Chapter 3
Chapter 3
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Conscripted by King Sejong (2)
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I have no intention of acing the Civil Service Exam to climb the ranks to some lofty position.
Just score decently, snag a modest office, serve as an official for about three years, and then retire to the countryside.
If I catch King Sejong the Great's eye, I'll end up like Prime Minister Hwang Hui, worked to the bone. Am I crazy enough to go around like PM Hwang Hee muttering, "Umm, I'm just an ox!" and get driven like one?
"We will now announce the exam topic!"
I don't care what the topic is—I'll just write something middling and get out.
Still, I'm curious what it'll be. Will it ask for impressions on a poem? Or to discourse on Confucian teachings...?
The other guys around me, with their dead-serious faces, are probably praying fervently for a question in their strong suit... But me? Whatever comes up, I honestly don't give a damn.
Getting through this Civil Service Exam is a done deal now that we're here—no need to aim higher.
The bulletin board has the question written in big, easy-to-read letters. And wouldn't you know it, the topic's awfully similar to what came up in my chat yesterday with that plump young scholar I met...
📜 EXAM TOPIC 📜
The rotten Goryeo has collapsed and Joseon has been founded. The people enjoy an age of great peace, singing songs of triumph. The scholars claim the realm is governed in accordance with the Way of Confucius and Mencius, and that the king possesses virtue, making Joseon stand upright. Discuss your opinion on this.
No matter how much Neo-Confucianism, Joseon's guiding ideology, stresses becoming a minister who offers frank remonstrance...
A king is still just a man, after all. A man.
So if some greenhorn just starting out in office unleashes a fact-based barrage on him instead of a grizzled prime minister... his stomach's bound to turn.
Good medicine tastes bitter in the mouth, and frank advice grates on the ear—there's truth to that saying.
But if you're too sycophantic, you'll get docked points as a flatterer. For this question, the safe play is probably 95% praise for the king's virtues and fine governance, and 5% personal thoughts on areas for improvement.
Yeah, if you want to top the Audience Examination like that and get worked like an ox the way Hwang Hee was, sure.
'But that's not for me.'
From start to finish, I'll critique Joseon's shortcomings and tack on improvement plans.
Do that, get my Rank 9 office, serve a few years, and I've earned the right to bow out of politics. Hell, if it goes well, I might qualify to quit right away.
People say Joseon enjoys great peace, but Your Highness must never be satisfied with this. Even the Sage (Confucius) reached the stage at age seventy where he followed desire without transgressing moral bounds in all his actions—what of governing a nation, then?
Doing well enough alone to score high is one thing—easy enough. But pulling up the whole class average? Brutally hard.
Because I have to drag along thirty other guys besides myself.
And in early Joseon under King Sejong, with over ten million people in this country? How bad must it be? True peace where everyone’s content? In your dreams.
Your Highness has taken pity on the people and reduced the burdensome taxes of the Goryeo era—this much is undeniable fact, and the poor now live better than before. Yet the vast majority classified as lesser petty households own not a single patch of fields. Yet we tax three such households the same as those owning five plots of land. Is this just? To them, it must feel like carving out a flea’s liver.
Joseon’s tax system is ridiculously inefficient compared to other countries. Thank goodness they keep taxes low—had they levied massive ones like Japan’s on top of this mess...
Joseon wouldn’t have lasted five hundred years, but a hundred.
What’s so funny it’s sad is that Joseon’s kings and officials, thinking they’re doing right by the people, came up with this half-baked tax system. How can I, who knows better, stay silent?
Of course I’ll submit a remonstrance and demand fixes.
Even in the king-supervised Audience Examination, the odds of this answer getting dismissed as “arrogant kid” are sky-high... Still, speaking your mind is the Joseon scholar’s spirit—and the way of a reader who’s devoured stacks of alternate history novels.
Moreover, Your Highness permitted people growing only rice or barley—who find it hard to offer tribute goods—to pay through temples instead... But wicked monks exploit this, causing immense harm to the people and communities.
That’s commutation through temples in technical terms. It’s subcontracting your taxes because paying direct is tough... The problem? These damn monks skim 300%, 500% fees.
