Chapter 57
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 057
Chapter Title: Buds of Capitalism (2)
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1854.
Joseon.
"Is this really Hanyang?"
The Joseon native who had consumed more Western goods than anyone else in the country, Father Andrew Kim, gazed out from the rickshaw at the street scene unfolding before him, feeling a touch dazed.
Joseon was changing day by day.
How rapidly? A cathedral was being built right on the outskirts of Hanyang, and no constables were swarming in to chop off heads over it.
The changes had come out of nowhere.
Things that had never existed in the land of Joseon were springing up like fountains, while things that once did were vanishing.
The origin of these changes was clear.
The sea.
A realm utterly alien and terrifying to the people of Joseon.
With the arrival of Westerners from across those waves, sleepy ports had suddenly transformed into bustling urban districts lined with sturdy brick buildings.
This upheaval in the ports had now spread all the way to Hanyang.
In Jang-dong, where the capital's greatest noble clans had resided, Western-style brick houses were breaking ground. Naturally, the diplomatic missions for British, French, and American envoys were also being constructed in Western styles.
But it didn't end with a few new buildings.
Both the king and Heungseon the Great Prince were deeply invested in strengthening royal authority, and they agreed that grand, magnificent construction projects and civil engineering feats were the simplest way to display that power.
Hanyang had to become the heart of a new empire.
It needed to grow even more majestic, far more splendid.
King Heonjong, wielding absolute monarchical power unprecedented in Korean history, merely pointed at the main road and remarked, "This avenue is far too filthy."
In an instant, the street vendors cluttering it turned to dust. He might not be able to exterminate sparrows, but vendors? He could sweep them away in a heartbeat.
With the vendors gone, houses encroaching on the streets were demolished without mercy.
For the first time in centuries, the roads opened wide enough for Western carriages to rumble through unimpeded.
The court didn't stop there; they began encouraging multi-story buildings.
"Everyone relies on ondol heating, turning mountains and rivers into wastelands and wasting the cramped land of the Hanyang capital. If we use coal for fuel, even three- or four-story houses can stay warm."
"Approved."
It was a terrifying upheaval.
The court's interests extended beyond civil engineering.
One look at the new academy slated to replace Sungkyunkwan made that clear.
Sungkyunkwan had been shut down.
The scholars there, fattened on favors from the Andong Kim Clan, had devolved into Kim Ja-geun's propaganda machine and lackeys during the "Rebellion of Kim Ja-geun." A quarter of them were hanged by the neck, another quarter forced to drink poison, and the rest punished lightly or severely—Sungkyunkwan itself was cleanly abolished.
In its place rose a new educational institution called "Taegak."
Naming it after a person felt strange in Joseon tradition, but the king and court, obsessed with Westernization to boost the royal family's international prestige, eagerly adopted the practice.
Those too immersed in alternate history novels might see King Sejong as a scourge on the Jurchens or a bloodthirsty destroyer hungering for slaves, but most Joseon people revered him as a lover of learning—making "Sejong Taegak" a fitting name without much awkwardness.
The curriculum at Taegak was refreshingly simple.
"Graduates here get to take exams for government posts."
"Admissions open to students from every province."
The French claimed it was surely modeled after France's superior system, inspired by His Majesty's admiration for France and Napoleon—who could say?
Just as he recalled the horrific screams echoing from Taegak,
the rickshaw came to a stop.
"We're here!"
"Thank you."
This rickshaw business was part of it too.
When the Banam Park Clan presented rickshaws to the king, he was astonished.
"To invent such a contraption! Truly, by blending Western tools and techniques with our Joseon Confucian principles, astonishing results emerge already."
"In truth, sire, we didn't invent it ourselves—it was the Englishman Arth—"
"I've heard the West has a system called patents? This rickshaw shall be the Banam Park Clan's first patent, and Joseon's inaugural one! You embody the scholar's ideal of seeking truth from facts and benefiting the people!"
In the blink of an eye, palanquins were obsolete.
Even those with poor ride comfort were doomed once the king personally gifted top-grade rickshaws to select officials—overnight, the hierarchy flipped like magma bubbling up.
Father Andrew Kim glanced at the rickshaw puller, who had set him down and was now hawking for more fares.
He also took in the sight of shared carriages and rickshaws packing Hanyang's main avenues.
Hanyang still lacked gas lamps, brick houses, and newsboys hawking papers.
Yet its dynamism could rival Paris.
That's what he wanted to believe.
"Has the priest arrived?"
"Ah, yes."
"Please, come in. A guest is waiting—did you receive any message?"
"No... Do you know who it is?"
That's right.
He had Mass to celebrate.
After countless deaths, Mass could finally be held on Joseon soil.
Myeongrye-bang, the neighborhood where Joseon's first martyr, Kim Beom-u, had lived.
Myeongrye-bang itself had been torn down, but they had bought a nearby house to hold services until the cathedral was built.
A cathedral would soon rise on that very spot in Myeongrye-bang.
Atop this Myeong-dong hill stained with a martyr's blood.
"Father Andrew Kim?"
"Yes. And you are—"
"Arthur Leigh. At last, we meet."
"I've heard you've done tremendous work for Joseon and its faithful. Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
Father Andrew Kim felt his chest swell with emotion.
