Clash of Empires: Kirov Series, #66

By John Schettler

In 2027, a powerful Chinese destroyer, Anshan, was sent on a "Freedom of Navigation" cruise through the famous Tsushima Strait—and it vanished. The Chinese blame the Japanese, but no one can solve the mystery except Director Pavel Kamenski, who visits Anton Fedorov again in Moscow.

Another mission is proposed for Kirov, and both Fedorov and Karpov are eager to get underway. For Kamenski knows what happened to Anshan, and where it is. Now he sends Karpov, Fedorov, and the mighty Kirov to go and kill the wayward ship before it can unhinge the history of the Boxer Rebellion. Yet the disappearance of Anshan  has already started another conflict in 2027, as both China and Japan refuse to back down in the East China Sea. Kirov must return to help restore order when it looks like another war is imminent when two empires, one old and one new, begin a fateful clash at sea.

In the meantime, the British Admiral Sir Edward Seymour launches an expedition to relieve the diplomatic legations in Peking, and the roots of the long enmity between China and Japan are chronicled in the First Sino- Japanese war at sea. It is a vendetta that persists even to our time and Kirov's point of origin in 2027.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Writing Shop Press
• Release date: Apr 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223586593

John Schettler

A prolific writer with 75 books, John Schettler achieved early recognition in winning the Silver Medal for Science Fiction in Foreword Magazine's annual competion, and scoring a 9.5/10 with Reader's Digest for his 5-book Time Travel series opener, Meridian. He went on to author the longest story ever written, the massive 64 volume Kirov Series, also a Time travel Military Fiction and alternate history of WWII. John's latest work is a new Epic Fantasy series, The Chronicles of Innisfail, released April of 2022.

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Table of Contents

Clash of Empires

Clash of Empires

Clash of Empires

Prologue

Part I | A Slip In Time

Part II | Anshan

Part III | Saikyo Maru

Part IV | The Fists of Righteous Harmony

Part V | Out of the Frying pan

Part VI | 天命难违 | (Destiny cannot be challenged) | The Mandate of Heaven

Part VII | Kita’s Return

Part VIII | Pungdo

Part IX | The Siberian

Part X | Renewed Hostilities

Part XI | West with the Night

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Also By John Schettler

Clash of Empires

By

John Schettler

A publication of: The Writing Shop Press

Clash of Empires, Copyright©2023, John A. Schettler

Genres:

Historical Fiction, Naval Fiction, Military Fiction, Time Travel.

"Let China Sleep

For when she wakes

The world will tremble."

—Napoleon Bonaparte

Clash of Empires

By

John Schettler

The Earth is too small, the portion of it they occupy is too big and rich, and the intercourse of nations is now too intimate, to permit the Chinese keeping China to themselves.

—Colonel Francis Younghusband

In a letter to the London Times

Clash of Empires

By

John Schettler

Prologue – All Saint’s Day

Part I – A Slip in Time

Part II – Anshan

Part III – Saikyo Maru

Part IV – The Fists of Righteous Harmony

Part V – Out of the Frying Pan

Part VI – The Mandate of Heaven

Part VII – Kita’s Return

Part VIII– Pungdo

Part IX – The Siberian

Part X – Renewed Hostilities

Part XI – West with the Night

Afterword

Prologue

All Saint’s Day

1 NOV 1897

Zhang Jia Village, Juye County, Shantung Province, China

It was a simple visit to the German Catholic Reverend Georg M. Stenz, a priest stationed in a small missionary complex in Zhang Jia Village, Shan Tung. Two Friends and fellow missionaries, Richard Henle and Franz Xaver Nies, both members of the Society of the Divine Word, had come to pay a brief visit to Reverend Stenz on All Saint’s day. This would not have happened if not for the events that ended the Second Opium War in 1860, and the Treaty of Tientsin that China was forced to sign there that permitted foreigners to live and own property in China, and to practice and preach their religion as well.

Everything in history, every perceived gain made by the reaching arms of Empire, must come with a price. In that case, it was the British Empire that had prevailed over the Imperial Qing Dynasty, the so called Middle Kingdom (Zhongguo), seeing itself as the center of civilization and culture between heaven and earth. The Jesuits had set the template when they first came to Asia in Japan, establishing small enclaves and Missionaries there. After 1860, with the doors to China forcibly thrown open by the British, all the same European powers that would spend the first half of the coming new century at war with one another, were now eager to carve their own little enclave into China’s immense landscape.

