"David Wingrove - Chung Kuo 4 - The Stone Within" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wingrove David)

The War of the Two Directions
it HAD BEGUN with the assassination of the T'ang's Minister, Lwo K'ang, some thirteen years
earlier, the poor man blown into the next world along with his Junior Ministers while basking in the
imperial solarium. The SevenтАФthe great Lords and rulers of Chung KuoтАФ had hit back at once,
arresting one of the leading figures of the Dispersionist faction responsible for the Minister's death. But it
was not to end there. Within days of the public execution, their opponents had struck another deadly
blow, killing Li Han Ch'in, son of the T'ang, Li Shai Tung, and heir to City Europe, on the day of his
wedding to the beautiful Fei Yen.
It might have ended there, with the decision of the Seven to take no action in reprisal for Prince Han's
deathтАФto adopt a policy of peaceful nonaction, utuweiтАФbut for one man such a course could not be
borne. Taking matters into his own hands, Li Shai Tung's General, Knut Tolonen, had marched into the
House of Representatives in Weimar and killed the leader of the Dispersionists, Under-Secretary
Lehmann. It was an act almost guaranteed to tumble Chung Kuo into a bloody civil war unless the anger
of the Dispersionists could be assuaged and concessions made.
 Concessions were made, an uneasy peace maintained, but the divisions between rulers and ruled
remained, their conflicting desiresтАФthe Seven for Stasis, the Dispersionists for ChangeтАФ
unresolved. Among those concessions, the Seven had permitted the Dispersionists to build a starship,
The New Hope. As the ship approached readiness, the Dispersionists pushed things even further at
Weimar, impeaching the taiтАФthe Representatives of the Seven in the HouseтАФand effectively declaring
their independence. In response the Seven destroyed The New Hope. War was declared.
The five-year War-that-wasn't-a-War left the Dispersionists broken, their leaders killed, their
Companies confiscated. The great push for Change had been crushed and peace returned to Chung
Kuo. Or so it briefly seemed, for the War had woken older, far stronger currents of dissent. In the
depths of the City new movements began to arise, seeking not merely to change the system, but to
revolutionize it altogether. One of these factions, the Ping Two, or "Levelers," wanted to pull down the
great City of three hundred levels and destroy the Empire of the Han.
For a while the status quo had been maintained, but three of the most senior T'ang had died in the
War, leaving the Council of the Seven weaker and more inexperienced than they had been in all the long
years of their rule. When Wang Sau-leyan, the youngest son of Wang Hsien, ruler of City Africa, became
T'ang after his father's death, things looked ominous, the young man seeking to create disharmony among
the Seven. But Li Yuan, inheriting from his father, formed effective alliances with his fellow T'ang, Tsu
Ma, Wu Shih, and Wei Feng, to block Wang in Council, outvoting him four to three.
But now, looking beyond the immediate political situation, Li Yuan wants permanent solutions to the
problems of overpopulation and civil unrest. To achieve the former, he is willing to make deals with his
enemies in the AboveтАФto relax the Edict of Technological Control that has kept Change at bay for so
long, and to reopen the House at Weimar, in return for population controls. As for civil unrest, he has
devised a somewhat darker scheme: to "wire up" the whole population of Chung Kuo, so that they can
be traced and rigidly controlled.
For the first time in years, then, there is real hope that peace and stability might be achieved and chaos
staved off. But time is running out. Chung Kuo is a society badly out of balance and closeтАФvery
closeтАФto total breakdown.
In Wu Shih's great City of North America, the first signs of social unrest have already manifested
themselves in movements like the "Sons of Benjamin Franklin," and in a growing desire among the Hung
MaoтАФthe EuropeansтАФfor a new nationalism. But the problems are not merely between the rulers and
the ruled. Among the ruled there are also divisions. Divisions that run deeper than race . . .

MAJOR CHARACTERS
Ascher, EmilyтАФTrained as an economist, she was once a member of the Ping Tiao revolutionary party. After its
demise, she fled to North America where, under the alias of Mary Jennings, she got a job with the giant ImmVac