Free Rice Allowance

Kijo spent April in a blur. He knew that from May of 1955, relations between Korea and Japan would plunge toward their worst, and if he meant to bring conveyor equipment out of Japan—and the kilns the cement plant would need—he had to move fast.

The Hatoyama cabinet, launched in Japan in December of '54, had been grating against Korea from its first day. The Korean War boom was over and a slump was bearing down on Japan, so Tokyo announced that politics and economics would have to be considered apart, reached toward China and the Soviet Union, and even signed a fisheries agreement with North Korea. Already in April, Syngman Rhee had flown into a towering rage and fired a warning across the water.

With that, Japanese fishing boats that crossed the maritime line Korea claimed—the Peace Line—were seized without mercy, and Japanese fishermen were interned in droves. Come May he would convene a nationwide rally denouncing "Red Japan" and brand Hatoyama a traitor to the free world. In June he would charge that Japan's imperialists were aligning themselves with the communist states, and at last, in August, he would slam down a total severance of trade with Japan.

If the machinery was not in the country before August, both the coal and the cement were finished. Kijo contacted Park Hee-jun in the United States and asked him to go to Japan and do everything in his power to secure the two pieces of equipment, the conveyors and the kilns. He also ordered Lee Man-ik, president of Cheongsan Construction and formerly the Army's engineer-in-chief, to survey a route by which a conveyor could be run from the Dogye Coal Mine toward Dogye Station.

A conveyor could shift coal with wonderful ease, but too steep a grade and it could shift nothing at all. The climb had to be gentle, and the descent, too, had to fall away by slow degrees. Officers of Cheongsan Construction who had come out of the Corps of Engineers were already in the roadless, brutal mountains of Samcheok, surveying slope and soil alike. If everything held to the schedule, Kijo reckoned he could finish the imports in July, before relations with Japan broke down for good.

He gave just as much care to hiring—the work he loved best—as he gave to the machinery. He went to the Dong-a Ilbo and the Hankook Ilbo and placed a help-wanted notice.

Applicants soon came pouring in. The first question from every man who arrived hoping to be a miner was the same.

"Is the free rice allowance really paid?"

Twenty thousand hwan a month was about an average civil servant's wage, so the money itself was no great lure. The real prize was the rice. Prices were climbing, and the grief of every salaried man in those days was that a fixed wage could not keep up with the rising price of rice. The moment it was known that Kijo meant to provide a free rice allowance, men came up to Seoul not only from other private mines but even from pits run directly by the Korea Coal Corporation.

At the private mines wages went unpaid as often as not, and free rice was too much even to hope for. The state-run pits, too, were cutting the free allowance and shifting their men onto rice they had to buy. That paid rice from the corporation cost more than rice on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠open market, and the quality was worse. Corporation officers were fiddling the subsidy, selling the miners poor grain at a steep price.

Among those who came in answer to the notice, Kijo set apart the men who had been conscripted for forced labor. Their papers went into the accepted file no matter their health, their age, or what their bodies could still do. He knew that even sixty years on, Japan would never give them a proper apology or a proper compensation. While he himself had a little to spare, he wanted to offer them some small restitution of his own.

He sat down with a man in his fifties who had come for an interview. The man did not look well.

"I'm old, and my body's not sound, but I've spent a long life rolling around at the coal face. I can be of use to you in running a mine."

He spoke of his weaknesses first, as if certain he would not be taken.

"Of course. You've worked the mines in Japan, so I expect you know how a mine ought to be run. Teach me a thing or two."

When Kijo addressed him with courtesy—him, nothing but an old coal miner—the man was overcome.

"I don't know why you'd speak so highly of the likes of me, but there is one thing I want to say."

"What's that?"

"I saw the notice. The spread in wages for the miners is too wide. It'll look fine while you're hiring, but once you've run the mine for a while, it'll breed trouble. You mustn't set the pay so far apart."

Mining had this about it, he said: every man went underground staking his life to dig coal. Even if skill differed, open the gap in wages too wide and one or two fat pay packets would drag the whole crew's spirit down, and the work would slow. Kijo nodded.

"Is there anything else you'd tell me?"

"Near the end of the war the Japs were desperate, so they gouged coal any way they could. The moment they saw coal in front of them they shoved us Koreans in to dig it, and in the end they lost the main seam and the yield fell. Then they said ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it was because we Koreans wouldn't work, cut our rice, and beat us..."

Looking at a man who had suffered through forced labor and come home with no compensation at all, Kijo felt his chest tighten. He mastered himself at once and answered.

"We'll learn the veins as we go, and dig our way down with care. Once a mine takes the wrong road, you can't turn it back."

"Yes. That's it exactly. You're young to be the boss, but you seem steady. It eases my mind."

Talking with him, Kijo had the feeling the man did not much care for mine work.

And why would he? Conscripted in his youth, he had all but died at the face...

He had plainly come because he had to eat, with no choice but to answer an advertisement for miners. Sending a man like that back underground, given the state of his health, did not seem like any kindness.

"I'm not only hiring miners. I need someone who can read what the miners feel and steady them. I'd like to give that role to you, sir. Would you be willing?"

"I—for me, that would be... good. To tell the truth, I don't trust myself anymore to go down there and breathe that hot, foul air..."

He let out a sigh heavy with old regret, blinked, and looked up at the ceiling.

