The Fruits of Two Years
No sooner had I stepped out the main gate of the county office than the landscape hit me—not the Joseon backwater I once knew. The muddy roads that had swallowed ankles up to the brim just two years ago during rains were now paved smooth with dressed granite slabs. Instead of cartwheels slipping and spinning uselessly, the friction of rubber on precisely fitted stone blocks shattered the morning air.
And the houses lining the streets no longer belched acrid woodsmoke. In their place, the refined lamp oil lanterns I'd distributed cast a soft, clear glow from every window.
I paused on the path to the workshop, gazing up at the massive blast furnace. That iron behemoth, exhaling red breath day and night, had become Onseong's new heart. The heat billowing from its summit scorched the chill northern dawn winds, untouchable even by them.
"My lord magistrate! You've arrived!"
As I entered the workshop gates, hundreds of hammer strikes halted in unison. The master blacksmith Sangno, who two years prior had bowed his head in shame before me for bungling a single screw thread, now strode forward proudly in his leather apron. His forearms bulged with thick veins, testaments to years at the forge's blistering maw, and his soot-blackened face bore the grime like a badge of honor.
"Behold, my lord! This is the new main shaft we've forged!"
He pointed to the core component of the massive steam press. Worlds apart from the iron shaft that had shattered into shrapnel under overload two years back. Machined to my personally designed standard gauge without a hair's deviation, its threads gleamed with the precision of a living creature's scales—smooth and flawless.
The metal's chill texture under my fingertips felt unyieldingly solid. The fruits of my steelmaking process: filtering impurities, controlling carbon content. It had finally elevated Joseon's pig iron into true steel.
"How's the press holding up? No more loose screws or bent shafts?"
"Not a chance, my lord! With the soybean oil lubricant you bestowed slathered on every gear tooth, we hear sweet mechanical hums instead of the screams of metal on metal. Now it crushes a hundred gam of beans at once, the shaft standing firm as rock while squeezing out the oil!"
Sangno yanked the lever with pride.
Thud—! Thud—!
The colossal iron ram pistoned up and down in steady rhythm. Crushed beans burst under the overwhelming pressure, golden oil cascading like a waterfall down the channel. What once took ten brawny men stomping a mortar for three days and nights poured out in minutes.
"This oil will feed Onseong, and beyond that, light up Joseon's nights. You've done well, Sangno."
"No, my lord! We merely followed the blueprints you drew, machined to the tolerances you set. Your words that techniques should be clan secrets no more, but shared freely... I finally grasp their profound wisdom."
Onseong's artisans no longer relied on gut feel. Each clutched the standard gauges I'd issued two years ago. Perfect interoperability—a screw from one smithy threading flawlessly into a nut from another. That was the bedrock of two years' blood and sweat, our industrialization's foundation.
Broken parts no longer meant scrapping whole machines; swap in standardized replacements, and they hummed back to life. That system had turned Onseong into a sleepless fortress.
Staring at the gushing golden stream, I murmured low.
"Refine the oil and ship it to Hanyang merchant houses. But waste not a single crumb of the press cake residue. Use it as fertilizer to blanket Onseong's fields with mareongseo potatoes. Full bellies wield hammers; hammers build nations. That's the Joseon I envision."
Leaving the workshop's swelter, I returned to my office. Crisp air greeted me, along with the bailiff. Gone was the cringing old clerk who'd groveled when I flung ledgers two years back. Now he wielded numbers and statistics like a blade—the sharpest administrator in Onseong.
"My lord, this month's census and tax report."
"Refugees pouring into Onseong topped three hundred just last month. Not just from Hamgyong Province—Pyeongan and even Hwanghae folk trekking a thousand ri for your mareongseo seeds and workshop jobs."
"Ten thousand... already."
"Yes, my lord! From a mere six thousand at your arrival, we've shattered ten thousand in two years! The remote fringe once called Onseong is now Hamgyong's bustling hub. Even Qing Manchurians cross the border, drawn by our lights."
"No strains on food supply? More mouths mean bigger appetites. Feeding ten thousand dwarfs six thousand."
"Worry not, my lord. Your mareongseo yields, with seeds and methods you taught, far exceed projections. County granaries overflow; we've borrowed every household rice chest. Even a great famine next year, not one of Onseong's ten thousand will starve."
Pride swelled the bailiff's voice. Then, a discreet cough from beyond the door. Onseong's entrenched local gentry clans—the ones who'd sized me up as green from day one, probing with veiled challenges.
"Enter."
"Magistrate, my lord... Last night the workshop fires blazed fierce again. Our clan sent five cartloads of scrap iron and old pots. May they fuel the precious steel you craft."
Park Da-in, one of the gentry heads, bowed obsequiously. The lips that sneered at my potato seeds as rootless weeds two years ago now sang my praises.
"Park Da-in, didn't you invoke your house's honor two years back, swearing you'd die before accepting my land tax reforms? Yet your clan was first to swap grain tribute for cloth this time."
At my jab, Park wiped cold sweat, grinning servilely.
"Aigoo, my lord. Our eyes were blind then. Without your workshop's iron plowshares and sickles, Onseong farmers won't budge. And... with the soap monopoly you granted, even our house slaves out-earn their keep. How could we defy you?"
They'd learned. Clashing with me meant clan ruin; groveling under my system brought unprecedented wealth. Betray like Old Man Choi, and bandits or my blade would end them. But grasp the soap distribution and oil sales rights I granted, and riches piled up without stirring.
"Your scrap's weight will adjust next month's soap shipment shares. But if my ledgers uncover one more hidden grain cache from your house... you'll end like Choi Du-sik."
"H-heek! We'll heed you, my lord! We kneel at your shadow's mere sight!"
They fled like whipped dogs. Two years prior, they'd traded razor-sharp stares; now they scrambled for my tossed scraps.
The office fell silent. I stared at the wind-up pocket watch on my desk. Its ticking filled the room like a living heartbeat—steady, relentless.
The callow magistrate bleeding amid exploding machine shards two years ago was long gone.
I rose and climbed to the battlements behind the office. From the wall, all Onseong sprawled below. Iron rebar I'd cast poured between stone blocks formed unbreachable ramparts, dwarfing any fortress in Joseon.
The Duman River below was no longer a mere moat against foes but a grand artery hauling Onseong's goods.
"My lord, the wind bites."
The bailiff, arrived unseen, draped a heavy fur cloak over my shoulders. I gazed north, drawing a sealed missive from Hanyang from my bosom.
From His Majesty King Jeongjo himself.
Rumors from the north vex my ears. Transform six thousand souls into ten thousand sturdy folk, prove before mine eyes the miracle of iron birthing oil unaided. Delay not—ascend to the capital at once.
"He's summoning me at last."
"Bailiff, after I leave, keep the workshop fires roaring. Onseong is the iron stake I've driven into Joseon's vast board. No one pulls it free."
"Fear not, my lord. The ten thousand know their lives hang on that chimney smoke. We'll never forget the rule of numbers you taught."
I nodded. Below, the market teemed with merchant caravans from all eight provinces loading soap and oil. Children once gnawing roots in famine now dashed the streets with soap-scrubbed, rosy cheeks.
Two years—short if short, long if long.
"Prepare. At dawn tomorrow, we turn toward Hanyang."
The bailiff bowed deeply. Onseong thrummed with majestic machinery into the night.
I checked the pocket watch again.
AD 1779. The 3rd year of King Jeongjo. Born in 1760, Year of the Dragon, I was now twenty. The green eighteen-year-old who'd fled Hanyang two years back had melted away in Onseong's furnaces long ago.
In his place stood a young man of resolve.