Empire of the Ring

Leon’s cry was like that of a lion.

It looked like he woke up because he was hungry. He looked upset. A cry of a three-month-old baby was about to wake everyone in the house.

Even with the loud cry of Leon, Fatima was still deep in sleep.

As Youngho picked him up in his arms to calm him down, the baby started to cry even louder. Youngho immediately put a pacifier into the baby’s mouth and started to make the powdered milk. When he turned to Leon, he was ready to spit out the pacifier and cry again.

Youngho moved like a ninja to put a baby bottle into Leon’s mouth. The baby started to drink the milk like a boss and finally had a satisfied look on his face.

If Fatima was awake, she would give him the breast milk but powdered milk would work for now. She seemed to have a difficult time taking care of her son because Leon was growing and getting heavy too fast.

Soon, Leon drank up every single drop of the milk and now he was staring at Youngho. He seemed to want to play with his papa. Youngho sighed and turned to the clock on the wall, the hands of the clock pointed to 5 AM.

Youngho took Leon to his study since even if he went back to bed now, he would only get one hour of sleep. He started to play classical music in his study and adjusted the volume. After laying Leon in the cradle, Youngho studied the geological map around the ranch to plan out how to set up protection for the village.

A few days ago, Youngho heard the news that a number of Armenian militants moved into the regions of Caucasus Mountain Range. They were not militants anymore since they were now called the guerrillas of Nagorno-Karabakh. They were far-right nationalists.

They had been isolated in Nagorno-Karabakh for a while and recently they resumed their activities as the guerrillas and indiscriminately bombed the Azerbaijani army residing at the border.

The Azerbaijani government claimed that they were terrorists and announced that the country would merge the Nagorno-Karabakh. The government was not going to permit the autonomy of the state since its people were threatening Azerbaijani people’s safety.

After this announcement, throughout the whole Armenia, people rallied protesting against the Azerbaijani government. Even in the Armenian congress, it was mentioned that Armenia should subjugate Azerbaijanis’ Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic located between Turkey and Armenia.

They would not attack Nakhchivan right away in fear of Turkey, but in the worst case scenario, they could do anything.

Youngho was worried about the guerrillas massacring innocent Azerbaijani people. If that happens, the Armenians residing in Nagorno-Karabakh would be all demolished by the Azerbaijani army. If one party made a move to trigger this, both nations would be fighting until only one was left.

Of course, Youngho’s farm and ranch would not be able to get away from being damaged. He could not expect that everything would be safe when missiles would be flying.

Since the ranch was near the Caucasus Mountain Range and the guerrillas were allegedly hiding in the mountains, Youngho wanted to come up with a great defensive system for the protection of the ranch.

***

Sometimes things can go wrong as soon as the string of tension is loose.

It was the case of the Azerbaijani government.

Azerbaijan had been with frequent big and small battles against Armenia. Because of that, they were used to such level of tension and moreover, they were confident that they would be the winner at the end of the road. Although the government announced a national emergency but it was obvious that the government was not taking it as seriously as their opponent.

To Youngho, it seemed to be even more dangerous. At any moment, the country might face the madness and fury of the opposing people. So, he tried to put extra effort to prepare for any possible cases of great danger.

The incident occurred in Kurdamir city first. ‘Provocation’ was a better word to describe this. About twenty of guerrillas began to shoot civilians in the middle of the day downtown. Dozens of people were injured and dead by them.

Ten of the guerrillas were either killed or arrested by military police, but the rest retreated to Northwest of Caucasus Mountain Range.

The problem was that Serbia Village was located there. Youngho announced emergency to the village people and sent some of the security crews to help defend the village.

The villagers were good at handling and shooting guns. Although they were armed with hunting rifles that Youngho provided recently, it did not seem enough. He equipped the villagers with A.K rifles from Russia.

The whole boundaries of the ranch were too broad for the people to watch since they could barely cover the boundary area between the dead mines and Serbian Village.

Although Zeynep Farm had a number of surveillance cameras, alarming system, and claymores to protect it, the ranch did not have any of them installed yet. The ranch only started to have electricity made by small power plant units. They did not have enough electricity to run street lights, so Youngho equipped people with expensive night vision goggles. People cheered now that they could go hunting at night with the goggles. Their simplicity made Youngho laugh in this state of emergency.

Azeri government did not even consider to protect distant villages like Serbian Village. Even if Youngho had requested for the government’s support, it would not be granted. However, he would have declined their support anyways even if the government decided to provide help to protect the village since he needed to make sure no one found out about the gold mines. The only town with many households near the boundaries of Caucasus Mountain Range was Serbian Village.

Now that all the houses were closely built to each other, it was more convenient to protect the village.

