The Gyeongju
In early December, alarm swept through Minato Shipping in Niigata Prefecture.
The cause was a single document that had arrived by way of an international law office in Tokyo. Rob & Jim, a firm based in Los Angeles, was giving notice that it meant to sue Minato Shipping for a heavy award of damages and to seek a preliminary injunction barring the company's ships from ports of the United States.
"What in the world is this..."
Mori Hamada, president of Minato Shipping, took the news like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. It struck all the harder because he had never once dealt outside the law or driven his business past the point of prudence. He put a call through at once to the law office in Tokyo to find out what lay behind it.
"A company called AMKO Tungsten claims it has suffered astronomical losses on account of a ship your firm owns. They say they will file suit for twelve million dollars."
"Twelve million dollars?"
He could not believe that a single ship had brought such a thing down on him.
"Which ship are they talking about?"
"The Gyeongju, which belonged to Chosen Yusen in 1945."
"The Gyeongju? We have no ship by that name."
"Ah — she was renamed the Arima in 1952."
"And what is the matter with the Arima Maru?"
"According to the papers brought over by the lawyer from America, there is a problem with the title."
Mori had never imagined that anything might be wrong with a ship he had bought in 1953. He had known her only as a wartime freighter. She had been built in 1942, and vessels launched in those years had a reputation for being stout and fast, so he had not hesitated over the purchase. That she had once belonged to Chosen Yusen, he had not known at all. The Gyeongju, named for the city of Gyeongju in North Gyeongsang, had come over to Japan, had her history laundered, and gone forth again under a name taken from Arima, the hot-spring town of Kobe.
"President Mori, we are only the agents of the American firm. If you intend to answer the suit, you will need to retain a lawyer of your own."
"Ah. Yes. Of course."
"Tomorrow people from AMKO Tungsten are coming to inspect the Arima. She is lying at Niigata harbor, is she not?"
"She is. But is my company under any obligation to cooperate in an inspection of the Arima?"
"No. You are free to refuse. Still, speaking as one Japanese to another, I would recommend that you meet them at least once."
"And why is that...?"
"The case will proceed in an American court. It will take a long time, and the lawyers' fees will be considerable."
"How much?"
"That depends on the result. The winning side can recover its costs, but if you lose, you will be liable for the other party's attorneys' fees as well."
"And how long does a thing like this usually take?"
"Three years, at the least, to a final judgment."
When the call ended, the strength went out of him. Even a victory would devour years, and a defeat would mean a staggering loss.
Why did I ever buy the Arima...
That was the only thought he could find. The purchase had been arranged in the autumn of 1953 through the good offices of the principal of Chuo Technical School. The price had stood below the market, and the principal was a former Diet member of the Democratic Party and a onetime parliamentary vice-minister of justice. In 1948 he had been arrested on suspicion of corruption involving a coal mine and turned out of office, but he had later been acquitted and installed as principal of his old school. A man of that standing, Mori had judged, could be trusted, and the commission he asked had been within reason. Mori had bought the ship gladly.
What on earth is this... and how am I supposed to answer it...
His mind was a tangle.
The next day, the people the Tokyo lawyer had spoken of came to Niigata harbor. They were photographing the Arima and looking her over from the outside. Three of them were white, and three appeared to be Japanese. Remembering the consultation he had sought the day before at a law office nearby, Mori went up to them.
"How do you do? I am Mori Hamada, president of Minato Shipping."
At his greeting, the youngest of them, and the tallest, answered.
"How do you do? My name is Lee Ki-jo. I've come from Korea."
Not Japanese?
The fluency of the man's Japanese threw Mori off balance. He had already thought, vaguely, that the fellow was tall and solidly built for a Japanese. Had they not come from America? He watched the young Korean who had just spoken to him turn and address the white men in an English just as fluent. When that conversation ended, the young man turned back.
"Did you receive the papers served from Tokyo yesterday?"
"I did."
"The gentlemen with me are the president of AMKO Tungsten and his attorneys."
At Ki-jo's introduction Mori moved to shake hands with the Americans.
"The president is this way."
Ki-jo indicated Hee-jun, and Mori's confusion only deepened.
