Chapter 13
Chapter 13
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 13
Chapter Title: Great Cleanup (1)
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Just hearing it made my head spin and irritation surge within me.
If I opened a market where the people could exchange their surplus goods, the local economy would come alive.
Selling straw sandals for rice, wild greens for barley—it would distribute resources more fairly than before.
The people would only gain from this process, never lose.
So only you Confucian fossil-brains find it uncomfortable.
Don't like feeling uneasy? Then change your damn perspective!
You Confucian Taliban bastard—I ought to smash your skull with a hammer!
But no matter how much of a magistrate I am, I couldn't just ignore what this guy was saying.
Chosun is a land of scholars, and this one was renowned in our county for his learning.
Hell, he was a Licensed Local Elite—failed the civil service exam but held an official rank just the same.
"I shall listen closely to why you think that way."
"I well know how much the newly appointed Magistrate cherishes and cares for the people. Upon taking office, you saw through the clerks' collusion with the temples and punished those wicked monks, reforming the system to reduce the tribute goods burden, did you not?"
"I merely did what was proper for a magistrate."
"To show such humility despite topping the exam as First Place—truly, Magistrate, you are destined to become one of Chosun's great prime ministers."
I couldn't let my guard down just because this bastard was praising me now.
In game terms, it was the sweet talk to lure you into dropping your defenses before the finishing blow.
It was also camouflage to frame his words as loyal advice born of pure concern for good governance.
"Thus, this old man was overjoyed to serve such a fine magistrate under His Highness's grace... but with your latest misguided policy, as a scholar of Jinhae County, I have come to offer a word of loyal counsel."
To a casual listener, his words sounded just like those of a true loyalist.
Of course, his real motive wasn't concern for me or the county—it was pure annoyance at what he saw, pretending to offer 'advice'.
"As you know, Magistrate, with the market open in Jinhae, merchants from Dongnae and surrounding counties have flocked here. Even miscellaneous riffraff from all over have swarmed like clouds. Most were honest commoners, but some were not."
"Some tried to bully women into running tabs, others came to blows over petty quarrels."
"You sternly punished those committing misdeeds in the market and upheld the law, but as long as the market stands, such incidents will continue. This will corrupt the county's customs and burden the people."
In the late Chosun era—around King Yeongjo's time—gangsters called Geomgye emerged from Hanyang.
They bullied merchants in the city markets, ran their dirty errands, and murdered or raped innocent folk along the way—utter trash.
Even in 1980s Korea before the War on Crime, organized thugs collecting protection money from merchants was accepted as normal.
If the yamen doesn't manage the market properly, that's exactly what happens.
Bandits sell their loot for profit, then threaten honest merchants: pay up or taste the blade.
"That's why on the market's opening day, I personally held office inside it and harshly punished those disrupting order."
"For now, your direct intervention may suffice, but soon more thieves will pour in and throw the village into chaos."
His words didn't shock me.
He'd come determined to oppose the market from the start—this level of rhetoric was par for the course.
"But all these ills pale compared to what I first warned you of: the people abandoning their proper calling (farming) for base pursuits (commerce)."
In Korean history, you often hear the term 'Sarim'.
Sarim? Scholars who secluded themselves in the woods.
Nice phrasing—really, they were the ones who didn't join Chosun's founding, so they got no posts and holed up sucking tenant rents from sharecroppers while burying themselves in Confucian texts, convinced the world ran exactly by the book's theories. Idiots.
That's why when King Seongjong wanted a copper basin for Gyeongbok Palace pond, they rioted it was too lavish and demanded stone.
The king wasn't even squeezing the people for his hobbies, but any whiff of leisure brought floods of 5,700-character 'loyal' critiques.
This guy, ancestor of the Sarim, spouted nonsense with artistic flair.
People coming out once in a few days to sell greens or sandals makes them lazy?