It would be a huge mistake to think the guerillas as if they were naive militants. They were now nothing but terrorists rationalized by far-right nationalism. It was obvious that the guerrillas, who were being chased by military force in the middle of cold weather, would search for houses seeking for food and refuge.

Knowing the Armenian militia’s state, Youngho could guess that the guerrillas must have not been supported well by the militia with combat rations. They would do anything to stay warm and fill their stomach. Although he had sympathy for them, his priority was his people and the ranch. He could not put all of his people in danger just because he had a former connection with them. Youngho ordered the villagers and security crews to shoot the guerrillas down whenever they encounter them.

***

When Youngho was playing with Leon after having dinner, his phone on the table rang loudly. It was a satellite phone, not a smartphone. The only place that would use a satellite phone was the ranch. Youngho’s intuition was telling him that something had gone wrong.

“Boss. The guerrillas approached near the village and there was a shootout between the two parties. We managed to injure three guerrillas without any damage on our side, I just wanted to report that they might be coming back in an attempt to save their comrades.”

“Alright, I’ll be coming down soon. Just tighten the security watch, and don’t do anything yet.”

Youngho did not worry too much because five junior crews in leadership positions were guarding Serbian Village.

Fatima was not concerned about Youngho’s visit to Serbian Village at this time because she believed in what Youngho, his friends, and the descendants of the kingdom were capable of. Knowing Fatima’s faith in his people, Youngho’s steps were light.

It was around ten o’clock at night when Youngho arrived at Serbian Village with Jongil and Insoo. Injured guerillas were locked in a storage room after being treated for their injury.

Since Youngho did not feel confident to talk to his former comrades, he decided to pass them to the main police department as soon as possible. It would be dumb to set them free because they would definitely come back for revenge. Since Youngho knew about their strong fellowship, he needed to catch the rest of guerillas.

Those guerillas were only caught because they did not expect the level of security of the village. If they had known about the strong defense, they would have found a way to approach in subtlety before striking the people.

It seemed that the night would be long.

Youngho and his friends searched the nearby areas with night vision goggles on.

Having the knowledge about the guerilla’s skills and tactics, it was not that hard to take a guess where they might be hiding. With the power of the ring, Youngho approached them swift like wind and exposed them.

Guerillas were astounded to see him because they could not imagine that anybody would chase them this far deep in the mountains. Not feeling the necessity to make their own hideout, they had been hiding behind a huge rock.

It was only a matter of time they were captured by Youngho and the gang because they did not even have any idea someone was approaching them.

Serbian Village people caught eight of the guerrillas, they were the ones who fled from the city of Kurdamir. Since Youngho did not want the press find out that the villagers caught the guerrillas, he made a quiet phone call to Sevan.

No one would find out about what happened in Serbian Village and the Main Police Department would be getting all the credit for capturing the guerrillas who had been hiding in Azerbaijan. That night, all of them were transferred to Main Police Department. In exchange for taking the credit, the department promised to legalize and officialize home watch of Serbian Village. This meant that utilizing weapons to protect the village would be legal.

As Youngho planned, Serbian Village and Main Police Department just exchanged a big present with each other. All they needed to do now was to forget about what really happened.

It was announced that the guerrillas were caught by Main Police Department’s effort.

“I do not know how to repay you.”

Sevan expressed great appreciation to Youngho since he was praised for the recent arrest of the guerrillas by the president.

“It’s no biggie. You helped Serbian villagers to recover their identification. Consider that we’re even.”

“If you need any weapon, we would provide some of the old weapons. What do you think?”

“We’d be more than happy if you could do that. The weapons we have now were bought from a Russian black market and they are no good. Even if old, it’d be better for us to have weapons from Main Police Department than a black market. Also, we could be of help for future guerrilla attacks.”

The reason it was easier to announce the incident as Main Police Department’s achievement was that some of the guerrillas were shot by A.K. rifles, and civilians would not be able to have their hands on guns like A.K. rifles.

“Under the condition of you helping us, we will soon provide those weapons. That would make me feel less guilty for taking all the credit.”

Though the village would be receiving only several numbers of guns, it had a bigger meaning since Youngho could now pretend those black market weapons as legal weapons received from the police department. Youngho was going to request at least a few of each type of heavy weapons as well, such as heavy machine guns and portable rocket launchers for future.

The recent guerrillas’ attack proved that they could penetrate into Baku within a day traveling through Caucasus Mountain Range. If those trained and skillful guerrillas sneaked into the country to conduct their missions, the entire country would fall into turmoil because Azerbaijan was a small country.

Once Azerbaijan begins to fight back, Armenia would not simply sit and wait. If there is a war, it would be inevitable for innocent civilians to get hurt. They would need to find a way to be safe by either leaving the country or preparing to protect themselves.

Youngho was in deeper concern because he could not think of a way to fortify the village without being revealed to the outside world.