Kyujanggak (1)
The morning air in Heojeongdang at Changdeok Palace was thick with tension. King Jeongjo had already examined the steel plowshare samples that Right State Councillor Chae Je-gong had secretly brought him the night before, but now he feigned indifference, as if seeing them for the first time, idly flipping through the documents.
Chae Je-gong, his lips pressed tight, began his performance as if delivering a freshly arrived report.
"Your Highness, from the machine workshop at the water mill in Geumho-dong, three hundred such steel plowshares poured out in a single night. Even a hundred blacksmiths working nonstop for a month couldn't—"
Before Chae Je-gong could finish, Hanseong Governor Kim Gwi-ju let out a mocking laugh, seizing the opening.
"Right State Councillor! Have you lost your wits in old age? How could that possibly make sense? Iron requires a craftsman's devotion to take form—yet you claim a mere stream of water forged and stamped out three hundred plowshares on its own? This is blatant deception, or Yi Si-woo's demonic trickery to blind Your Highness!"
"Absolutely impossible!"
"It defies the natural order!"
Noron officials behind Kim Gwi-ju shouted as if Heojeongdang might collapse under the noise.
"Does Governor Kim truly swear this is utterly impossible?"
King Jeongjo asked with feigned distress, and Kim Gwi-ju, sensing his chance, raised his voice triumphantly.
"Indeed, Your Highness! How could lumps of iron move themselves to craft such things!"
Only then did Jeongjo close the documents and slowly rise from his seat. His gaze drifted out the window toward the distant, majestic flow of the Han River.
"Does this not mean replacing the labor of a hundred blacksmiths for a full month with the motion of machines in a single night? If true, this isn't merely about forging tools—it's a world-shattering upheaval of the very foundations of labor."
"I must verify the reality behind these miraculous numbers myself. Right State Councillor, summon the Kyujanggak scholars at once—even those ministers convinced this is fraud. I shall witness the truth they so proudly claim."
"Your Highness, shall we prepare the royal procession immediately?"
"Even now, as we speak, the waters of the Han drive those machines without cease. Make haste with the preparations. We head to Geumho-dong."
The royal yellow dragon banner signaling the king's procession was planted in the courtyard of the Gigi-cheong machine workshop in Geumho-dong, and the workshop's sweltering heat instantly froze into suffocating silence.
Jeongjo entered with the Kyujanggak scholars and seasoned ministers in tow. Right behind him strode Right State Councillor Chae Je-gong, while on the opposite side loomed Kim Gwi-ju, bristling with suspicion and fury.
They were first greeted by the acrid stench of carbon, scorching heat that blistered the skin, and mountains of stacked steel plowshares.
Jeongjo stepped forward slowly and lifted one plowshare. The alloy steel Yi Si-woo had crafted was fundamentally different from Joseon's crude cast iron. Instead of rough, uneven surfaces, it gleamed with mirror-like smoothness, reflecting the king's face.
Jeongjo flicked the blade with his finger, and a clear, high-pitched ring shattered the silence.
"This is truly the product of one night?"
Jeongjo's low voice echoed off the workshop ceiling.
Yi Si-woo, sleeves rolled up and singed from the furnace flames, bowed his head. A bead of sweat traced his jaw and fell onto the blueprint spread across the floor.
"Yes, Your Highness. It was not the hands of craftsmen but the rush of the Han River that hammered the steel, guided solely by my designs."
At that moment, Kim Gwi-ju, who had held his silence, stepped forward.
"Your Highness, iron must be imbued with a craftsman's spirit to gain true essence. How can we use these grotesque machine-stamped abominations—mixed with mere pebbles—for the foundation of Joseon's agriculture? This disrupts market order and threatens the livelihoods of blacksmiths who've wielded iron their whole lives. It's a seditious act!"
Beside him, Choi Hyung-do, cowed by Kim Gwi-ju's presence, could only sweat coldly and keep silent.
Yi Si-woo straightened his disheveled sleeves and bowed. The angle was impeccably proper, but the chill in his eyes as he regarded Kim Gwi-ju betrayed no deference.
"I well know what essence and order Your Excellency speaks of."
Yi Si-woo slowly shifted his gaze to Kim Gwi-ju.
"Yet I must ask: Is the exorbitant interest those blacksmiths allied with your house charge the commoners for a single cast-iron plowshare truly the order of the yangban? When the blade breaks, they must buy another, pawning their fields to pay the debt—is that the noble essence Your Excellency praises, bought with the people's blood and tears?"
Kim Gwi-ju's face drained to the color of dirt, his lips trembling. He hadn't expected this upstart to confront him head-on about vested interests, even before the king.
"Th-this insolent wretch! Even before Your Highness, he shows no respect! Daring to profane yangban propriety with the logic of lowly scum!"
"Propriety, you say? Forgive me, Governor, but to my eyes, it appears not as propriety but as error."
Yi Si-woo addressed not Kim Gwi-ju but King Jeongjo behind him, his tone resolute.
