Chapter 6
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: The Arrival of the Otherworldly Hero
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Originally, the people of Joseon were starved for gossip.
The rumor of a blue-eyed child arriving on the back of a whale had already spread far and wide through the mouths of the clerks even before the boy reached the Hwanghae Governor's Office in Haeju.
Hwanghae Province Governor Jo Du-sun, known as Heart Hermitage, saw all the local idlers crawling out of their dusty rooms to loiter around the government offices instead of wasting away at home. A yangban's innate urge to lecture welled up in him, but he held it back.
Truth be told, he was curious himself.
"What is your father's style name?"
"My father went by the name Henry."
Arthur—or Asul, as he wrote it in Hangul—gripped a small brush in his delicate, fern-like hand and wrote Henry in Hangul script. The more you looked at him, the more slyly charming he seemed.
Unlike his name, he wasn't from the prestigious Pungyang Jo Clan of the noble houses but from the Yangju Jo Clan. Still, it was a family with a notable lineage tracing back to the famous Jo Mal-saeng. Much later, his nephew Jo Byeong-gap would go down in history as an SSS-rank corrupt official who ruined the country, but Jo Du-sun was a fairly competent court official who steadily climbed the ranks through various postings.
It took less than three days for the boy, who had been sat on Joseon's infamous "thinking chair" used for the line "You know your own crimes," to be moved to a clean government inn.
The instinct flowing through the blood of Joseon yangbans.
It was none other than...
"To gain insight into literature so quickly—you must be exceptionally bright."
"This Hangul script is so easy to learn, that's why."
...the drooling that came whenever they spotted a smart kid.
Once they replaced his ragged clothes with proper ones and gave him a bath, the boy looked utterly adorable and refined. And that sparkling local wit of his couldn't be hidden?
The rotten-water yangban, encountering this fresh newb, was overcome with an immense desire to cram the Four Books and Three Classics into the boy's soft little head.
"Henry, you say. What did he do?"
"Uh... um..."
"If our language is still unfamiliar and difficult, I can summon someone who speaks Chinese."
"No, that's fine. I'll give it a try. I can do it."
Drool-worthy.
Look at that enthusiasm.
"My father sailed on ships."
'A merchant, then.'
"And, uh, he, he worked for the government there."
'A merchant doing government work? Unlikely.'
"Uuuuh..."
It took some time, but he extracted from the boy the information that "England subjugated the lands of India and established a new court there, and Henry served as an official in that court." England was an island nation, so of course they'd use ships.
Henry Leigh, former East India Company employee and trader, had somehow transformed into a court official in the British Indian shogunate, but Jo Du-sun felt proud of the intel he'd painstakingly drawn out. He never dreamed the boy had deliberately inflated his status. By Joseon logic, a family producing such a brilliant child had to be a scholarly yangban house with literary renown—that was just common sense.
Having uncovered fresh info to include in his memorial to the throne, it was now time for some hobby... no, time to fulfill his duties as a scholar and yangban.
"This Hangul you've mastered was created so even fools could learn it easily. If you've studied in China or Joseon, you ought to learn Classical Chinese next. But it's hard to grasp—"
"I want to learn it!"
"Your zeal for learning is truly admirable. Then, shall we look at this book? It's called the Thousand Character Classic."
And a short while later,
when the court's order arrived in Haeju,
instead of throwing him in a prison cell, he had the boy ride a donkey, assigned him family servants, and sent him off. He also arranged a swift horse to dispatch a new memorial ahead.
[...This time, the Washed ashore boy Yi Asul is the second son of Yi Hyun-ri. Yi Hyun-ri was a high official of the Indian kingdom.
...Upon strictly examining Yi Asul, this minister finds that England, an island nation, possesses countless ships, invades foreign lands, and has swallowed India—a land thousands of ri across the sea—showing boundless ferocity.
Their frequent appearances in our seas of late are no trivial matter. We must ready our navy to prepare against any possible invasion by these barbarians.]
Up to here, it was the standard spiel from a Hwanghae governor.
They'd just say up top there was no money anyway, but filing reports like this let you brag about your foresight for generations if something happened later.
But next came a bit with personal bias mixed in.
[...Yi Asul is merely seven this year, yet his brilliance is beyond belief for a barbarian child. Detained by pirates, he learned Chinese during that time. Shortly after washing ashore, he mastered our language and Hangul—truly a prodigy.
Struck by wonder at this, this minister taught him true script (Classical Chinese). Teach one, grasp ten; in moments, he devoured the Thousand Character Classic, Classified Rhymes, Explanations of Common Words like a sponge...]
