Chapter 32
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 032
Chapter Title: Invasion of Joseon (3)
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The roar of fury from Kim Ja-geun, the head of the Andong Kim Clan—a man who made even the mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees tremble!
[Immediately lead the righteous army to Hanyang, bringing military rations with you.]
[Release all the stored grain and bring it. We must stockpile sufficient provisions in the capital.]
Having devoured Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Record of the Black Dragon War, Kim Ja-geun brimmed with confidence once more, channeling the strategies of Zhuge Liang and the resolve of Ryu Seong-ryong.
"The foreigners blocking the river was something we'd foreseen long ago. If the people just endure a little discomfort, there'll be no problem at all."
"Prices in the capital are skyrocketing by the hour! No problem at all?!"
"That's all the work of greedy merchants and traitors collaborating with the foreigners! The Metropolitan Police Bureau—dispatch them at once to beat those scoundrels hoarding and price-gouging to death!"
Kim Ja-geun first tore the merchants limb from limb and confiscated their assets. In the midst of the greatest national crisis since the Japanese and Manchu invasions, they dared to profit from the chaos?
The merchants' fates boiled down to two options.
Lose both their wealth and their lives, or just their wealth.
After raiding the warehouses of these dogs for military funds and rations—and instilling a climate of fear—Kim Ja-geun moved straight to the next phase.
"The righteous armies from all eight provinces will arrive with ample rice. I've also ordered them to bring extra provisions, so prices should stabilize soon enough."
The stored grain system—one of Joseon's proudest achievements.
At its core, it was military rations. But like all rice, it lost value over time, so they lent out the old stocks to the people and replenished them with fresh harvests.
Thus, in this time of crisis, calling in the stored grain for the capital wasn't wrong in theory.
In theory, at least.
"An order has come from the court. The foreigners from England have invaded, and fighting has broken out on Ganghwa Island. Assemble your troops and head to the capital at once."
Provincial governors and military commanders began mobilizing their forces.
Then, the county magistrates and deputy magistrates below them would rally the soldiers from their jurisdictions and march upward.
But this grand plan started creaking and groaning from all sides right from the outset, flashing ominous signs.
First off.
"Didn't the state collect military taxes instead of conscripting soldiers?"
"The foreigners are invading now—what does that matter?! Round up all the able-bodied men from the village immediately! We need porters to carry rations even if they're not fighters—grab anyone!"
The local officials on the front lines naturally resorted to the best they could manage.
"We need to muster fifty from our county, so the clerks and local functionaries, discuss among yourselves and select the able-bodied."
Shifting the burden to the clerks and village toughs.
"And we have to send the stored grain in the warehouse to Hanyang—"
"My lord."
"What is it?"
"Well... that is... the warehouse..."
Of course, there was no stored grain in the warehouse.
It had all been siphoned off.
In a Joseon rotten to the core with corruption, did anyone seriously think the stored grain would sit quietly in storage?
The magistrates frantically checked the warehouses, only to find what should have been brimming with rations reduced to moldy scraps or sacks filled with rocks and sand—worthless junk.
"How is there not a single grain of what should be here?! You lot! Just how much have you embezzled?!"
"......"
"......Ahem."
The clerks had siphoned it off.
And naturally, they'd kicked up a portion to the magistrate. After all, the magistrate himself had bought his post with bribes—he needed to recoup his investment.
Joseonites might not have known Newton's law of universal gravitation, but they sure knew the law of universal taxation. Taxes, corvée labor—every levy targeted the weakest links.
Anyone with even a scrap of power would pull every trick to erase their land from the national registry, turning it into "nonexistent" property. In the end, only the powerless got squeezed, forced to cough up multiples to cover the strongmen's shares.
This was the infamous "three taxes on the tenant farmer."
"Scholar, sir. With the national crisis, we need you to send a few thousand slaves to Hanyang."
"Pull my slaves during harvest season? Are you mad?"
"And I'm truly sorry, but we need rations too. Could you contribute a bit? The warehouse is empty. We'll all die at this rate!"
"Sigh. Just this once. Really, just this time."
"Thank you! Thank you!!"
The villages where local notables swallowed their tears and shouldered the burden got the happiest ending.
Among the magistrates, the biggest hardliners charged bravely toward a bad end.
"Dol-soe, you're going to Hanyang."
"Aigoo, my lord! Harvest is right around the corner—how can you send me now? What kind of talk is that?!"
"The king himself has summoned you! Will you only go after a beating?!"
"If I go, my fields will all rot—can't you give me just a little time?"
"Don't worry. Everything in those fields goes to the state as rations anyway. Start harvest prep right now."
"Pardon? Pardon?!"
Ruthless exploitation.
The magistrates and clerks, facing ruin themselves, united as one to squeeze with gusto.
But stirring up harvest-time farmers was like shoving your head into a wasp nest.
"Waaaaah!!"
"Kill the corrupt officials!"
"Tear the clerk bastards limb from limb!!"
"Die here or die there—same difference!!"
The farmers, essentially told "go die or become slaves," finally gripped their sickles backward and decided to slaughter the magistrates and clerks instead of the British.
Not every province in Joseon erupted in full rebellion.
"Magistrate, sir."
"It's a national affair—what can we do? Will you handle the fallout?"
"We'll obey your order, but if you really do this, you won't leave the county alive."
"......"
"Make it never happen while you still can. We don't want to die either."
"Y-you dare threaten an official?!"
"The villagers might show up with torches tonight."
Even crooks and swindlers needed street smarts to last long.
The smart magistrates forgot Kim Ja-geun's order the moment it arrived.