This blue-eyed scholar had fought for them more than anyone—a true righteous man.
That was ten minutes before hearing that.
The French were right after all: every Englishman was stark raving mad.
Joseon people weren't suddenly possessed by the ghost of Frederick the Great, going berserk to reverse-engineer the Unyo-ho overnight.
For a forced analogy, it was like a student scoring bottom-tier on the college entrance exam miraculously scraping into Seoul National University on sheer luck.
Who knows when school might get canceled? Grab every bit of prestige you can now!
The communication envoys had fizzled out long ago, but to uphold the empire's dignity, they had to revive proper diplomacy with neighbors first!
Joseon folks absolutely weren't scheming some atrocity like dragging Western warships to Edo for gunboat diplomacy.
They were still humble: just roll up in a badass new ride to wow the Japanese and not get outshone. Bonus if it intimidated them into signing favorable terms.
To send envoys, they needed money first. Can't donate ships out of pocket. Time to dip into the yangban pockets again.
And right now, the yangban were flush with cash.
The long-awaited land reform bill had dropped, plunging not just the yangban but all of Joseon into an unprecedented boom.
"Since when did paddies and fields belong to those who tended them, rather than the powerful? Without reforming these old precedents, the nation can never advance."
"In pitying my people, I pondered solutions and was moved by Britain's example.
The Western powers once upheld slavery—far more barbaric and horrific than our slavery—as custom, yet the British court enacted a new law abolishing it forever. They bought out every slave from their owners with cash, redeeming them all.
If even the lowliest slaves merit such treatment, how could the sole Eastern land of rites and music, Joseon, fail to follow suit?"
An unprecedented reform since Dangun.
The dream of land reform—even Taejo Lee Seong-gye and Jeong Do-jeon couldn't achieve—finally bore fruit after centuries.
The Office of Military and National Affairs, where I held a seat, announced the reform process as follows.
How much fierce backlash and desperate evasion had every past equal-field system faced?
Yet this one proceeded at breakneck speed.
Because swarms of Western surveyors conducted modern measurements?
Because eager commoners rushed to snitch on hidden lands hoping for plots?
All wrong.
It was King Heonjong's "Purge King's" policy: "Omitted lands in the survey? They were always the nation's to begin with—no compensation. Caught hiding? No Taegak admits from your village."
Report it, and those wanting to keep some might be spared—but hidden land auto-reverts to the state. Everyone knew heads would roll instead of rice in that process.
In truth, heads rarely rolled.
"You bastard Kim Saengwon, get out here!"
"You didn't report your fields for the equal-field survey? You'll ruin our whole village's shot at Taegak!"
"I did report everything—what's the problem?!"
"Go to the magistrate yourself and check with your own eyes! Why'd you skip that potato patch in the outer village?!"
How many years had the capital yangban monopolized offices? Local rural yangban, rotting in the boonies for over a century, frothed at the mouth: "His Majesty is handing out posts! Clerkships are real offices now!!"
The hope of sending their sons to Hanyang for officialdom turned every yangban into a snitch.
Sure, occasional hiccups: surveyors groping local women and getting beaten to a pulp, or village shamans stirring panic about blue-eyed barbarians eating livers, only for the royal guard to show up and thrash them. But none swayed the tide.
Anyway.
Yangban eager to sell their lands had two options:
1. Immediate cash.
2. Government bonds paying principal and interest over time.
That's right.
This land reform directly led to Joseon's currency reform and bond introduction!
Currency reform was a knife to the throat.
The moment British cotton cloth flooded in earnest, the tatters of o-sung-po couldn't pass as money anymore—Joseon's cotton-standard economy would collapse.
Confession time: I scarfed down the minting rights.
Minting rights felt so weighty I wondered if I should hand them back to Joseon, but after dreaming of Yi Ha-eung stamping sangpyeong tongbo coins, I decided to keep them. Too soon for Joseon hands.
Now you understand the yangban's transformation.
"Heard Banam Park Clan is issuing shares to fund a new rickshaw factory."
"I sold all my bonds ages ago to buy in."
"What! You didn't tip me off?!"
"And you kept mum during the match factory craze."
Yangban in topknots, huddled in coffee houses instead of gisaeng parlors, debating which company's shares had the brightest future, or how bond prices were tanking.
"Rice prices are spiking—better cling to some fields—"
"And get dragged to Geomunjae prison."
"Invest in Arthur Leigh's Far East Shipping instead! Word on the Six Ministries street!"
"What word?"
"His Majesty plans to send envoys to Japan soon to buy rice. Prices should drop then."
They thought it top-secret intel, but if café loafers were blabbing, even the village dogs knew.
Watching them, bile rose in my throat. Time to short something and school these rookie investors...
- Joseon's capitalism sinking in a year. All because of one mad Anglo-Saxon.
Tsk.
As the Joseon court weighed when to dispatch the envoys,
The news we'd awaited most arrived.
Peace treaty signed in Beijing.
Joseon and Ryukyu explicitly recognized as sovereign independent nations, not Qing vassals.
Perfect.
Joseon was free from the vassal yoke binding it to Qing!
- And war with Qing is locked in.
Forget that future for now.
Screw the Qing—we'll dump all our weapons on the Taiping Rebellion.