Colorless King (4)
Tsar’s Mentor, Honorary Academy Member, holder of multiple ministerial and chairmanship roles, reformer, free trade advocate, professor and rector of St. Vladimir Imperial University.
Countless titles adorn Nikolai Bunke’s name, but he knows the truth.
Ultimately, he’s a failure.
His life’s a wreck.
The Kiev Mutual Credit Society? His attempt to advance private banking through credit transactions flopped.
As rector of St. Vladimir University, grooming talent? Stymied by education restrictions, another failure.
As Finance Minister, his state reforms? Half-baked and ousted, failure again.
Pushing for private property protection and free enterprise while championing labor rights? Alienated everyone, no support—failure.
Everyone praises his intellect, calling him a great scholar, but Bunke sees his life as a string of defeats, a loser’s tale.
Not one thing done right.
Nine medals, yet none changed the empire.
He’s just… a loudmouth no different from a street intellectual shouting what he thinks is right.
Scholar, thinker, politician, professor—none of these roles produced lasting results.
That’s Bunke’s reflection on his twilight years. Failure.
His only solace? The Central Bank’s gold accumulation policy since ’84, over a decade strong.
Thanks to that, I might see Witte’s gold standard before I croak.
Fine. At least one thing worked. Hollow honors are better than a life entirely erased.
He knows he’s tearing himself apart with impossible standards.
But after crashing from the empire’s peak to rock bottom, lowering them now? Not an option.
So Bunke chose to stay a loser.
The crown prince’s advisor, part-time tutor—that’s his place.
Last year, he sensed even that was slipping.
His body’s failing, his words and thoughts slowing. His life’s nearing its end.
Resigning as deputy chairman, waiting quietly for death, then—
“His Highness the Crown Prince, with dazzling rhetoric, secured 100 million rubles without spilling a drop of blood!”
“His Highness Nikolai arrived, and war stopped—everyone’s in love with peace!”
Sounds like Okhrana propaganda, Bunke thought, but this was during Alexander III’s death, a somber time.
Such cheap manipulation would’ve been caught and punished, yet the Interior Ministry let it slide.
Whatever. Bunke figured it had nothing to do with an old man awaiting death.
Until the truth of the crown prince’s Far East treaty came out.
“It’s about 95 million rubles, but it’s all for the Amur Governorate. Nobody expected this, and everyone’s skeptical of the Far East, right?” Nikolai said.
“That’s—” someone started.
“Tch, if we’d moved sooner, we could’ve gotten more. Shame no one helped me then,” Nikolai cut in.
“…”
All that cash, spent entirely in the Far East.
When Bunke, as Finance Minister, cut redemption payments for peasant welfare, losing 12 million rubles from the treasury, he was raked over the coals.
Now, eight times that amount’s being tossed into that barren wasteland.
He smells it. A familiar, intoxicating scent.
His old, faltering heart starts racing. The day after the coronation, Bunke stormed the Winter Palace.
Hearing Nikolai’s plans for the Far East, Bunke realized.
He can’t die yet. He has to go there.
“Send me! Send me, please!” he begged.
“You resigned as deputy chairman because of your health—why this now?” Nikolai asked.
“Your Majesty! For the sake of our old mentor days, send me to the Far East!” Bunke pleaded.
Unrestrained state-led policy.
No precedent, so he can build order from scratch, do anything.
Every time he tried something, attacks came from all sides.
Advocating mutual village responsibility? Even the State Council turned on him.
Child labor restrictions? Right-wingers tore him apart.
Tax or labor law changes? He was a punching bag Finance Minister.
A powerless politician, only able to act on the Tsar’s orders.
Bunke wanted to break free from that past, that cycle. No, to deny all his failures.
To scream he was right, that his opponents were wrong.
Through the Far East.
He can’t die like this. No matter the humiliation or hardship, he has to go.
If not, this old husk has no reason to live.
Throwing dignity aside, groveling, he finally got the Tsar’s permission.
The late Tsar wanted me to stay and guide Nikolai… Sorry, I can’t.
His old reformist allies, state-led growth scholars, those fed up with rotten right-wingers and delusional leftists—Bunke gathered them all and headed east.
The journey was brutal for an old man, but never boring. He wasn’t a failure waiting to die anymore—he was a reformer out to flip his past at life’s end.
Arriving in the Far East after that grueling trek—
“When the hell are you paying the construction funds? You’re supposed to pay upfront so we can buy equipment, hire workers, and break ground!” a voice shouted.
“You think budgeting, executing, overseeing, and reporting is easy? Wait!” another snapped.
“If it’s like this, why didn’t the Governor’s Office just do it themselves? I came hearing there’s money to burn, ugh!”
Work was clearly overflowing.
