A Chinese girl secretly starts World War I.

THE CLAW OF THE DRAGON

by Ni Joseph © 2024

July 31, 1914

Most Honorable Shining Sun:

The Eagle Flies To The Sea,

Waking The Bulldog,

To Join The Cock and Bear

And Destroy Them All.

The Dragon Will Rise Again.

Your Eternal Servant,

The Golden Claw

A young and skinny Chinese girl in an open red silk robe sealed the barely dry note and handed it to the gaunt, pale young man in an open shirt as he leaned forward, halfway through a hidden door.  She kissed him slowly on the mouth, pressing the note into his hand, and he held her close until she let go.  She bowed her head low, avoiding his bright blue eyes, and locked the hidden door behind him before looking at herself in the full length wall mirror and hearing a key click in the front door’s lock.  She turned, closing her robe over her taut body, and kneeled on the ornate wool carpet in front of her, her large dark brown eyes low but wide open. 

“I knew England would fall into our trap,” a voice said, pushing open the thick oak door and waving away the pale old men in military uniforms hovering around him.  “Now we will show those shopkeepers what a fighting navy can do.” 

The hunchbacked and middle aged man limped into the small apartment and managed to straighten up.  “Yes.”  He looked past her, bolting the door shut behind him, and glanced at the mirror with a wink and a nod.  “The English have thrown down the gauntlet.  And now we will show them and those damned frogs how to fight as we stand tallest in the world.”  He smiled at himself and tweaked his elaborate moustache.  “They will cry at the beating we give them but thank us for leading them to a better tomorrow.” 

He turned to her now, taking her chin into his right hand, and caressed it for a full minute before looking down right into her eyes. 

“This war has been coming for years, and now we will make them bleed.  First Paris, then London, then all of Europe and Russia will see the virtue of Prussian wisdom.”  He stared at all of her, smiling more, and admired her mouth.  “I know you don’t understand, but you savages will thank us for bringing you civilization.”  He let go of her chin, leering now, and laughed again.  “No more dog eating, feet binding and whatever other humiliations you visit upon each other.”

She watched as he looked at himself again in the mirror.

“Emperor and savior of civilization.”  He patted her head, standing right in front of her, and never took his eyes off himself.

She stood up slowly then with a tightening smile and started undoing the top gold buttons of his simple but sleek and hand tailored green wool army jacket.

“Of course, I’ll need several new uniforms once we win the war,” he said to the mirror while ignoring her and nodded to himself.  “Something in blue would look good.”

She loosened his uniform and removed the rest of his clothes slowly and carefully, trying to avoid looking at the pale skin and the withered, useless left arm hanging from his crippled body.  She grazed the edge of it for a fraction of a second and winced for a fraction more before laying out all of his clothes on a new and large oak chest at the foot of the hand carved queen sized bed.  He turned away from the mirror, nodding to her, and she removed her own robe, taking in a deep breath of air, and pressed her body against his.

He turned to the mirror again, watching her naked back with a growing smile.

She kept her face calm and controlled her breathing as her small and delicate hands moved slowly up and down his body as he stepped even closer to her, and she kneeled on the floor right in front of him. 

“That’s right, my little whore.”  He patted her head again, turning back to the mirror, but then closed his eyes and leaned forward.  “Some things you do understand.”  He held his breath.  “Perfectly.”

“I understand everything and always have.”

His eyes opened wide, and he choked on his breath at her German.

“I’ve always understood.”  She yanked him forward, throwing him to the floor, and leaped up as he looked right at her and she kicked him in the head.  “Since Moltke gave me to you four years ago, saying, ‘to indulge in pleasures that are beneath the empress,’ I’ve understood every single word.”  She smiled at his painful groan as he tried to get up from the floor, and she kicked him in the stomach.  “I’ve understood how pathetic and helpless you were since you first touched me.”  She kicked him again.  “How scared you were of anything different, and how you drove away smarter men who could’ve pointed you to a better future if you hadn’t felt so small and inferior to them.”  She shook her head as he looked up at her with even wider eyes and kicked him in the chest, turning him over.  “I’ve kept you happy and distracted and used your stupidity and arrogance to make you do whatever I wanted.”  She nodded to herself with a smile.  “And I’ve made sure that you pursued your destructive obsession with the English, and never saw your ministers’ recommendations to avoid war with France and Russia.”

He tried to catch his breath, and she kicked him in the chest again, knocking him all the way down on the floor. 

“You were so easy to manipulate.”  She laughed.  “Ignoring your better ministers, believing you were right because of your birth and crying like a baby when the world mocked your stupidity.”  She looked down at him, kicking his useless left arm, and smiled at his scream.  “I could’ve done almost nothing, and you would’ve dragged Europe into a stupid, senseless war.”

She kicked him in the arm again, and he curled into a ball, screaming more, and clutched it with his right hand. 

“Now you’ve got what you’ve always wanted, and it will destroy your precious Prussia and the husk of the Dual Monarchy.”  She pulled out a man’s suit and overcoat hidden in a wooden box under the bed and began to dress.  “You’ve guaranteed the fall of Europe just like we always planned.”

“What?”  He tried to get up on his knees, but she reached down to grab his hair in her hand and knocked his head into the floor.

“Your soldiers shouldn’t have raped and plundered their way through Peiping as they destroyed the Boxers.”  She stared at the blood from his forehead with the hint of another smile and kept dressing.  “You all should’ve stayed out of affairs that were none of your concern.”

