Chapter 47
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 047
Chapter Title: You Reap What You Sow (2)
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Before the Imjin War, Joseon was one thing entirely. After it, Joseon was something else.
Before the Manchu invasions, Joseon was a nation. After them, it became another.
So it was inevitable that the Joseon before this moment and the one after would be different too.
Everyone knew the country was rotten to its core. But the nobility's power was so overwhelming that no one dared say it out loud. Even the greatest Confucian scholars of Joseon, like Hwaseo Yi Hang-ro and Nosa Gi Jeong-jin, had abandoned their official careers early rather than speak truth to power. Who else would risk opening their mouths?
Then came the British invasion out of nowhere—like a typhoon amid natural disasters.
Just as a typhoon could churn up a sea choked with green algae rafts and usher in fresh waters, foreign force had exposed every flaw in Joseon, obliterating the Andong Kim Clan at the heart of it all.
It wasn't the power-hungry nobles who "wisely" resolved the British invasion. It was Yi Ha-eung, the overlooked royal bastard from the Heungseon line.
The young king, owing nothing to the nobles, reclaimed the power they'd stolen from him.
Now it was time to lance the boil.
No matter how much blood and pus flowed, they had no intention of stopping the surgery.
Joseon had to be reborn.
Even if it died on the operating table.
If you thought of Joseon as the patient, it was in terminal multi-organ failure, its body crammed full of cancer cells.
"The Bureau for Rectifying National Affairs is an office to reform every corruption, injustice, abuse, and wicked custom that's plagued this land."
"Huh? Doesn't that sound pretty much like the State Council?"
"The State Council was the tool of those old Middle Faction and Northern Faction thugs. The Bureau for Rectifying National Affairs serves His Majesty's enlightened wisdom. How can you study Neo-Confucianism and not grasp such a basic truth?"
Ah, I see. So the State Council was the bad agency, and this Bureau is the good one! My knowledge grows.
Anyway, the era of the Andong Kim Clan was over, and King Heonjong now held the power to do whatever he wanted.
But surprisingly, more people than expected disagreed.
"But those scum colluding with Kim Ja-geun wouldn't stay quiet. If they were in league with traitors, aren't they traitors too?"
"Is Governor Hahok a traitor?"
We were definitely cleared as just "loyal subjects," weren't we?
"They got off because calling them traitors would mean wiping out the entire Andong Kim Clan, root and branch. But we can't hide that the man himself was a monster."
"Oh, right. I don't know much about Joseon politics."
"Exactly. That's the problem. Just like you don't know Joseon..."
Even among Joseons, plenty didn't know about Britain.
Way too many.
In short, everywhere outside the British invasion route—from Ganghwa to Hanyang—was still asking, "What just happened?"
Ignorance breeds bravery.
"How dare you bow to barbarians?!"
"Traitor! Abandoning the rites of tributary service because the Western wolves threatened with guns?!"
"Forsaking loyal martyrs like Governor Hahok—this is an outrage against heaven and earth!"
In politics, this was entertainment. Pure WWE.
Various clans would submit memorials, blasting their entrance themes, and hit the king with moves. The king would scream "Argh!" and concede what he could afford, securing what he really wanted.
But they were mistaken. King Heonjong had zero interest in the ring.
He wasn't a wrestler, and there was no script.
Yi Hwan had become king of Joseon before he was old enough for primary school, enduring decades crushed under the heels of those noble bastards and their cronies.
The fools charging in to lock submissions on a king awakened by murder and hatred didn't realize until he yanked a razor-sharp sword—not a steel chair or sledgehammer—from under the ring that this wasn't wrestling. It was a snuff film.
Slaughter Kim Ja-geun's entire gang of traitors.
Those who funded traitors and bought offices. Corrupt magistrates tormenting their domains. Those slandering Britain—who helped execute the traitors—and revering the Qing overlords. Those challenging the king's authority. Those forming factions to monopolize power. War profiteers. And all others violating sacred national law—punish them severely.
Through decades of patience, Yi Hwan had honed a relentless focus that missed no openings and jaws of steel that never let go. This was his one shot to butcher them before they even grasped the situation.
"Your Highness! This is not the way of a true king! How can you slaughter them all?!"
"Your kinsman Kim Ja-geun insulted the royal ancestors and plotted to turn the throne into a Kim dynasty. Isn't that right?"
"..."
Kim Heung-geun, a survivor of the Andong Kim Clan, tried to halt the bloodbath but turned mute as a stung bee at that blunt "You wanna die too?"
"This nation's scholars have prided themselves for centuries on Neo-Confucianism to make gentlemen of the masses. And what was the result? Your Confucius this, Mencius that, led to a land swarming with villains like Wang Mang and Dong Zhuo."
"Your Highness!"
"Chaos has come, exposing your droning classics as empty echoes no different from monks chanting to Buddha. I'll walk the path of the hegemon, not the sage king! If you won't follow, draw your sword like Kim Ja-geun!"