With a bigwig like the governor singing such high praises, the rumor instantly leaped palace walls to Bukchon, Unjong-ga, and soon blanketed all of Hanyang and the eight provinces of Joseon.
Long before the boy was summoned to Hanyang, crowds lined up thickly north of the city to gawk at the blue-eyed barbarian. When he arrived on his donkey, tales of "He speaks Joseon fluently without a hitch and breezes through Classical Chinese texts" followed, spreading a thousand ri in a flash.
"Is that really true?"
"I heard it straight, no doubt."
"Mastered the Thousand Character Classic right away?"
"Isn't he the barbarian kid who learned Joseon in days after washing ashore?!"
"Heavens. A child prodigy like no other."
The court figured tossing a kid under ten in jail was a bit much, so they planned to house him at some easygoing official's home. But the whole capital mobbed up to see this prodigy, causing chaos.
"If he starts preaching Catholic doctrine to the masses, it could spell disaster! Lock him in prison now and drive off the gawkers!"
"Jail a boy pushed ashore in Joseon after losing his whole family? Are you even human...?"
"You idiots! Learned Joseon in days? More like he studied it beforehand to spread heresy!"
"Teach a seven- or eight-year-old a foreign tongue from halfway across the world to send here? You serious?"
No matter the barbarian, if a prodigy like that appeared in the land, why ship him to the world's far end instead of raising him at home to study? The snark flew.
"So what do we do?"
"Just stick him in a house secure enough to keep out the riffraff, no?"
While the court bickered back and forth,
"Gulp!"
"Aw, he's eating well."
"More, please!"
"Here, know how to eat this? It's kimchi—"
"He eats so cutely."
"Tastier than home cooking! Joseon is the best!"
Before long, the capital's public sentiment had turned endlessly fond of the boy.
Henry Ford, king of automobiles, supposedly said, "If I asked people what they wanted, they would've said 'faster horses.'"
Like most proverbs, there's no proof he actually said it. Looks like something straight out of a self-help book, right?
But Steve Jobs said something similar: "People don't know what they want until you show it to them."
It's a profound lesson for surviving brutal markets: don't just sell good products—dig up customers' hidden desires they don't even know and deliver.
Why do I know it so well? I memorized it pounding the pavement for job interviews. Weird to push that on entry-level hopefuls when it's CEO stuff, but whatever.
Joseon is the same.
Joseon people don't know what they want right now.
So I, the splendid second-round hero of justice Park In-ho, decided to deliver an "Ahh, you didn't know? This is what you wanted."
"This is a house in this country! So dignified!"
"Kimchi too spicy!!"
"Innkeeper, one more bowl of seolleongtang!!"
"This country's language and script are so beautiful."
A 19th-century nationalism channel.
Through the pure, unspoiled eyes of a child, Joseon is this wonderful, awesome country!
The locals here know better than anyone that Joseon is run like crap and hurtling toward rock bottom.
But that doesn't mean they lack the desire for validation. In this premodern land steeped in ethnic sentiment, even more so.
Kill the Catholics?
Executions are festival-level spectacles anywhere premodern, but flip it: beheading convicts is just a common event you might witness once in a lifetime.
But this current hit? Prime lifelong pub talk, unbeatable.
Trite propaganda like "Crush heresy, our foe!" was forgotten in a flash. Hanyang streets overflowed with chatter of the barbarian kid eating kimchi, reading Elementary Learning.
"Ahem. Kid's a natural flatterer. Barbarian through and through."
"Far off, Yi Yi of Yulgok read the Thousand Character Classic at three. Near, Yi Hang-ro of Hwaseo too. Seven and done—what's the brag—"
"Comparing a Joseon to a barbarian now?"
"Ehh, jealous of a kid? What schemes could he have? Just saying what he sees."
"Right, right. Our Joseon, embodying true Sinic culture, converting barbarians—perfectly natural!"
I could feel my favorability shooting up in the alleys.
But it wasn't enough.
Unlike the 21st century where capturing the masses meant success, this 19th was an era where power, wealth, and fame belonged strictly to the elite.
So I targeted them with new content.
"These are the words of this Confucius fellow?"
"Such stirring passages. To think such a great man existed!"
"You speak of the Neo-Confucian paradise! Ah! Now I finally grasp the Way!"
Words this era's Joseon had never heard.
The overwhelming thrill of a foreigner encountering their most revered values for the first time and acknowledging them.
The moment Joseon scholars tasted real reality shock, collapsing breathless.
