Chapter Thirty-Four (Patreon)

Mukden had changed. Two years ago the crown jewel of Manchuria had been a Qing-ruled city like any other: large, heavily populated, covered in ancient glory, and utterly wasteful. Now it bustled with industry.

Alexander arrived in a train station that rivaled Irkutsk’s. The trainyard could fit hundreds of locomotives and more than ten thousand cars, and seemed well on its way to meeting that capacity. Alexander could see people in work trousers and tunics breaking apart trains and rearranging cars. On the rare occasion a door was opened he could see the varied cargo. Liaoning sent cotton and fresh produce. Korea sent silk, tea, and metal. Irkutsk sent steel, Chita sent weapons, and the northern Pacific sent furs and giant stacks of lumber loaded onto flat cars. All of these gathered in Mukden, Crown Jewel of Manchuria and the Eastern Gate.

The fast-growing city seemed eager to earn its titles. Hovels and huts that had built up in shantytowns over the centuries were gone, replaced by large square buildings that combined the traditional siheyuan with multistory, multifamily housing. Divided into apartments, the novyy siheyuan maintained the Chinese tradition of enclosed open spaces by means of a large, communal courtyard while at the same time turning the traditional long-and-flat mansions into homes for dozens of families. With newly installed running water and sewage systems there was little risk that such dense housing would lead to disease–after all, no one needed to throw their excrement out the window anymore.

Housing was not the only change that the past two years brought Mukden. In addition to the ever-present railways there were canneries, steelworks, warehouses, and factories that ranged from spinning local cotton and silk to a new state-funded porcelain house. Two of the latter, considering the Korean and Chinese porcelain-makers refused to reveal their techniques to each other. They refused to reveal them to Alexander either, but so long as they kept to their bargain–high pay in exchange for teaching more workers–Alexander didn’t care if they made the porcelain from the bones of the dead.

As ever Alexander’s tour of the city started with the Cathedral. He had expected a skeletal building, not yet half complete and constructed in some medley of Chinese and Russian styles. It would no doubt be a large building, complete with colorful ornamentation as demanded by both cultural traditions.

That was not the building Alexander saw–or rather, it was not the only one. There was certainly a building in the outline of a church, scaffolding pressed up against twenty-foot tall walls that yet promised to grow taller.

Sidled up to the banks of the Hunhe River was another building. Where the slowly-forming cathedral was already showing a blend of Russian and Chinese styles with its marble-faced walls and long roofs of golden tiles, the other building promised an entirely different sort of hybrid. Its shape–a long arch that gave the appearance of the Hunhe River moving to avoid the new building–was neoclassical. The actual building–a long and flat wood-faced structure with five towers made of stacked roofs (one for each of the Five Elements of Chinese philosophy and medicine). The arched building stretched for an entire vyersta, the outer arms of each side halting just behind the cathedral. Most of the building was under construction, only a small section at the center–notably home to one of the towers, reaching five stories in height and ending in a large dome and cupola. The courtyard was likewise being built, large tracts of dirt filled with bushes, saplings, and flowers and separated by arshin*-wide brick walkways.

An Asian man in a black cossack greeted Alexander in the brick-floored courtyard before the growing cathedral. He bowed deeply, far from a kowtow yet far more than most Europeans would tolerate.

“Your Imperial Highness,” the man greeted. “On behalf of the Church I welcome you gladly to Mukden. I further convey the most sincere apologies of His Eminence the Archbishop for not meeting Your Imperial Highness here, whose attention and visit he is eternally grateful for. If it is in accordance with your wishes, I would provide guidance to His Eminence’s current location.”

“Where is he?”

“His Eminence the Archbishop is in the hospital, your Imperial Highness,” the man answered readily. “He often spends his time giving hope to those who need it.”

Alexander looked to the sprawling building. A hospital. Nothing won souls like saving lives. Between the agricultural and industrial development on one hand and the free saving of life on the other, Alexander would be surprised if any pro-Qing sentiment remained within the next decade. Conversion may take time, but it certainly gave the Church (and the Empire) a positive impression.

“If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed from the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

“Your knowledge of scripture is most impressive your Imperial Highness,” the man complimented. “Though I have dedicated much of my life to memorization I am shamed to admit that my recall of the Good Word has yet to extend past the Old Testament."

“How long have you been studying?”

“A little over a year, your Imperial Highness. It was a most desperate time for my family. I had showed some skill in memorization as a small child, and so was sent to school so that I could attend the Imperial Examinations. What little my father had was sold. What little monies my uncles, aunts, and cousins had was contributed. I had only just reached the appropriate age for the Examinations when your Imperial Highness’ army came. In an instant all our efforts were made useless. My father and uncles left for a Mir, and I struggled to find work in the city. I know nothing of farming, for that had not been the path on which my life was set. Yet neither did I know of machinery. Only construction work was left. I worked upon the cathedral, and listened to his Eminence’s sermons. I fell in love with the God-Man Christ, with his willingness to sacrifice all for the sake of mere mortals. At once I wished to know more, and came to his Eminence of bended knees, begging that he teach me to read the holy tongue. He raised me from my knees, and said to me, ‘we are all brothers before Christ. It is my duty to teach, as it is yours to learn. One day, with work, you too may teach.’ Such has been my goal ever since.”

“A worthy aim,” Alexander said. If nothing else the man would be a useful tool in establishing the sort of Church Alexander could use. A Church that focused on pastoral work and obedience to the tsar.

*Russian unit of measure, approximately 2⅓ feet or 71.12 cm