Cheonwoohui
The day after his meeting with Chairman Park, Kijo invited four businessmen to Myeongwolgwan: Chung Ju-yung of Hyundai Construction, Cho Choong-hoon of Hanjin, Kim Jong-hoe of Korea Explosives, and Park Hee-jun of AMKO. He laid before them the plan to build a steel mill.
Kim Jong-hoe started in surprise.
"You're going to build a million-ton steel mill in Korea?"
"Yes. That's how it's turned out."
It had come about half by his own choosing and half by force of circumstance, and Kijo's smile was awkward as he answered. Park Hee-jun asked the next question.
"Is this the government's policy?"
"It is."
Park Hee-jun had always been peculiarly helpless before anything labeled government policy. He nodded, worry plain on his face.
Cho Choong-hoon, who had been turning the matter over with his arms folded, spoke up.
"Look, Kijo. The government won't put up a single won of the cost, and Cheongsan is supposed to scare up the money on its own?"
"They say the government has no money. In exchange, they've promised to guarantee, without condition, any loans we bring in from overseas. They'll arrange commercial-bank loans as well."
"Come now, even so... This isn't a matter of a coin or two."
Choong-hoon stroked his chin, his face asking whether this wasn't going too far.
Of the four, only one man's expression had not darkened, for all the misgivings the others had voiced. That man was Chung Ju-yung.
He seemed to have finished the arithmetic in his head before he spoke.
"If the government won't fund the project, that also means the government takes no share in the mill. I don't think that's such a bad thing."
Trust Chung Ju-yung. What he prized was the chance to build the mill not as a state enterprise, but as a purely private company.
Even so, he did not ignore the practical difficulties.
"I'll wager you this: raising capital at home will be hard. Look at the presidents gathered in this room. They already think it's difficult, don't they? 'A million-ton steel mill in Korea? The man's mad.' That's what people will say, and they won't invest. Probably. Haha."
Rough-hewn as he looked, Chung Ju-yung was razor-sharp where business was concerned.
Kijo thought he was right. It had been the same when Pohang Iron and Steel was built, in the history he remembered. Shares had been offered to raise domestic capital, and all that came in was thirteen million won. Most people believed that putting up a steel mill in Korea was recklessness itself.
"I think so too, President Chung. For now I mean to cover the domestic portion with bank loans, and make up the rest somehow out of Cheongsan's own funds."
When Kijo said he would pour Cheongsan's money into the mill, Choong-hoon objected again.
"Kijo, think carefully. One wrong step, and Cheongsan could be wiped out."
He meant every word. But Kijo was confident.
If he broke ground now, he would be only four to six years ahead of the history he knew. Park Chung-hee would visit the United States in 1965, tour the steel complex at Pittsburgh, and nurse the dream of a mill of his own. Real constraints would hold him back until 1967, when he would give Park Tae-joon the special order to found Pohang Iron and Steel, and the company would be launched in 1968. Sooner than history, yes, but not recklessly sooner. And history had already proved that once a mill stood, it did not fail.
There was a difference, all the same. Pohang Iron and Steel, completed in 1973, had turned a profit the moment it opened for business. The mill Cheongsan built might not escape the red for some time, and paying down the debt would take longer still. But take even a slightly longer view, and the mill was bound to succeed.
"President Lee, how much do you think we'll need to borrow overseas?"
The question came from Hee-jun, whose brother-in-law was the president of an American bank.
"Eighty million dollars, at the least."
Kim Jong-hoe was astonished.
"Eighty million? As I understand it, the country's total exports last year were only about forty million. We'd be borrowing twice what the whole nation sells abroad."
The size of the loan they would need left every face heavy.
"Still, President Lee brought a loan back from Germany when he built the fertilizer plant, and he borrowed from America for the power-tiller factory. He'll manage this too."
Choong-hoon meant it as encouragement, though the worry never quite left his eyes.
All the while Chung Ju-yung was tracing figures on the tabletop with a fingertip, calculating hard. When he finished, he turned to Kijo.
"President Lee, Hyundai Construction will join the steel-mill project."
"You will?"
"Yes. We haven't much cash—we've been putting up the Hyundai Construction building—but give Hyundai a share of the construction. You can pay us later, out of what you earn selling steel."
His instincts were good. He rated the mill's chances highly, and he had decided to come in.
"Thank you, President Chung."
"Don't mention it. Cheongsan saved Hyundai Construction when the Goryeong Bridge job nearly finished us. This is the least I can do. Hahaha!"
When Chung Ju-yung laughed and leapt into a venture that looked impossible, the mood in the room brightened.
Park Hee-jun spoke next. Thanks to Kijo he had made a fortune exporting tungsten, and had been able to move into cement and coal as well.
"I'll join the building of the mill too. I'll come in as a financial investor and raise the dollars the construction needs. I'll also take on procuring the iron ore and coking coal to run it."
"Thank you, President Park."
When Kijo thanked him, Park Hee-jun broke into a bright smile.
"What is there to thank me for? You saved my sister and my brother-in-law, and whose doing is it that my business is succeeding now? Don't say such things."
He had not even pressed them to join, and yet they were stepping forward one after another. Tears stung Kijo's eyes.
"Look, Kijo. You wouldn't leave me out, would you? I said some gloomy things because I was worried for you, but I trust you absolutely. You know my connections in Japan. Whatever capital and technology I can pull in from over there, I'll pull in. Whatever Hanjin can do, I'll do."
"Thank you, hyung."
