The Game-Man 2 (Patreon)

The Game-Man 2 - or ‘The Secret Wholesome Chungus Path for Guangdong by Nintendo’ (TNO!State of Guangdong, Nintendo Semi-SI)

Nintendo had to be on top in any case.

Despite this being the main goal for this large-scale operation, it would be wrong for many to think that this was a bid for ‘world conquest’ as his ‘Secret Advisor’ mirthfully called it.

In truth, Hiroshi was a man with simple ideas and yet in need of some flimsy creativity to pump out innovation in ways that went beyond mere modernization. After all, what’s the point of modernization if the common man can’t enjoy the commodities behind novelty?

As the leading man in Nintendo, Hiroshi started to grow accustomed to the world of Guangdong and how this was, truth be told, a reasonably good place to beat any old-style Zaibatsu in a fair game. Minimal corruption for the sake of a couple extra moral gains.

First, a clean understanding of their competitors.

Yasuda was the biggest threat and the one cannon glass that would be their best chance to trigger off a coup against Suzuki. As one of the Big Four Zaibatsu, Yasuda had hands in various economic aspects of the Co-Prosperity Sphere reaching from Manchukuo to Indonesia and Siam. Mostly known for its banking services, it was the first company that reached the southern coast of China. The current holder of the company was Matsuzawa Takuji, an executive that had been relocated to China due to his ‘cunning moderation and control of self’.

Next was Matsushita Electrics. Not a Zaibatsu, but a powerful corporation created in 1918, the company that would have turned into ‘Panasonic’ as the Soul told him was enough to keep an eye for due to two reasonable concerns: its impressive pool of smart workers and lawyers, and the pragmatism preached by Matsushita Masaharu, the current ‘leader’ of the company.

Suzuki Teiichi was the Chief Executive and as such was able to sway a degree of power over the Legislative Council during votes. He was an army-man, but also someone that understood how it was best for civilian rule to persist despite the many pressures exerted by the Kempeitai.

Which brought them to the last issue: the Kempeitai. Despite having no orders from Tokyo to have a degree of power within the LegCo, Colonel Miyazaki Kiyotaka, a veteran member of the organization for well over two decades, was still able to wield incredible influence over the council. With his ‘dogs’ acting as hunters for any potential member of the old KMT within the region, it was clear that the man was going to put his weight behind any favorable military ordinance and against any that sought to lessen the grip the secret police had on the region.

Now, with that in mind, Hiroshi knew that he would have to act on two fronts. First, securing political allies, with Matsushita and Suzuki being the easiest due to the tame first steps he had planned to push for early on.

The first ordinance was proposed to Suzuki as the ‘Additional Business Benefit Ordinance’, with the main element prescribed being a legal validation for businesses to extend Benefits to workers depending on circumstances which would be better expanded in contracts.

Tame, but it allowed Nintendo to have a legal reason to be able to conduct some clever ‘quality play’ to secure more Chinese workers among the locals through good will and offers of better conditions.

The ordinance was put to a vote and those elements of the LegCo that were picked from men loyal to Nintendo all voted in favor of the law, with most of Suzuki’s minions supporting it and Matshushita slightly split about it.

Those with loyalty tied to the Kempeitai actually voted mostly against it, but Hiroshi was able to discern from a private detective’s report that the Kempeitai itself had no interest on the topic altogether, it was just the thought of a couple of people that didn’t want to offer the Chinese any chance to ‘rise up’.

As if stomping on them and turning them into filth will do the opposite of that…

Heh.

After a month-time, the ordinance passed by 71 votes out of 100 and Nintendo swiftly moved to prepare its facilities to hold non-Japanese people of various dispositions. Translators were hired and most of the factors were phased to be bilingual to favor both Chinese locals and Japanese ‘Expats’, or migrants.

Two months went by and the product of this investment instantly saw impressive potential: Chinese people were more interested in seeking work with Nintendo, many interested in the pension system and overtime pay offered by the company.

It was something that reasoned the limited inefficiency compared to what other companies were doing through their ‘profit-focused plans’, but that would also guarantee the organization the chance to

Then, he would look for ‘material’ allies. Business can be rough in a place where most of the locals are Chinese. Yet, the chance of making good friends was elevated by the Soul’s own advice. Early in 1951, Hiroshi managed to secure a new friend in the form of Li Ka-shing, the owner of Cheung Kong Industries in Hong Kong.

He was in charge of a company primarily responsible for the production of plastic, quite small but already mustering a fairly big army of good workers that didn’t have to deal with any language barrier which made their capacity to produce slightly faster than with other ‘local’ companies.

And the man was, as the Soul had described him before their first meeting, as someone that wanted to improve living conditions in Guangdong. There was something in the man’s gaze that made Hiroshi confident he was a genuine ally and, in an instance that he didn’t expect to be exposed just yet, Nintendo managed to secure a local company as a new friend.

The news traveled fast and issues manifested through some reluctance from fellow Japanese companies from making exchanges with Nintendo. A bit of a blow but not a major one considering that Nintendo didn’t require a massive external trade system for its need of resources. Plastic was more of less an experimentation for what was going to be the ‘Second Step’ of Hiroshi’s plan.

The ‘Police Creation Ordinance’ was pretty much the sucker-punch that came from this attempted assault on his company. The Soul had made a compelling point- trying to make new enemies was nothing good but this situation, like many others, was full of opportunities. And Hiroshi struck with the might of hundred banzai charges by literally putting Suzuki in a corner with him.

The Chief Executive was surprised by this turn of events, but fully espoused it when presented with the fine papers of this proposal. One thing that Suzuki had been really worrying about was the chance that the Kempeitai or other companies would hate to turn an eventual police force into their newest toy to use against each other, but what Hiroshi gave him was by far the best gift possible.

The Ordinance sought to establish an independent Police Force with in charge a man known as Omori Kan. A senior bureaucrat of the Home Ministry back in Tokyo, Omori had a reputation of ‘cleaning things thoroughly’.

He was one of those individuals that had been quietly shelved to dust away rather than face a brutal death by the corrupt administration in the Home Islands, but this chance gave him the opportunity to do something right and meaningful… all the while ruining many plans established by the Kempeitai and many others. He was an external element and thus a… man that couldn’t be corrupted with ease.

This made some of the companies nervous as Yasuda spearheaded an amendment that would provide a legal shield to all companies from being ‘screened’ by the police. As much as Hiroshi would have preferred to reject the deal, the promise of much-needed votes made this option unavoidable.

The ordinance passed and there were rumors of a shouting spar between Suzuki and Miyazaki the very day this became law.

Slowly but surely, the influence of the Kempeitai started to falter. But it would remain lingering through 1951 and then 1952. Only in 1952, right as Nintendo had managed to settle itself as the primary corporation in the region compared to Yasuda, did something monumental happen to further entrench the company in the region but also expand its productive business into electric devices.

Hiroshi found himself smiling while sharing a pleasant conversation with the man known as Morita Akio, a former close friend of Ibuka Masaru of Fujitsu, wounded up in Guangdong after a failure to uphold the business of Tokyo Telecommunications.

With the board fully stacking, it was the right time for Nintendo to claim its rightful place in the neon sun of the future.