"We're at work now, opening the mine. I'd like you to work alongside us, and to point out even the small things."

"Thank you, sir. Truly... thank you."

The former conscript's eyes were red and bloodshot. Kijo gave him a post that fit.

"I'll hire you as counselor to the miners. As a man who has lived ahead of them, you'll hear their grievances and their hardships, and pass word of it to the head office."

The former conscript bowed his head, and thick tears fell in heavy drops.

With the hiring finished, Kijo contacted Kim Doo-han about the work of opening the mine. Kim Doo-han was not widely known for it, but he had been close to mining men for a great many years—close enough that in his gangster days he had gotten explosives from a mine operator and put them to use. A single telephone call was enough. Kim Doo-han already knew what Kijo needed.

With that, Kijo counted the preparations for opening the mine finished and turned his mind to tungsten exports. Korea Tungsten was desperate to ship raw ore to the United States before its chemical processing plant was even built. It was an age when a single dollar was hard to come by. The moment tungsten exports resumed, Korea had to be earning dollars. It had no other choice.

To see whether Oh Yang-soo had things well in hand in Busan, Kijo boarded a train at Seoul Station. There the railway staff were inspecting passengers' baggage with painstaking care. It was like a search laid on against a bombing: carry a bottle of liquid, or any powdered stuff, and they pried ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into what it was and made you show them. On the second of March just past, a fire had broken out aboard a packed train at Busan Station. Thirty-six adults and six children had died, and fourteen more had been burned. A vendor selling snacks on the train had noticed some liquid running down through the seats, struck a match to test what it might be, and set off an explosion. That was the tragedy. Set beside the Daegu subway fire of 2003 the scale was smaller, but the shock of it, in 1955, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was every bit as great.

Kijo had his bags inspected too, and took a warning from a station man.

"You are not to smoke under any circumstances inside the carriage. If you light up even after the conductor has stopped you, you can be put off at the nearest station."

Sternly warned, he boarded. The other passengers were no gentler. If anyone so much as drew a lighter inside the car, every eye turned on him, blazing, or someone went to report him to the conductor. The bolder ones shamed the offender to his face.

Thirteen hours later Kijo reached Busan. He slept a night at Yang-soo's house, then went out to Busan Harbor to look over the storage yard, where tungsten ore lay heaped like mountains.

"When do you figure Cheongsan No. 2 and No. 3 will get in?" Yang-soo asked.

"They left the States two weeks ago, so I'd say the week after next."

"That's a relief. The Changseong has to sail, and No. 2 and No. 3 have to follow right behind her. Korea Tungsten is shoving ore at us so fast I can't see straight."

Oh Yang-soo laughed as he made a show of suffering. When he said Korea Tungsten was shoving ore out the door, he was saying that money was pouring into Cheongsan Shipping just as fast. Kijo and Yang-soo climbed aboard the Changseong where she lay alongside the pier and looked her over. Seamen from Cheongsan Shipping and from Daehan Shipping were working the ship together. Kijo greeted them, then on deck he lowered his voice for a private word with Yang-soo.

"Brother, how's the mood among the Daehan Shipping crew?"

"Our boys are buying them meals and drinks, sweet-talking them nice and easy. Tell them that if Cheongsan Shipping takes off they'll be running the regular America line at more than double the wage, and you can see their ears prick up."

"Ordinary seamen matter, of course, but you have to treat the skilled men right too—the engineers and the mates."

At that, Yang-soo thumped his own chest.

"Kijo, who do you think I am? I came out of the seamen's school, didn't I? I've got plenty of juniors over at Daehan."

The two of them laughed together. The sea off Busan lay bright and warm under the spring sun. As if something had just come back to him, Yang-soo spoke.

"Ah! Senior Jung-hun asked me a favor..."

"What kind?"

"You keep digging in your heels about not taking the Mercedes, so he wants me to talk you round."

The day after Jung-hun had given him the Mercedes, Kijo had left it standing in front of Jung-hun's house.

"Brother, what would I do driving a Mercedes?"

"And why not? A man who owns three ships the size of this one!"

Yang-soo laughed and tapped him on the chest.

"Brother Yang-soo."

"What?"

"Do you know how many bowls of milmyeon—those cold wheat noodles—one Mercedes comes to?"

At that, Yang-soo burst out laughing.

"Harping on milmyeon again, is it? All right, all right. I'll tell Senior Jung-hun you won't listen to me either. Come on. I'll buy the Milmyeon Captain a bowl. Let's go eat."

They came down off the Changseong and headed for a milmyeon house. On the way, Yang-soo said,

"Wish that brother-in-law of yours, Ma-ryang, would come down to Busan. First sailing of a ship that bears his father's name—don't you think he'd want to see it?"

"Understood, Brother. I'll have him in Busan for the day."

It was something he had failed to think of. He found it a strange thing, too, how well the men born in '22 got along—the ones who had thrown in with him. Kim Seogwang, Jang Ma-ryang, Oh Yang-soo, Park Hee-jun. Oddly enough the four of them suited one another, and they were helping Kijo with everything they had, in purse and in person.

He remembered word that had come from Kim Jong-hee of Korea Explosives, another of that Year of the Dog. Jong-hee had made a prototype dynamite and wanted to test whether it was fit for a mine. Kijo had told him to come to Ssangyong-ri, in Yeongwol County. When he left Busan, his next destination was Yeongwol.