Kijo took the hand of Choong-hoon, seated beside him, and thanked him.
That left Kim Jong-hoe of Korea Explosives. Scratching the back of his head, he said, "Aigo, the rest of you spoke before I did, so now it looks as if I'm being dragged along. Of course Korea Explosives has to join. You'll use a great deal of dynamite on the site work, won't you? I'll supply it. And bear in mind that Korea Explosives knows a thing or two about chemicals. If you need anything, just say the word."
He had come in last, and he laughed, a little abashed.
Kijo thanked them all. Every firm bound to Cheongsan by a deep tie had come in with him, and he had never felt so firmly braced.
Once it was settled that all five companies would take part, Choong-hoon proposed a toast. Rising from his seat, he said, "Everyone who has boarded the same boat—the provisionally named Cheongsan Steel—is here. We ought to give this gathering a name first, and then drink."
They all agreed. Hee-jun shot a hand into the air.
"I have always thought the bond that brought me together with President Lee was something heaven itself bestowed. What if we took the character for heaven and the character for friend, and called ourselves Cheonwoohui?"
"Cheonwoohui. I like it. Does everyone agree?"
They did.
"Then the name of this gathering will be Cheonwoohui. Raise your glasses."
All five men lifted them.
"To the endless growth and prosperity of Cheonwoohui, founded on this day!"
"To that!"
They cried the toast and drained their cups.
Kijo was grateful to the four men. They had made, and made gladly, a decision that could not have come easily, and they had stepped forward to help him. He could only be thankful.
September 29.
Kijo went down to Pohang alone and walked the ground where, in the history he remembered, Pohang Iron and Steel had been built.
Pohang was a small fishing village of fewer than sixty thousand souls. Yet when he looked at Yeongil Bay, holding the sea in its arms, and at the broad sandy plain spread out beyond it, he felt certain this was the finest site in the country for a mill.
In that other history, Pohang had possessed a location this good and had still been struck from the list of candidates. In its place, Biin in Seocheon, South Chungcheong, along with Ulsan and Samcheonpo, had been named the leading contenders. The reason had been purely political. Kim Jong-pil, a South Chungcheong man, had pushed for Biin. Lee Hu-rak, whose hometown was Ulsan, had pushed for Ulsan. Seo Jeong-gwi, from Samcheonpo, had pushed for Samcheonpo. Three men with power, each trying to plant the mill in his own native place.
Before coming to Pohang, Kijo had visited all three sites and looked over the ground. It was not that any of them lacked advantages. Biin, sitting near the middle of the country, could have spread the ripple effects of an integrated mill across several provinces. Ulsan already had a port, and Kijo's fertilizer plant and power-tiller factory stood there, so the basic infrastructure was sound. Samcheonpo had a virtue of its own: if the mill site were secured by expanding the existing harbor, the cost of development could be kept down.
The drawbacks, though, were just as clear. The Yellow Sea off Biin was too shallow for freighters to come and go freely. Samcheonpo lacked the hinterland for related plants and stockyards. Even Ulsan, at a glance the most attractive of the three, had an obvious flaw. Kijo's fertilizer plant and power-tiller factory had already taken the prime ground, and there was not enough land left for an integrated works that demanded a vast site. Any related facilities would have to be built far from the mill.
The first stage would secure a capacity of one million tons, but the future required a second expansion, and a third, and a fourth. In the history he remembered, Pohang Iron and Steel had succeeded by growing in exactly that way.
The answer was to build on Pohang's empty plain, where there was nothing at all. That there was truly nothing there but sand—that was Pohang's advantage.
Walking the sand, Kijo decided that the first task was a special law to acquire the land of Pohang. Because the place had nothing, a city would have to be made behind the mill. Young men would come from every corner of the country with nothing but themselves, looking for a place to live; they would work at the mill for decades, marry in Pohang, and raise families. Their futures had to be counted in the plan. Apartment blocks would have to rise as well.
Chairman Park had already charged Lee Seok-je, chairman of the Legislative and Judiciary Committee, so the bill, he thought, would not be difficult to draft.
The May 16 coup was, in a sense, a blessing for the building of a steel mill. Under the Chang Myon government the opposition would have fought it, and so would men inside the ruling party; politicians would have shoved their way into the choice of a site and waged a mud fight to drag the mill into their own districts. Kijo believed he had to wage a campaign of speed now, while political activity was banned and soldiers held the power fast. That was not the whole of the matter, but simply not being hobbled by domestic quarrels was fortune enough.
He was walking the beach with that thought when he saw, far off, a jeep racing toward him and throwing up a cloud of sand. It drew close and stopped, and a man whose silhouette was familiar climbed out.
Kim Jong-pil.
In a suit and sunglasses, he came on with long strides, smiling, and offered his hand.
"President Lee, you were hard to find. You've been moving so fast that even the KCIA had trouble tracking you down."
Kijo laughed along with the flourish.
"The Chairman expected a report every week. When you didn't come, he told me to go and find you."
Kim Jong-pil took off his sunglasses. His eyes were unmistakably different from the eyes he had worn before the revolution. There was no shadow in them. They were full of confidence.
"I didn't come because I had nothing yet worth reporting. I meant to look at the last candidate site today and call on him as soon as I returned to Seoul."
"Is that so? I thought you were in a sulk and refusing to see him. Haha."
"Would I do a thing like that?"
"I know you wouldn't. Haha. Shall we walk a little?"
Side by side, Kijo and Kim Jong-pil set off across the sandy plain of Pohang.