This little preserve was just a small German mission serving Chinese converts to Christianity in a humdrum village of little importance—except for this night, when 30 armed men would burst into the mission a little before midnight to express their displeasure over foreign religions contaminating their society and country.

Breaking into the guest room, the two visitors were accosted and viciously stabbed to death. It was ironic that they had all taken part in a Requiem Mass before turning in that night, a Mass for the Dead, which the two of them were destined to join. Reverend Stenz himself had been sleeping in another room, and when he heard the break-in and screaming, he hid himself and survived until friendly Chinese converts arrived at the mission and the assailants retreated.

Reverend Stenz believed the bandits were not there to rob them, but to exact revenge, for due to his sermons and diligence, two wealthy converts had refused to pay for local temple feasts celebrating a religion they no longer believed in. So the foreign Priests, now called Foreign Devils in the minds of the assailants, were reacting against a perceived contamination of their society—the growing Christian presence in Northern China. It was thought they were members of the Dadao Hui, or the Great Knife Society, and that night, they put their knives to what they perceived as a good use. They were but one of many other reactionary groups coalescing in a wild gyre that would soon become known as The Boxer Rebellion, because some of the rebels were ardent practitioners of Martial arts, which the Europeans saw as a kind of Boxing.

So it was that a religious dispute, and the murder of two German Priests, became a spark that would soon set off a chain of events which radically altered the course of Chinese history, as historian Joseph W. Esherick put it.

If there was one man who knew well enough how small things could tumble forward along the Meridians of time and become grand events, it was a quiet natured, studious Captain in the Siberian Navy, Anton Fedorov.

The Captain had begun as a Navigator, promoted at sea through a series of unbelievable events, until his long saga finally found a safe harbor again and dropped anchor in just one more port that had once been a part of China, Haishenwai to the Chinese, then Urajio to the Japanese but now Vladivostok, which meant: the Lord of the East. From there, Fedorov had gone to Moscow to avail himself of material in the great libraries until he was recruited to undertake a mission by a former Director of the KGB, Pavel Kamenski. He was about to have a kind of Déjà vu of that time.

So it was no surprise to him when the Director would call on him again. Because something else had stuck a darning needle to slip a stitch in the loom of time—and it was something that needed a ship to cure this time—a fighting ship. Director Kamenski would soon find Fedorov again in Moscow, and prevail upon him to return to his old ship again and undertake a mission of great importance.

Part I

A Slip In Time

The moment you step into a garden and begin to cultivate and prune, you become a killer.

––––––––

― Andrew J. Robinson

Chapter 1

Kamenski

A knock on your hotel room door after midnight was never an occasion to make anyone feel safe—especially when they had been recently told their life was in danger.

It was just as it had happened before, a quiet knock that would lead to another amazing sortie on the most dangerous ship in the world. Captain Anton Fedorov looked up from the book he had been reading, inclining his head. He often read before sleep to clear his own thoughts and escape into the imagery and story. The knock was a discordant reminder of the real world outside the world of his research into history and the consequences of Kirov’s actions in the past. It was cold, untimely, and foreboding. Who could this be so late in the evening? He had been warned to keep a low profile, be wary, and to have a weapon at hand, but Fedorov was not the sort of man to greet a visitor with a loaded pistol. So he just got up and went to the door. He didn’t even look through the peep hole, opening it to see the sheepish smile of an elderly man beneath a thick felt hat. Fedorov Smiled. It was Director Kamenski.

The smell of recently smoked tobacco was still surrounding Kamenski like an aura, and Fedorov welcomed him in.

Forgive my coming here at such a late hour, said the Director. I was hoping to speak with you before you turned in.

Something urgent? asked Fedorov, realizing that the last time Kamenski came to him like this it was to first warn him that his life was in danger, and then to recruit him on a mission to save the distant future of earth from a strange invader.[1] So Fedorov inquired: Another invasion to settle, Director?

Of a sort, said the Director, settling into the chair near the small table where a samovar held warm tea. Fedorov had taken his overcoat and hat, and set them lightly over the back of an easy chair near the sofa.