“No.”  He stared at the floor, breathing hard, and felt the blood on his forehead.  “We didn’t...”

“Europe shocked us with its armies arriving so quickly to save its ambassadors.”  She pulled him up by his hair again, taking in his wide eyes and labored breathing, and struck him across the face, twice, and then dropped him.  “We realized how truly powerful and dangerous you were then.”  She nodded and then smiled.  “But we also saw how much you envied and hated each other, and how we could use that to destroy you.”

She pulled his head back and slammed his face into the floor, with blood splattering from his nose all over the rug. 

“You’re so convinced of German superiority that you can’t see that the world will slip away from Europe’s grasp as your armies destroy one another.”  She spat on him.  “Germany may well cripple France and Russia, but the English will bleed you dry just like they did Napoleon one hundred years ago.”

He coughed up blood, looking at and then past her, but failed to get up.  “We took Paris before, and London will…”

“Bismarck took Paris because he attacked only France, and he got lucky.”  She waved him away and kept dressing.  “You’ve already sent your armies to Russia, and they’ll cross Belgium tomorrow or the next day.  In a week the English will create a third front, choking you off from the sea and draining the life from you.”  She looked into his watery eyes.  “You can tell yourself whatever you like, but in six months, maybe a year, Europe will be a graveyard, and it will all be your fault.”

He collapsed back into a heap on the floor.  “They’ll lie down when they see our guns.”

“And you’ll see theirs.  And all of your armies will fire every bullet, dull every bayonet and bloody every fist until all of the soldiers are dead and gone.”  She laughed and looked past him at a framed map of the world on the wall with Europe at its center.  “In a generation Europe will be nothing but ruins on the western edge of Asia.”

“No.”  He looked away from her and turned to stare at the map.  “No, I’ll call my armies back.  Cousins George and Nicky will listen to reason.”  He tried and failed to get back up on his knees.  “Together we will…”

“Die.”  She shrugged, not even looking at him, and started walking around the small apartment as she finished dressing.  “You sealed your fate the moment you gave the order to mobilize your armies.”  She stopped, looking at the world map again, and laughed out loud.  “Your soldiers can’t and won’t stop, and you’d know that if you had listened to your ministers and generals for even a minute.”  She turned, shaking her head at him, and smiled even more.  “All that waits are their deaths and your subjugation to the Middle Kingdom.

“No.  You coolies aren’t even human.”  He managed to look up from the floor, wiping blood from his face, and just met her eye.  “You won’t…”

She stepped back quickly across the small apartment and kicked him again and again, making him scream, and doubled him back into his ball.

“We ruled for millennia before you white devils rose from the mud, and soon you will be nothing more than a historical stain,” she said, yelling, and kicked him one more time.  “With our boot on your throats, we’ll return to the glory that was and is China.  And you?  You’ll be nothing more than the cabbage eaters you always were.”

“No.”  He managed to get out and looked up again.  “You won’t get away with this.” 

“I already have.”  She looked right into his eyes and pointed down at him.  “You won’t tell a soul that your yellow, slant eyed whore destroyed your empire as you moaned your pleasures.”  She laughed.  “You can’t even believe it now after all I’ve just told you, and once I’m gone you won’t be able to forget it fast enough.  It’ll be like I was never here.”

Tears streaked down his face.

“I should kill you for what you made me do in the last four years.  But it’s all worth it knowing that you’ll watch as Germany and Europe destroy each other, knowing that in a generation you will all be serving the Middle Kingdom and knowing that we will be the masters and you will be the slaves.”

He sobbed, and she stood up straight, squaring her shoulders, and opened the door hidden in the back wall of the apartment. 

“I want you to remember my face when your empire dies, and you have nothing left but nightmares.”  She stood over him.  “I want you to remember how a Chinese girl destroyed you and your world.”

She turned her back on him, leaving him crying in a little ball on the floor, and shut the hidden door behind her without a sound.

Seven years later he could think of nothing else as an old Englishman listened to his story for a third time and reread the handwritten note in Mandarin. 

“That’s quite a tale, your majesty.”

Wilhelm II, the former Kaiser of Germany, frowned.  “You don’t believe me?”

“I do,” the Englishman said, putting the note in his suit jacket pocket, and looked up at the former Kaiser.  “And we won’t let this stand.”

The former Kaiser’s eyes narrowed on the Englishman.

“I’ve already talked to an Irish friend of mine, your majesty, and despite our current differences, we are going to make this right.”  He shrugged, shaking his head, and turned away from the former Kaiser.  “It might take a few years, but your little whore and her country will feel the full depth of our wrath.”  He nodded with the hint of a frown and reached under his jacket again.  “They will pay for what they’ve done.”

The former Kaiser blinked, tears forming in his eyes, and swallowed hard.  “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me, you son of a bitch.”  The man left a pistol in front of the former Kaiser and opened the only door in the small room.  “It’s all I can do not to kill you myself.”

The former Kaiser watched the door close and picked up the pistol.  “I know.”  He stared at the pistol, sobbing, and then put it down.  “I know it more than you can understand.”

Of course this is just the beginning. Discover how the West responds and a century of war and carnage follows as China attempts to retake its place on top of the world in CONSPIRACY OF THE DRAGON.