After Sejong’s time, Prime Minister Ryu Seong-ryong said direct payment was just one dou of rice, but via temple? Eighteen dou—seventeen as fees.
Exaggerated maybe, but not far off.
Temples pulled this in early Joseon. Even King Sejong the Great wasn’t superhuman; he didn’t know the details.
Good intentions backfiring to kill the people.
Like doting on your grandkid, not knowing they’re peach-allergic, and feeding them one—same principle.
An old saying goes: harsh rule is more fearsome than tigers. Joseon’s flawed tax system is a calamity scarier than tigers to the people. Thus, Your Highness, look upon this clearly, bestow your sage grace on the people, and abolish this corrupt tax policy.
Ditch that shitty commutation system, and people’s take-home pay skyrockets. Say you earn 200 a month now, taxes rip off 100. Normalize it, taxes drop to 60—your disposable jumps from 100 to 140.
To this end, activate forbidden markets by law, have local magistrates oversee them and collect taxes there. Or collect rice taxes only from the people and use the rice to purchase tributes. Then the people will sing triumph songs praising Your Highness’s virtue.
The line between good king and bad is surprisingly simple: does he boost the people’s wallets or bleed them dry?
Make me richer? Good king. Impoverish me? Bad king.
Done writing—time to go.
I neatly folded my answer sheet and handed it to the proctor. Being the Audience Examination, he wore crimson robes—the garb of Rank 3 and above. A very high official.
And that completely hunched back...
This must be the famous stickler for rules, Heo Jo.
"...... While other scholars are busy writing, you’re awfully arrogant. Must be the young these days—your thinking seems awfully shallow."
"My apologies."
"Think an apology ends it? In my day, dashing off an answer that fast wasn’t even conceivable. These youngsters nowadays..."
Stickler for rules—aka the boomer of boomers.
Prime candidate for a boss I’d never want to serve under.
This guy reportedly rejected everything on “principle.” How much hell did his underlings endure? Me, I’d dodge him at all costs.
"Lord, please overlook this young man’s rudeness."
"Fine, whatever. Rank 9 Junior or Senior Rank 6 as a full official... it’s all your fate anyway."
Even Junior Rank 9 matches a modern civil service exam passer. Senior Rank 6? Department head level—director or higher in company terms. Bigwig.
That’s why the rank gaps are so huge, and everyone’s face is grim as they scribble away.
Not that I care, since I don’t plan on sticking around long.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The Audience Examination results usually come out in a day.
By next morning, the rankings were posted.
Like everyone else, I started scanning from the bottom for my name...
"...... Why isn’t my name here?"
I figured my overly frank kid-rant would land me in the Third Class (11th-33rd)—bottom rung. So maybe Second Class (4th-10th)?
No me in Second Class either. Next: First Class (1st-3rd).
And there at First Place—Top Scorer—my name, Kim Dae-bung, bold as brass.
"...... Fuck."
The curse slipped out.
Me, Top Scorer? Even Second Class lets you dodge office duty. Why’d I have to hit Top Scorer?
In Joseon, top scorers almost always become direct retainers—the king’s personal slaves. What a disaster.
Whatever. Around me, joy and despair clashed wildly.
"Second Place! Mother! Your son did it!"
"...... Passed is good, but why Second Class... One spot higher and it’d be Junior Rank 7."
"The world’s mine now! Muahaha!"
Shut up, please... just shut your mouths.
I’m the one dying to wail and sob snot and tears.
Soon after, officials poured out from Gwanghwamun Gate and herded us off.
To bestow offices on the exam passers.
As Top Scorer, I got the honor of receiving my horsemane crest straight from the king.
Wait, why’s the king’s face so familiar? Oh—yesterday’s scholar...
"...... Jukheon—no, Kim Dae-bung. Your remonstrance deeply impressed even Royal Father. I hope you’ll serve me with that wisdom all your life."
...... Fuck, I’m Sejong’s lifelong slave now...
⚔ ROYAL DECREE ⚔
Kim Dae-bung, Top Scorer, is appointed Senior Rank 6 County Magistrate of Jinhae.
A local magistrate, no less. Does this even make sense?