We have a small problem, said Kamenski, but you know how small things can become quite bothersome if not attended.

What sort of problem? Fedorov was hoping this visit would have nothing to do with their last mission, the Skeletals, and he was relieved when Kamenski said he could put all that out of his mind.

This is rather more up your alley, as it is said. A little knot in the history that needs mending.

What history? Are you speaking of our interventions in The Second World War? He was thinking that Kamenski had come to speak of some unforeseen consequence arising from that intervention.

No, not that history. This is something earlier.

That set Fedorov at ease, for he was one to take much blame on himself for their many interventions in WWII. They had fought to preserve these hours and days, in the future that arose from all they did in that war, with a modern naval conflict that was still fresh in Fedorov’s mind. At first he was relieved when Kamenski cleared that recent history as the source of the problem, then Fedorov realized what he had actually said.

Something earlier? How much earlier?

That was dangerous. He had learned that the consequences to any intervention in Time would ripple out like small waves in a pond when you threw in a stone. And just like those waves, they would not all propagate out in the same direction, but in all directions. In terms of Time Mechanics, an arcane science that Fedorov had become all too familiar with over the years, that meant that consequences from an intervention could ripple forward into an unseen future, and also flow backwards along the same continuum, a phenomenon known as Backwash.

Not far... Let me see, You first turned up in 1941, and also spent some time in 1940.

Yes but we jumped around quite a bit on those last missions. We visited the Russian Civil War, The First World War, all to clean up something or another, or tamp down Raptor incursions—a lot of it having to do with Ivan Volkov. But I thought we put that man to rest.

That you did, which is why I haven’t bothered you about the fact that you’ve been rooming in this same hotel for the last three months.

Then my life is no longer in danger?

Well, not from Volkov. Yes, you settled that well enough.

From someone else?

Mister Fedorov, I would have to answer that yes for every person I know. The world is, after all, a dangerous place. But if you are suggesting that there are others gunning for you as Volkov was, then no, I am not aware of any such threat, and I have men watching you—for your safety, in any case. I came here because of a glitch in the history prior to World War Two, and it has led to a rather alarming development that I think you would understand all too well.

I see... So what period of the history are we talking about here?

You will know it best as the Boxer Rebellion. Shall we say about 1900? Right at the turn of the century.

Yes, said Fedorov, But the Boxer rebellion was a bad tooth with deep roots in the history of the 19th Century. It was a reaction in China against Foreign interference with their politics, trade, culture and even religion. It started with small isolated incidents and became quite a conflagration.

Then you know this history?

Somewhat, and I have books on the subject as well.

Excellent, but I think it will need more than books. You see, there’s been an anomaly.

What kind of anomaly?

Something you will also be quite familiar with, as it involves a ship.

A Ship?

"Yes, and a rather dangerous ship too. Renhai Class. Did you happen to catch the news item three days ago?"

Sorry, I’ve had my nose in history books the last weeks.

"Well, the Chinese seem to have lost one of their hot new destroyers, Renhai Class."

A Type 055? That’s a big deal. What happened to it?

That’s the mystery, Kamenski’s eyes darkened, and he reached for his pipe. Do you mind if I smoke in here?

I wouldn’t mind, but I think the Hotel would be upset. This is a non-smoking suite.

I see. It can wait. This ship, Fedorov. Number three in the class, well, it just seems to have vanished. I put my people on it, and we’ve drawn a big fat zero. The Chinese Navy has been looking for it for the last three days as well, unsuccessfully. As you might expect, there are rumors flying about intelligence circles. Some say it may have had an encounter with an unfriendly submarine. Others theorize it had some mechanical problem, or that there may have been an accident involving munitions handling that damaged the ship. Well, if anyone was to get to the bottom of something like this, it would be my people.

Russian intelligence?

They’re rather diligent, but no, I am speaking now of people from my native Meridian in the future. You see, while you call me Director because of my past employment with the KGB, my current position is something more, Director of Outcomes and Consequences, Temporal Division Intelligence—in my time.

You mean in the future... The distant future of this time line.

Exactly. Don’t worry now. It’s secure after our little disagreement with the Skeletals. Thank you again for your able assistance in that. But I figured that if any news on what happened to this Chinese ship does turn up, the future might be the best place to look. So I took a little trip.