"How do you do? I'm David Park, of AMKO Tungsten."
President of an American company — and a Korean who spoke Japanese well. Mori shook hands with Park Hee-jun, then, following Ki-jo's introductions, with the three American lawyers, and last of all with a short, heavyset man.
"This is Mr. Cho Choong-hoon, a friend of Mr. Osano Kenji, who has a transport business in Korea."
Osano Kenji? That businessman?
The company assembled before him, and the histories trailing after them, left Mori's head spinning.
"May we have a look inside the ship?"
When Ki-jo asked, Mori refused. He did exactly as the Niigata lawyer had told him the day before. American companies and American lawyers, he had been given to understand, had no power to compel anything on Japanese soil.
"If it's inconvenient, then it can't be helped. Thank you all the same — for taking such good care of the Gyeongju."
Ki-jo offered the thanks with a smile and led the others away. They looked well satisfied with the condition of the ship.
What are they... carrying on as if they owned her.
Mori was in a foul temper. Having taken the measure of his visitors, he went to Chuo Technical School and called on Principal Tanaka Kakuei. Tanaka, once he had heard the story, behaved as though the matter had nothing to do with him.
"A pity, that."
"That ship — Principal Tanaka, you were the one who..."
Tanaka cut him off.
"Does Minato Shipping run a service to America?"
"Yes... As you know, imports and exports for the Kansai are handled mainly through Osaka and Niigata."
"Then what are you waiting for? Settle it."
"I... I'm sorry? It's a ship I paid for..."
"Because of your company, Japan is being dragged through the mud! What possessed you to go and buy a ship that belonged to the American military government? Are you in your right mind?"
Tanaka bellowed it. Mori was so stunned that no answer would come.
Shameless bastard...
He could not find in Tanaka so much as a scrap of conscience. The man would not take upon himself even the smallest moral responsibility. Mori had been betrayed by someone he had trusted. At the law office they had advised him to ask help of Tanaka, the local politician. The strength went out of him. Shoulders slumped, he left the principal's office.
When Mori was gone, Tanaka allowed himself a thin, unpleasant smile.
Fool... A nobody, and still he has the nerve to come looking for me.
To Tanaka, Mori was nothing but a rind with the juice already squeezed out.
A few days earlier he had met Osano Kenji, and Tanaka knew Osano very well. The man was head of Kokusai Kogyo and, on the face of it, a magnate of the transport trade. That was only the surface. In essence he was a broker who bound politicians to businessmen, joining those who needed money with firms that needed favors, and welcome to both. With the enormous capital at his command he also backed, outright, whatever politicians suited him. In Japanese politics there even existed an Osano faction of its own, reaching across government and opposition alike.
It lay in the future, but Osano would play the decisive part in Tanaka's rise to the premiership. A man who loved money and a man who was good at providing it could hardly have failed to suit each other. At Osano's summons Tanaka set off for Tokyo without a moment's hesitation. There he met three businessmen from Korea. Osano seemed particularly close to one of them.
The hidden hand of Japanese politics addressed the politician who had been packed off to serve as principal of a country school.
"Would you help some friends of mine from Korea? They brought this over from America."
It was an order issued in 1945 by the United States Army Military Government. The instant Tanaka saw the copy, he knew that one of the ships named in it was the very vessel on which he had collected a broker's fee. He sensed at once that the affair might become a stumbling block in his political career.
The youngest-looking of the Korean businessmen put a question to him.
"Mr. Tanaka, you have quite a number of ties to Korea, don't you?"
"Oh, yes. Just before the surrender I was posted to Daejeon. I was meant to be in Hiroshima, and it was only because I was in Korea that I was spared the disaster."
"A very near thing. Seen that way, you and Korea must share a fortunate bond, former Assemblyman Tanaka. Ha ha ha."
Osano Kenji drew the people around the table together with a practiced hand.
"I thought I might offer you a small piece of advice, former Assemblyman Tanaka... if you have no objection."
"Go on."
"Well... now that it is certain the Arima, which Minato Shipping owns, belongs to the American military government, would it not be the proper course to return her quickly?"
"Quite so."