They diligently drafted a report claiming "Eaten by rats." Denying it was sent boosted survival odds.
The slightly dumber ones caved to clerks' pleas, begging, and threats. The even dumber ones switched tunes when villagers arrived with sickles and plows, eyes bloodshot.
In the end.
"Why isn't anyone coming?!"
"We need to reach Hanyang fast! You incompetent fools! And you call yourselves officials?!"
Provincial military commanders and governors alike mustered less than a tenth of their targets.
Instead, reports flew in of uprisings where magistrates' heads ended up on poles.
And the grain they'd somehow scraped together?
"Halt! Put all that grain from the porters into this warehouse—and carry this instead!"
Someone in the middle skimmed it off.
Or the porters just vanished with it.
The conscripted commoners, clueless, hauled sand instead of rice toward Hanyang.
With sand and rotten rice flooding in, Hanyang's prices shot past NVIDIA stock, challenging Dogecoin's peak like Apollo 13 blasting toward the stars.
"Rebellions? Now? Now?! These traitors! Rebel scum colluding with the English are everywhere! Exterminate their clans at once! Now!!"
Even chopping more merchant heads wouldn't tame those prices.
The scene in Baekma-dae Joseon was utterly brutal.
With Han River transport choked off, the capital Hanyang—a black hole devouring supplies for hundreds of thousands—descended into chaos overnight. Killing all merchants and seizing their assets had only made prices spiral beyond control.
"If we'd signed that trade treaty, they wouldn't have invaded, right?"
"The people's loyalty is wavering. We need to placate the barbarians, make peace, and win back hearts now."
"Are you saying His Majesty should kowtow to the English barbarians? And you call yourselves Joseon scholars?! Traitors!!"
"Traitors" had become Kim Ja-geun's catchphrase #18. Even blaring Ring Ding Dong at college entrance exam gates wouldn't be as infectiously repetitive.
"Stuffing thousands into that narrow Ganghwa Island? The enemy must be ignorant fools with no grasp of strategy. Soon, loyal patriots on the island will rise up, cut their supplies, and before the plague even spreads, the English troops will crumble."
No uprising happened on Ganghwa. They'd pocketed shiny silver coins.
No plague thinned the British ranks either. They'd even held a ritual to summon the plague spirit via a favored shaman, but nothing came of it.
"Shouldn't we move His Majesty to Bukhansanseong Fortress now?"
"And then what?"
"Flee to Kaesong or Pyongyang."
Even clan elders started hinting at the next moves.
But Kim Ja-geun was dumbfounded.
"Get a grip. The king is weak-willed and sways to sycophants' whispers—he could flip like a pancake anytime."
"Hey now!"
"Hey now what?! If traitors like the Pungyang Jo Clan get the king to issue an edict saying 'surrender to England and the Kims stand down,' we're all dead!"
"You fool! The one who needs to snap out of it is you! If His Majesty desires peace, we obey as loyal subjects—or if that's unjust, down the poison. How dare a subject pressure the king?!"
There were barely enough proper soldiers as it was; sending the king to Bukhansanseong would split them further.
Besides, the king had to stay under Kim Ja-geun's direct thumb. Lose that grip even briefly, and he might end up a headless ghost.
"Why are we fighting? For loyalty and righteousness, aren't we?!"
"...!"
"Even if they have a few fancy toys, the spirit and resolve of Joseon scholars can't be broken by trinkets! Our willingness to die like grass for the true way—that's our strongest weapon!! Even the king, if he abandons righteousness for heresy and yields to foreigners, becomes no better than a commoner!!"
"You mad... bastard!"
"Am I wrong?! How can one who forsakes Confucian virtue be anything but a vulgar fool?!"
With his "off with their heads if they step out of line—even the king" declaration, Kim Ja-geun doubled down on his reckless path.
"Send an envoy to the English barbarians. Tell them we'll surrender if they recognize my legitimate authority over Joseon."
"Pardon? My lord, what did you say?!"
"Didn't hear? Tell them we're far more useful than that punk king and lure them in. Summon that unfilial wretch to Hanyang and unleash the Ten-Faced Net Formation."
The Han was a treacherous beast; nine times out of ten, those massive English ships would run aground trying to sail upstream.
Then strike—hide cannons along the banks for a barrage, or send fire ships to burn them.
The tactic future Joseon used against the General Sherman steamed into Kim "Zhuge Liang" Ja-geun's mind.
"Won't the English fly into a rage?"
"Take the king hostage and renegotiate. Once they see our resolve and capability, they'll come around. This'll do it."
A bizarre notion: negotiate at swordpoint.
Acquire that "Hostage King" title, and the Andong Kim Clan wouldn't fall easily. After the war, slaughter the peaceniks and usher in Kim rule—not just a pipe dream.
Finally, the envoy headed to Ganghwa and successfully conveyed the re-negotiation offer to the king and British generals.
But the fleet never chugged up the Han.
"My lord!! My lord!!"
"What now?"
"The English barbarians are marching on Hanyang!"
Regrettably, Kim Ja-geun's sparring partner was the world's strongest devil legion, hardened by deceit and plunder: the British Empire's army.
The newly landed British ground forces advanced slowly along the riverside sandbars north of the Han, while the Royal Navy watched their moves, poised to steam upstream at any moment.
And moreover.
"They're using cavalry to scatter vile placards everywhere... claiming you've been granted a title by the English and plan to hand the country over to them, my lord."
"These depraved scum! Behead anyone caught with those placards!"
The English were coming.
Thousands of barbarians, dragging guns and cannons, heading for Hanyang.
Kim Ja-geun's mind reeled.