"The steel plowshares I designed are three times harder than existing cast iron, with far longer lifespans—yet their price is less than half."
Yi Si-woo reverently lifted a bluish-white plowshare from the stack on the floor.
"The people suffer famine not from laziness. While scholars wield brushes to debate the world, the commoners grip hoes to etch their lives upon the earth. Yet the 'brush' we hand them snaps after one dig in the soil—how can they pass the cruel test of hunger? When their tools betray them even as their hands bleed, is flogging them to produce answers truly this nation's order?"
Yi Si-woo's voice deepened, lashing Kim Gwi-ju's face.
"Now, I give them unbreakable steel brushes to inscribe abundance themselves. How could this be seditious?"
The air in the workshop congealed like frost on a castle wall. Only the steel drive shaft, enduring the Han River's terrifying pressure without a whimper, emitted its heavy vibrations.
Jeongjo silently observed Yi Si-woo's conviction. The king's gaze shifted from the plowshare in Yi Si-woo's hand to Kim Gwi-ju's twisted scowl.
"Yi Si-woo, with this single lump of steel, you intend to upend Joseon's poverty entirely."
Jeongjo handed the plowshare back, and Yi Si-woo passed it to Man-seok at his side. Meeting the king's eyes steadily, he confronted the question directly.
"Your Highness, innovation in tools is innovation in life itself. Not mere abundance, but the eternal erasure of poverty's errors from Joseon's history."
With that, Yi Si-woo stepped back from Jeongjo and gestured toward the workshop's interior.
"A hundred words pale before a single proof. The plowshare is but the beginning, Your Highness. Allow me to show you where Joseon's new heart beats."
Under Yi Si-woo's guidance, Jeongjo moved forward, followed by Chae Je-gong, Kim Gwi-ju, and the hushed ministers.
Deeper in, massive waterwheels linked to the Han's currents meshed with transmission devices in grand display. Machines that had screamed in protest yesterday now spun in perfect harmony on the new alloy shafts Yi Si-woo had installed.
The farther they ventured, the more the earth's rumbling vibrations rose through their soles. The ministers, awed by the colossal gears and ceaselessly turning drive shafts, held their breath.
Jeongjo halted before the operating machinery.
"This... is the machine that harnesses the Han's power to forge iron?"
"Yes, Your Highness. What takes a craftsman a thousand refinements, this machine accomplishes in one turn. The result of confining nature's force within my designs, not human muscle."
At Yi Si-woo's explanation, Kim Gwi-ju spat his retort.
"In the end, these hideous iron monstrosities replace skilled hands! It makes men forget heaven-ordained roles and upends the nation's foundations...!"
"Governor Kim."
Jeongjo's low call sliced Kim Gwi-ju's words short.
"What is this 'role' you speak of? Is it the people's wailing over broken plowshares amid starvation? Or harvesting more grain with better tools to enrich the realm?"
"Your Highness, that is not my meaning—"
"I have seen not rhetoric, but reality. Governor Kim, further debate is pointless. Fear not for those craftsmen. I shall spread this Gigi-cheong smelting method to every provincial office nationwide. They will become Joseon's new engineers, operating these machines instead of futile hammering."
At Jeongjo's declaration, Kim Gwi-ju could only bow his flushed, mottled face. Chae Je-gong watched with a silent smile.
Jeongjo approached Yi Si-woo and murmured low enough for only him to hear.
"Yi Si-woo, Royal Secretariat. You claim to plow under Joseon's soil with these plowshares. But whence comes the power to defend that soil? Fertile lands inevitably draw starving wolves."
Yi Si-woo smiled faintly, as if awaiting the question. He led Jeongjo to the workshop's deepest recess, where heat haze still rose from a massive mold.
"Your Highness, the plowshare is merely the start. This steel tills the earth—and pierces enemy hearts."
Yi Si-woo yanked away the red cloth himself. As it slid off, every eye in the workshop locked onto the revelation.
There gleamed a sleek, elongated alloy steel barrel, far smoother and longer than conventional matchlock cannons—freshly cast from the premium molten steel left after three hundred plowshares.
Yi Si-woo's ambition incarnate.
"Lighter than bronze cannons, ten times tougher than cast iron. Its bore strength is overwhelming, allowing ample powder without explosion risk. Range doubles, penetration defies comparison."
Jeongjo, entranced, caressed the still-warm barrel surface. The hefty texture transmitted through his fingertips struck the king's mind harder than three hundred plowshares.
Backlit by the furnace's dying glow, Yi Si-woo added,
"Foreign ships daring to eye our coasts will falter before crossing the sea; their cannons will fall silent as we pierce their hearts first. Your Highness, the time has come to redesign Joseon's territory as an iron fortress."
The Han's torrent battered the Gigi-cheong walls. The millennium of cast iron waned; the age of steel stirred to life.
Jeongjo gripped Yi Si-woo's shoulder in thrilled fervor.
"Excellent, Yi Si-woo, Royal Secretariat. All Joseon's iron and fire shall move at your command."