Words that could spark a coup.
Anyone knowing the roots of Joseon's royal legitimacy would see this as political suicide—gains minimal, losses catastrophic.
Yet he said it. Because if he didn't vent that rage choking his chest, it'd strangle him.
Heonjong's loyalists gave as good as they got—no holds barred.
"Even if Confucius returned, we'd never forgive harm to the people."
"Any scholar of Neo-Confucianism spouting Yeojin worship has clearly studied wrong."
"With the people suffering, how long will you cling to dead scholars' words?"
"Why don't you scholars enter office to right the world? Fleeing noble power, then preaching 'peace in poverty'—aren't you ashamed? Fear Kim Ja-geun but not His Majesty?!"
The newly appointed Prime Minister was Park Gyu-su of the Banam Park Clan.
The Prime Minister usually lacked real power, but Heonjong gave Park both the post and leadership of the Bureau as Chief Director.
Their trash talk parade was less reckless bluster, more calculated provocation.
"Make it a nation of brutes," he'd said.
Yi Hwan was in a position utterly unlike any prior Joseon king. The closest might be Goryeo's endgame loyalist-turned-mad kings.
And the state of the nation eerily matched.
A Joseon king declaring hegemony was like a Republic of Korea president embracing Juche ideology—nuclear-level provocation.
But after factional wars, Tangpyeong cabinets, and noble rule, the scholars' power—especially local gentry—was withered to husks.
With the capital nobles' pots all shattered under the Union Jack, no domestic force could stop the king now!
The Bureau's first mission: Great Purge.
Hanyang's front was festooned with traitors' heads like jujubes on a tree.
King Heonjong, now a screaming barbarian, hacking through swarming scholars like trash mobs—an unprecedented scandal in Joseon history.
Some scholars rushed to defend the young king, naturally craving the corpses of the old power monopolists and their hangers-on.
But a nation doesn't run on blood and death alone.
Declaring hegemony wasn't enough.
New governing agendas were needed to keep things rolling.
And moonlit Heonjong, drunk on Lee blood, proposed an extraordinary one.
"After Ming's fall, our Joseon alone inherited civilization and rites in the East, earning the name Little China. But the Jurchens occupying the Central Plains envy our culture, forcing us to bide our time.
The moon wanes when full. With rebellions flaring across Qing, officials' corruption infamous worldwide, how can we in Haedong sit idle?"
Everyone got it instantly, though he hadn't said it outright.
Restore the Mandate!
And Northern Expedition!
Awakened as hegemon but not fully unhinged, Heonjong chose the classic Eastern path.
Overawe abroad, submit within.
"Your Highness has pledged ties with Britain, and soon France, America too. To stand equal, Prime Ministers and Ministers won't suffice. We must reform the bureaucracy."
"Well said, Prime Minister. Shall we revert the Six Ministries to Six Boards as in olden times?"
"Your servant, Foreign Minister Yi Ha-eung, reports: Britain and the West long ago deemed Six Boards insufficient for governance, creating more offices for finer control of the people."
"Then study their systems and devise a new bureaucracy."
Not Prime Minister, but Premier.
Not Ministry of Rites, but Foreign Office.
Not Foreign Minister, but Foreign Secretary.
Having force-bought all those British coins, Qing diplomacy was doomed anyway. No hesitation in cutting ties.
Next: war prep, naturally.
The Five Armies Camps, core of traditional Joseon forces, were all disbanded. And not just disbanded—these troops fell under the "deserter if they fled, traitor if they stayed" fallacy.
Even Heonjong, slaking his throat on noble blood, didn't crush these poor grunts mercilessly.
"Confiscate all camps' independent funds to the Treasury—no, Finance Ministry. Demote all soldiers to pensioned retirees."
"With His Majesty's mercy like heaven, how could they defy?"
"We'll also form a new-model army to replace the Five Camps. Britain's forces are the world's fiercest elites today. With their advice, we'll raise one-in-ten troops able to shatter any foe like bamboo."
Only the army.
An army that could beat Qing!
Watching Qing get pummeled by Western troops—not to mention some Taiping rebels—turned Joseon's upper and lower classes into severe gambler addicts...
Where's my Joseon?
Where's my small, cute Joseon?
This feeling... Like tearing up at an orphaned kid hustling through poverty, only to see them grown into a fine gangster years later.
- You made it this way.
No way. I just preached free trade and propriety. This isn't the British Empire—it's Prussia! A dark evolution I never set up!
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Draft some policy proposals. Western tech or systems that could benefit our country."
"But I don't know Joseon well..."
"That's for us to review."
The carriage (British-made) halted after a long ride.
"His Highness grants you this mansion."
"His... Majesty... I am... deeply... grateful..."
Familiar place.
Kim Ja-geun's house.
No, seriously, it's haunted.
- What?
Not you.
Anyway.
Looks like my first job is turning this Prussia-bound Joseon into a splendid British Empire.
And I've got plenty for that.
Time to show my skills...!