"If you would exert yourself in the matter, President David Park, who does business in America, has said that he could build a tungsten processing plant in Japan."
"Tungsten?"
"The metal that goes into weapons. A great deal of it goes into tools as well."
"I know it."
"For Korea, too, there is more value in making the metal into tools in Japan and selling those than in selling tungsten as concentrate. President David says he would give you a share in the venture."
Tanaka understood at once. Where a concession was concerned, he was not a man to let it pass, and that was why he had been so cold to President Mori of Minato Shipping. Whether Minato Shipping, which no longer had any use for him, went under or not was a matter of perfect indifference. What Tanaka counted as his greatest gain was that the businessmen from Korea had drawn him closer to Osano Kenji.
Two days later, Minato Shipping ran up the white flag. Ki-jo got in touch with Korea Shipping and saw to it that they could take delivery of the Gyeongju. Minato agreed to sell her to Korea Shipping for a sum that amounted to little more than giving her away.
Korea Shipping was glad of the ship. She could work the coastal trade and the runs to Southeast Asia, and she was a Japanese-built vessel of a kind the line's crews already knew. She burned little oil, and her size sat neatly with the scale of Korea Shipping's business. Namkoong Ryun, president of the Korea Shipping Corporation, seemed satisfied with the good faith Ki-jo had shown, for he withdrew an unreasonable demand he had been pressing.
Having succeeded in bringing the Gyeongju home, Ki-jo did not turn around at once. He decided to remain in Japan a few days more, and from Niigata he set out for Sado Island, which lay on the sea before the port. Hee-jun and Choong-hoon went with him, though neither knew why he was going. Hee-jun supposed that, with the recovery accomplished, Ki-jo meant to let the tension out of himself and have a look at a nearby island. On the boat bound for Sado, he said as much, in his way.
"I didn't know former Assemblyman Tanaka would be so helpful."
"Neither did I. It came out well, and that's enough."
All Ki-jo had known was that the Gyeongju lay with Minato Shipping in Niigata, and that the politician of that district was Tanaka Kakuei — and that Tanaka was a man mad for money. He had not known in the least that Tanaka had brokered the Gyeongju to Minato and pocketed a commission. His own plan had been to set before Tanaka a stake in a tungsten processing business and to ask him to see that the freighter's return went smoothly.
The particular gift Ki-jo knew in Tanaka was a genius for concessions. As prime minister, whenever the man framed a policy, he had been notorious for reckoning which industry would profit and by how much, finding out which company in that industry paid political money most readily, and trading policy for cash. Ki-jo also knew that just before liberation Tanaka had done work connected with the industrial division of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Daejeon, and so he had expected the man to understand the worth of tungsten, then one of Korea's chief resources. Economic exchange between Korea and Japan was cut off for the present, but one day it would open.
Hee-jun meant, once Syngman Rhee's economic sanctions against Japan were lifted, to build a tool factory there. Korea could not yet process tungsten, and the scheme was to use Japan as a subcontracting base, work the metal on that shore, and export it to the United States. Processing in Japan was overwhelmingly cheaper than processing in America, and cutting Tanaka in for a share of the venture was no trouble at all. To do business in Japan one needed a patron on the ground — and if history ran as it once had, the man was someone who would become prime minister of Japan in 1972.
Choong-hoon, having heard from one of the boatmen that Sado held the largest gold mine in Japan, turned to Ki-jo.
"You interested in the gold mine?"
"No, hyung."
What Ki-jo had come to do was something else.
When they reached Sado, he looked carefully about. He sought out the local people and talked with them of this and that, then made his way to the Aikawa gold and silver mine, the emblem of the Sado mines. It was a mountain of strange aspect, the summit cleft deep in the shape of a V. There was even something in the form that suggested a woman's vulva. Hee-jun and Choong-hoon supposed this was what he had come to see. The shape was peculiar enough that, having come as far as Niigata, a man might well think the crossing to Sado worth making once.
But Ki-jo, looking at the mountain, let out a sigh.
"Let's go."
They had brought off a considerable piece of business and seen a singular mountain besides, and neither Hee-jun nor Choong-hoon could understand why he sighed.