You mean in time now, Director. Yes?

Yes indeed. Home again. Come to find out, I was finally able to get a line on this ship, but it remains an open Nexus Point. That’s why it was difficult to get definitive information.

You mean it is not resolved, even in your time?

In a manner of speaking. There was no accident, no hidden submarine, and wreckage of this ship is not found for centuries, and in fact may never be found. But I think I know where it went.

Now Fedorov began to make associations, like a card player sorting suits in his hand.

What would that ship have to do with the Boxer Rebellion? You mean it’s shifted backwards in time?

Sound familiar? I knew you would be just the man to see on this—you and Admiral Karpov, of course.

Fedorov waited, wanting to hear where that was leading this conversation. You see, Mister Fedorov, I think this event will need a ship to mend properly—and you have a ship, do you not?

"You’re speaking of Kirov now? Well, it’s not my ship, Director. It belongs to the Free Siberian State."

"Of course, but you are an officer on that ship, even if you might be on extended leave now. Your friend and commanding Officer, Mister Karpov, would be very interested in this mission. You see, we cannot allow this anomaly to stand. It will become too much of a Free Radical in that history, and the consequences, at least as predicted by our people in the future, could be quite severe. Well, just think, Fedorov. Assume you’re the Captain of that destroyer, number three in the class, the Anshan, and three days ago your ship undergoes something of a shift in time, much like your experiences with Kirov."

"But that was because of Rod 25—and that accident aboard the Orel. Why would this ship shift?"

Yes, Rod-25 catalyzed the movement of your ship, but something else moved this one, and we aren’t clear as to what it could have been, even in my time. Reviewing the period in question, our people detected a rather large anomaly there recently, about 60 years earlier and a Grand Mal, but then it suddenly reversed itself, and the whole Meridian reverted back to a familiar course. But it was not exactly playing out as it should have. It was very strange.... Until this ship suddenly appeared in June of 1900. We believe there may be agents at large in that earlier history, and I think I can put names to them.

Who are they? Surely not another incarnation of Ivan Volkov?

No, no, he’s been put to rest. But the name Sir Roger Ames should be familiar to you. Yes?

"The Duke of Elvington? Well yes, he was with us on Baikal all through that mission to Antarctica and the north polar regions as well."

So he was. But this man is somewhat of a meddler. One of our people, in fact. He’s been called back for disciplinary action, but has not returned. We were going to send agents back to look for him, and his associate as well, a Mister Fortier, but then this matter of the missing Chinese warship came up, and now we think it will need a good deal more than a few agents out to recall a pair of Rogue Walkers.

"Walkers? That’s what you people call another traveler in time? Then I know about 700 of them—the crew of my ship. Why would you need Kirov to go back and look for Sir Roger?"

"Actually we don’t. That’s not the mission. We need Kirov to go see about something else, and mend a pending anomaly. We’ll deal with this fellow Ames ourselves, if we can find the man again."

So he’s disappeared as well?

Did you return the keys you borrowed from those men, Ames and Fortier?

Yes, that was our agreement.

And do you recall which keys they were, Mister Fedorov?

I believe they were number three and number five.

Ah, yes, the Selene Horse and Rosetta Stone Keys. The number three key was very difficult to come by. How did Ames pull that off?

He got it from Elena Fairchild—traded her the number two key for it, which he already had in his possession, by some means he never discussed.

Yes, that was why we picked up anomalous readings on Waterloo, and then later in Zululand. He and his associate have been mucking about in the history, but at least they still have the good sense to clean up their mess. Most Meridians revert to normal after they leave them.

Oh yes, I know all about that. He calls it a reset.

"Only this time, something went amiss. There was no reset, and we began getting alarms and warnings on our Heisenberg Wave predictors a week ago. Of course we started looking at the source, and quickly narrowed it down to the latter half of the 19th Century. Then we identified a Grand Anomaly. It was in the waters off the China coast, right in the middle of the Opium War in 1841 to be precise. That was the Grand Mal Anomaly I mentioned, but then it dissipated as if nothing had happened, like a Taifun that suddenly lost its strength."

It reset? I thought you said something was amiss with that.

