"David Wingrove - Chung Kuo 5 - Beneath the Tree of Heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wingrove David)

only desert and barbarism. So it was for two thousand years and through sixteen great
dynasties. Chung Kuo was the Middle Kingdom, the very center of the human world,
and its emperor the "Son of Heaven," the "One Man." But in the eighteenth century
that world was invaded by the young and aggressive Western powers with their
superior weaponry and their unshakable belief in progress. It was, to the surprise of the
Han, an unequal contest, and Chinas myth of supreme strength and self-sufficiency was
shattered. By the early twentieth century ChinaтАФChung KuoтАФwas the sick old man of
the East: "a carefully preserved mummy in a hermetically sealed coffin," as Karl Marx
called it. But from the disastrous ravages of that century grew a giant of a nation,
capable of competing with the West and with its own Eastern rivals, Japan and Korea,
from a position of incomparable strength. The twenty-first century, "the Pacific
Century," as it was known even before it began, saw China become once more a world
unto itself, but this time its only boundary was space.

The War of the Two Directions

I t had begun with the assassination of the T'ang's Minister, Lwo Kang, 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 KuoтАФhad 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 non-action, wuweiтАФbut for one man such
a course of action 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 desiresтАФ the Seven for Stasis, the Dispersionists for
ChangeтАФunresolved. 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 dead,
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
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Ghosts' Torches