"Chosun's foundation is agriculture. The people must rise at dawn, till the fields till sunset, harvest grain to eat and pay taxes—that straightens the realm. But if they just sit at market stalls and rake in money..."
I remember reading Annals entries like that and wanting to puke.
Do they think trade is easy? They don't know because they've never tried—it's as grueling as farming.
Not 24/7 labor, but stocking and displaying goods with your own effort or capital, then waiting eternally for buyers.
And that's not all—worrying if sales flop keeps you up nights.
Ignoring all that, not even trying to understand... this brainless prick...
Chosun's scholar elite schooling me? Fuck, no wonder Yeonsangun started the literati purges.
Unaware of my churning guts, he blazed on with his 'loyal counsel' drivel.
"The people will chase easy money, grow slothful, and the nation's agrarian base will crumble. You opened the market with good intentions for their livelihoods, but it's like feeding seawater to the thirsty. Thus, judge wisely and..."
"...What nonsense is this?"
The old fogey before me was a scholar.
He'd failed the exams, sure, but older than me and highly respected in Jinhae.
That's why I'd used honorifics so far.
Chosun valued etiquette and insolence taboos over law sometimes.
But really—I'm no office junkie. Should I bow to this spouting dog over bullshit?
"The Duke of Zhou said the people revere food as heaven! Confucius said feeding the people well guards the realm better than strong armies, praising Shen Nong and others for teaching farming to end hunger."
"But losing duty and morals is death itself. You approve the people idly trading—soon their nature will turn thieving."
Frankly, this era's merchants were a chaotic mess, pure disorder.
That's why I poured effort into market oversight.
Without trade laws, food safety regs, or consumer protections, scams ran rampant.
Passing off shoddy silk as top-grade Chinese was small potatoes.
But so what? People's survival comes first.
"Your words are like banning kitchen knives because they might kill—absurd. Like saying making soy sauce breeds maggots, so it exploits the people."
That kitchen knife ban? Yuan dynasty—they disarmed Han folk fearing revolt.
Birthed knife-shaved dough 'dao xiao mian' noodles.
So I just called him no better than those Goryeo-munching Yuan scum.
Among insults a Chosun scholar could hurl, top-tier venom.
"His Highness cherishes the people, like a father embracing his subjects."
King Sejong the Great created Hangul for them, slaving at duties at cost to his health.
Even slacking a bit, no one would complain.
His economic policies would spawn bizarre blunders, but at core: love for the people. Always.
"'Only with full belly and clothes can one know etiquette.' I have the royal decree to feed the people well and teach them virtue. The market lets them eat a bit more—that's all."
He's a mere thick-skulled scholar; I'm First Place exam topper and County Magistrate.
If my logic holds, he can't utter a peep.
"I've heard of poor folk barely feeding their kids with gruel now affording rice, overjoyed. Trading surplus enriches lives—what is that if not Ye-mindongnak, joy shared by king and people?"
Outmatched in rhetoric, he lifted his head anew, some retort sparking.
"Opening markets defies national law. The ban on commoner complaints to superiors bars me from reporting you directly—but do you think I lack means?"
Right—local big name, likely lines to my boss, the Rank 2 Governor.
Or Hanyang statesmen.
Hearing I opened a market rogue? Prime impeachment fodder. I'd be sacked or stripped of rank.
Frankly, that'd suit me fine.
Exiled after tireless efforts to enrich the people? Legally frees me from lifelong Sejong slavery.
Then spend family wealth on a pretty wife, kids, happy life.
"I feel no shame in my deeds. Even ousted in disgrace, mocked by posterity—I fear not! A scholar bending principles for life, honor, power? That's the true shame."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Not long after, renowned Jinhae scholar Jeong Hak-so's complaint reached the Office of Inspectors via a senior inspector.
This naturally reached Yi Bang-won's ears.
"...Goryeo remnants still linger, gnawing at Chosun."
Yi Bang-won donned his black dragon robe, steeling himself to wield the iron mace.