The Anomaly seems to have cured itself, as to the general reset of interventions made in that war—that was where we have a problem. Yet that is a matter for our field agents to solve.

I have a very good idea, Director, that would be the doings of Sir Roger Ames. He’s been wagering on the outcome of events and crisis points in British military history—Waterloo, Isandlwana and the Zulu Campaign, the Opium Wars. Now you are telling me there’s some problem with the Boxer Rebellion?

Yes, we picked up an anomaly there. As I say, this Ames fellow is usually quite fastidious. He resets the table very nicely after his meddling. But not this time—not in the Opium Wars.

That gave Fedorov pause. You mean he failed to reset the history? Not like the Sir Roger I knew.

Indeed. Well it wasn’t his fault. There were two men at large there, the other man being a Mister Fortier. But something happened to him, right at the end of that war.

Fedorov waited, the most obvious question heavy in his eyes.

"He died, Mister Fedorov, and before any of the meddling was reset, which meant that it could not be reset, as that has to be a willful act by both the meddlers. I hope you follow me."

"Yes, and that was most unfortunate, but what I don’t connect here is what all of this has to do with Kirov. Are you asking me go try and take Kirov back, or Baikal, and intervene to mend the meddling they did?"

"No, not at all I want you to go deal with this Chinese ship that’s gone missing, the Anshan. Sorry if I wasn’t clear earlier."

The ship has regressed? You have hard evidence of that?

Let’s just say it’s been written, and our equipment was able to sample that data stream. Nothing is finalized yet, because that Nexus Point is still open, and these plans may have something to do with that. But that could change, so this mission is somewhat urgent—time sensitive, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Does Karpov know about this?

Not yet. I wanted to come to you first. Might you break this news with him for me?

Of course. Very well, Director. You were of great assistance to us during our own little saga, and I will be happy to do anything possible for you.

"Really? Do you realize what it entails? The Anomaly will have to be removed from that Meridian—with extreme prejudice—and the Anomaly is the ship, Anshan. We don’t want the ship back in its native time again either, not here again. You people have been very good in keeping quiet about what happened with Kirov, but will the crew of this ship be similarly disciplined?"

Our crew keeps the secret well, because we learned the hard way, Director, that ‘loose lips sink ships,’ to quote the American slogan from WWII.

"Well, sinking ships is just the ticket here, Mister Fedorov. That may be your only solution to this problem. Anshan isn’t where it’s supposed to be, and we don’t want it coming home again either. Understand?"

Where exactly is it?

I’ll forward you the last temporal coordinates we had on the ship—in the year 1900. We still have no idea how it slipped through, but these things happen, as you know very well. Your job will be to get back there and clean this mess up for us. Believe me, the history you so ardently defend will love you for this, even if it may be a hard fate for that Chinese Warship.

"Why Kirov? Why not send back an American ship?"

"Well, we can’t for starters. And I don’t think an American ship would get the job done. We certainly can’t send back an aircraft carrier, and their Burke Class destroyers are, well, outclassed by this Type 055.

Right, Director. That class is very dangerous. But a US attack sub should do the job.

Perhaps, but that drags the Americans into all this time travel business,; a bit awkward. Yes? Can you handle her?

"With Kirov? Karpov will say he’ll have no problem, but Karpov likes to boast."

I understand. Kamenski reached into his waistcoat pocket and produced an envelope. I took the liberty of booking you on a flight back to Vladivostok. There’s no rush I suppose—as long as the Nexus remains open—but if it closes, then we may have some real trouble to deal with.

Explain.

The ship is missing—its in 1900 now, but until it finishes its cruise there or moves to some other time, its interventions, if any, will not be final. You need to get to it before it does something serious. Why, it could upset all the events underway that year in the Boxer Rebellion. If the nexus closes, then anything that ship did will send forward wave upon wave of changes that may snowball, to mix metaphors, and change a good deal more than anyone ever believed possible. The close years won’t notice these Heisenberg Waves, as we call them, but the farther they propagate into the future, the more severe the changes will be, like a tsunami gathering strength as it washes ashore. As you very well know, one thing leads to another. The damage gets worse the farther into the future the waves go. So a stitch in time can save nine. Yes?

What time is that flight?

"08:00. I hope that’s not too early, but it’s an eight