“We need a bank under the Governor’s Office,” Bunke muttered, his eyes gleaming.
Reflecting on Father’s rule while handling daily affairs, I see what he did right and wrong.
Successes and failures, private gain versus national interest, laid bare in his policies and orders.
If I had to pick what I’m most grateful for?
“Okhrana. Father left me a damn useful tool,” I said.
Building and training a personal agency from scratch would take years, but Okhrana’s been around for thirty.
Started in ’66 as a small unit under St. Petersburg’s mayor, it became a secret investigative arm, and by ’81, Father turned it into a full-fledged Public Safety and Order Department under the Interior Ministry.
No longer just a police unit—a standalone secret police.
Father gave them two main tasks.
First, political investigation.
Monitoring and intervening in the empire’s politicians and groups.
Second, labor movement control.
Setting up puppet unions, planting moles, or pulling strings behind the scenes.
Most of the massive 1905 protests were Okhrana-orchestrated to ease public pressure. Done so secretly, the army didn’t know and bloodily suppressed them.
The bureaucrats don’t know, but Okhrana knew about the Yaroslavl strike in advance, with plenty of moles in place.
No need for soldiers and workers to kill each other—ringleaders could’ve been nabbed easily.
Annual budget: 3.5 million rubles.
The first division’s in St. Petersburg, the second in Moscow, with countless branches.
“Okhrana ranks match the military’s, reporting only to the Interior Ministry and Imperial Household. Basically my direct arm, right, Lieutenant Colonel Sekirinsky?” I asked.
“I’m a lieutenant colonel, but usually addressed by title,” he replied.
“Then I’ll call you Director Sekirinsky,” I said.
Huh, they’re not just skulking in shadows. Lots of Okhrana guys double as gendarmes or security.
“You plant moles in the army, too?” I asked.
“Not moles… just collaboration with the gendarmes,” he said.
“Fair. The army wouldn’t sit still otherwise,” I nodded.
They’re not political soldiers driven by ideology.
“Gendarmes, security, Okhrana—your roles overlap a bit. Over a thousand agents, so the budget’s neither tight nor excessive,” I noted.
The downside? They lack the pure secrecy and finesse of a true security agency.
Compared to the future KGB—handling development, searches, arrests, even combat—Okhrana’s tailored to Father’s taste.
Leftist purges, restricting left-wing activity. Counterespionage or spying? Not yet. Their strength is mole experience.
“Know why I called you?” I asked.
“My apologies, I don’t,” Sekirinsky said.
“Good. Okhrana’s eyes and ears haven’t breached the Imperial Household,” I smirked.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” he replied.
I’m not just using Okhrana for leftist crackdowns. That’d be a massive waste of talent.
“I checked your record. Military family, over twenty years with the gendarmes, solid Okhrana results,” I said.
“Thank you,” he replied.
“The parliament’s got the empire buzzing. They say I dug up a relic too fast. So I’m prepping,” I said.
I get it. Ordering the parliament by autumn has everyone scrambling, digging through old records for elections and the national Duma.
“Set up a national Duma and do nothing, and they’ll become a new, rotten elite,” I said.
No matter their zeal or ideals, politics taints you under “compromise.”
Grandfather’s solution? The press.
“I’m guaranteeing press freedom. Thoughts?” I asked.
“My limited view fears the press becoming a new elite,” Sekirinsky said.
“Spot on. One pen, and they’ll get drunk on power fast,” I replied.
Even in the 21st century, the press holds power just by existing, no profit needed.
“That’s where Okhrana comes in, your Security Bureau,” I said.
So I’m adding a leash.
If Okhrana directly investigates and arrests politicians, the parliament’s point fades, and the blame hits me.
But if Okhrana controls the press that critiques politicians?
One step removed, no blame on me.
The press should be grateful just to be revived.
“Expand Okhrana’s size?” Sekirinsky asked.
“Yes. Speed up local branch setups, recruit more. Screen agents, plant moles in the reviving press, and enable investigations, arrests, even punishments if needed,” I ordered.
With the parliament, press, national Duma, and local zemstvos active, Okhrana will get busy.
“Your Majesty, how far does your plan go?” he asked.
“By year’s end, crushing press outlets that break reporting limits. It’ll be bigger than you think,” I said.
This era’s press is mostly literate elites, so there’ll be plenty of ideologues to nab.
If they’d just play in my sandbox… but they won’t.
Some need a visible whipping to learn, “Cross the line, get smacked.”
“Director Pyotr Vasilyevich Sekirinsky,” I said.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he replied.
“I’m giving you budget and authority. Grow the Security Bureau,” I ordered.
“Understood, Your Majesty,” he said.
This is my first step for the parliament.
