유비무환

With preparation, there is no misfortune.

Hamhung, April 14th, 1949

No Nam-hui was nothing if not a modernist. Many thought he was actually nothing, but Kim Il-Sung had a certain fondness for him and his interests. It was only through making the military happy that they continued in their execution, and such was the case with the latest delivery of lorries ordered from European sources.

While feelers had been put out to many countries, only the Czechoslovaks and Yugoslavs had been receptive to exporting trucks to North Korea. Nevertheless, with the shortage of transportation infrastructure in the Soviet Union, the trucks had come as a boon for Korean industry and transportation. Horse-drawn carts were replaced in large numbers, particularly around the ports and in the largest industrial centers. The great coming of the 'Lorry-Wealth' was celebrated heavily in posters and in the newspapers.

Thus No Nam-hui had come to the relatively small city of Hamhung for a press exhibition of the latest Tatra 111, freshly offloaded at Wonsan. Villagers had come in from all around to look at the latest example of Communist ingenuity, with a crowd standing around inspecting the group of four trucks that accompanied the Transportation Departmant head.

From the edge of the crowd watched Lee Chang-ok, whose own staff car was stopped in the city to change a tire. Pak Kwan-hui worked feverishly at the tassk, removing the lugnuts as Yoon Si-u looked on with Lee.

"You know," Lee grunted, "they're really military trucks."

"I thought they were distributing them to the workers?"

Lee smiled. "A certain kind of worker - the soldier-worker, whose industry is death."

"Then we'll be getting one soon?" Park asked from the ground. The two glanced back at him, at each other - before the three collapsed into a fit of laughs.

"I'm sure we will," Lee said finally. "When we head south..."