emperor with a scowl on her face before pointing towards the map, and the line she had chosen to divide her enemy's kingdom with.

"Everything north of this line will belong to the Joseon Kingdom. As for the South, all shall recognize its annexation into the Japanese Empire. These are the terms I have decided upon, and nothing in this world shall compel me to change my mind. Either take the peace I offer you, or I will crush your pathetic little Kingdom even if it's the last thing I do!"

Though the Joseon King wanted to refuse Itami's offer, before he could do so, one of his delegates, who whispered something into his ear, quickly nudged him in the ribs. He nodded his head in silence three times before agreeing to Itami's terms. An act which ultimately surprised the young woman. 

"Very well, if these are the terms you present to me, I shall accept them... For now... However, make no mistake, one day the lands you have stolen from me shall return to my dynasty's hands. I do hope I will be around to see your face when such a reality comes to existence." 

After saying this, the Joseon King rose from his seat and bowed to the Ming Emperor before leaving the room along with his delegation. As for Itami, she merely pouted. Though she had gained some territory with iron reserves, as well as other industrial resources, she felt as if she had lost to a certain somebody in the far west. 

While her proxy in the Bengal Empire had not yet even begun the conquest of his neighbors, The Kaiser had swiftly deployed his forces to the Korean Peninsula, and countered her invasion. She now needed to fight guerillas in the territory she occupied, all the while ensuring that the iron ore was harvested and successfully shipped back to the Japanese mainland.

For now, she would give up on her ambitions to conquer Northern Korea, and instead focus her efforts on the territory she controlled. The purpose of her invasion was not total victory, but gaining the raw materials she needed to modernize her military. She had succeeded in that endeavor to some extant and thus she could bite the proverbial bullet, so to speak. 

Itami thanked the Ming Emperor before leaving the meeting herself. She spent the next few hours on a ship back to Busan, where her control was most secure. Upon disembarking from her vessel, Itami was met with a messenger from her Army who had a grim look on his face. Before the woman could ask him what was wrong, he blurted out the answer. 

"Itami-sama, a situation has occurred in your absence..."

Itami could only gaze at the frightened soldier's expression and assume the worst. She sighed heavily before leading the man into a nearby building and instructing him to inform her of what had happened while she was negotiating with the Joseon King. 

---

While Itami was busy meeting with the Joseon King and the Ming Emperor to discuss an end to the current hostilities. Her soldiers were conducting anti-insurgency operations in a village outside Gwangju. As with many of the towns in the south, the commoners had taken up arms against their Japanese occupiers.

Germany supplied these arms through their trade routes with the Ming Empire, that had opened up after the Ming Prince Zhu Zhi returned to his homeland and successfully convinced his father to agree to Berengar's terms. 

After nearly a year of intense combat operations in the Korean Peninsula, the soldiers of Itami's army were becoming filled with paranoia and angst. A year ago, these men were simple peasants, attending to rice fields in Japan.

Now, they were soldiers, armed with weapons they did not fully understand, and sent to a foreign land to fight against an unknown enemy for the sake of securing iron. Whether it was in the Taebaek mountains or the streets of the cities, these conscripts would randomly come under fire by weapons that rivaled their own.

These men were promised a quick war that would inevitably result in a total victory for the Japanese Empire. And yet now their Empress, a woman who had risen to her position by killing the previous divine Imperial Family, was negotiating with the Joseon King for partial control over the peninsula. 

Thus, one might be somewhat understanding when they realized that the Japanese soldiers who were slugging through a random village were drunk from sake, high from opium, and paranoid beyond belief as they marched forward, wondering when and from where they would be opened fire upon. 

A young Corporal's dilated eyes were darting back and forth, throughout the village, looking for any sign of potential attack. His heart was racing, perhaps from the opium he had just smoked, as he raised his rifle and clutched it tightly to his chest. As if it were his lifeline. While he panicked, his NCO, who was heavily intoxicated by an entire bottle worth of sake, laughed at him.

"Tanaka-dono, if you keep that up, you're going to get me anxious! The village has already been searched for contraband. We are merely here as a show of force! So quit freaking me out!"

The man named Tanaka did not sigh in relief, instead he continued to look across the village, wondering if what he was seeing was reality. Just as he was about to respond to his NCO, a loud thunder crackled in the air, causing him to raise his weapon and fire aimlessly into the village. 

Despite there being no casualties inflicted upon the Japanese soldiers, they panicked from the sound of gunfire and instead fired randomly towards the nearby buildings, hoping to hit the unseen threat. Instead, the bullets shredded through the thatched homes, and killed any living thing that they made contact with. 

Women, children, the elderly. The bullets did not discriminate, nor did the men who fired them. The Captain, who was a veteran of Itami's army, tried to rally his forces in a desperate attempt to maintain order, but it was too late. With the first shot fired, men like Tanaka, who were hopped up on some illicit substance, had no rhyme or reason. They simply shot at whatever moved. 

While the Soldiers of the Japanese Army fired randomly into the village, the Joseon villagers began to flee their homes. However, the sudden exodus of people caused the Japanese soldiers to panic, and they quickly opened fire upon the unarmed civilians, massacring them on the spot. 

Without knowing where the insurgents were, if there even were any, the Japanese soldiers lobbed their newly issued grenades which were modelled on the WW2 era Type 97 into the buildings, blasting anyone who remained behind into meat chunks, and lighting their homes ablaze. 

It was only after this massacre was concluded, that the Japanese soldiers investigated the scene to find that there were no armed villagers to begin with, and instead the explosion that had started the aimless killing was the result of a little boy playing with a firecracker.

When Itami learned that her soldiers had slaughtered an entire village, down to the last woman and child for no valid reason, she would personally decapitate the one hundred men involved as a public display of her authority, an act which would only worsen the morale of the Japanese Army.