Qing Army Intervention (2)
It was then that someone called out to Daewongun, who had been rushing from one matter to the next without a moment's rest.
"Your Highness."
The speaker was Vice-Minister Min Young-ik, who had been sitting quietly at the far end of the hall like a sack of borrowed barley no one had asked for, while the emergency meeting on the Qing troops that had landed at Jemulpo ran at full cry along the veranda.
When he stepped forward, Daewongun answered him.
"What is it?"
Given leave to speak, Min Young-ik approached with a somewhat uncomfortable look and whispered close to Daewongun's ear.
"What shall we do about the people outside?"
At the question, Daewongun's gaze turned toward the walls of Unhyeongung. Beyond them, commoners still stood in long lines waiting for rice they had not yet received, and elderly folk were being served noodles in honor of their sixtieth birthdays. All of them sang Daewongun's praises, yet every face was steeped in exhaustion — hunger born of the chaos and aftermath of a coup that had stretched across several days.
"I pity them, but—"
Min Young-ik pointed with a finger, sympathy and unease sharing the same expression, and pressed on.
"There are a great many crowded onto the veranda, and as the ministers' voices grow louder over affairs of state, matters of the throne and the nation will surely leak beyond these walls. The political situation is unstable enough as it is. Would it not be better to send them away now and promise them a better day to come? It would be a shame for those poor people, but there are clearly matters of greater urgency. I have experienced firsthand how idle rumors, left to spread, return as great calamities—"
"I know your concern, but I am fine."
Daewongun, who had been watching the crowd in silence, dismissed Min Young-ik's worries outright. Yet his face showed understanding as he patted the younger man's shoulder lightly.
"Vice-Minister, do you think I don't know what worries you? Leave them as they are. Why ruin the atmosphere of a good day? If any among them came here at dawn only to turn back without receiving a single grain of rice, they would naturally go hunting for a reason and open their ears wide to every idle rumor. Men of our station, even when great trouble is upon us, must strive to appear composed before the people."
"...My thinking was shortsighted."
There had been a brutal purge of certain Min clan in-laws that very day, but Daewongun had shown a flexible hand even during the expulsion of the Andong Kim clan and the Pungyang Jo clan. At his instruction, Min Young-ik's face eased, as if he understood, and he was about to turn back when someone burst into the courtyard, calling desperately for Daewongun in a voice that carried across the whole compound.
"...Your Highness! Is His Highness still inside?"
"Is that not the Daesaseong?"
At the commotion, every gaze swung toward the main gate, where the steward and several servants were receiving a visitor.
"This is a matter of the utmost urgency! Stand aside!"
A moment later his face came into view. It was Daesaseong Min Yeong-hwan, standing there with sweat pouring from his brow, and his expression was anything but ordinary. As Daewongun stepped out onto the veranda to receive him, the Daesaseong's face lit up with a strange, almost frantic relief.
"Y-Your Highness! Disaster has struck!"
Min Yeong-hwan had gone so pale he might as well have been a sheet of white paper. His hands and feet trembled like aspen leaves, and he swayed wildly from side to side, even stammering as if he had come down with malaria.
"Th-this humble servant was escorting His Excellency the Chief State Councillor to the palace, w-when, at the palace, there was—"
"Stop stammering and speak plainly!"
"No — this is so grotesque, so utterly unspeakable, that I can hardly bring myself to say it. That is—"
Seeing that extraordinary demeanor, Daewongun furrowed his brow and began looking for those who had accompanied him.
"Where are the Chief State Councillor and the Minister of Rites, that you come alone? The Magistrate of Gwangju and the Mayor of Hanseong? And His Majesty?"
Daewongun had reason to look for the others. About an hour earlier, Daesaseong Min Yeong-hwan had set out for the palace as a representative, escorting Chief State Councillor Hong Sun-mok and Kim Byeong-gi, to inform King Yi Hyeong of the cabinet's measures and response regarding the Qing troops that had landed at Jemulpo.
But now, with no one at Min Yeong-hwan's side among those who had been dispatched with him, Daewongun's temper soured as well.
"These people send you back alone — where have you left the Royal Seal and His Majesty's military command token, which we need this instant? Urgent matters are piled high before us!"
As Daewongun descended from the veranda, his face dark with fury, Min Yeong-hwan — who had been trembling in the middle of the courtyard like a man being punished for a crime — squeezed his eyes shut and shouted at the approaching figure.
And that trembling, that shock, reached me as well, clear as day.
"...H-His Majesty is n-not in the palace at this moment!"
What the fuck?
At first, everyone thought Min Yeong-hwan had completely lost his mind, or that he had misspoken. No — I too prayed that was the case. Honestly, wasn't this complete and utter nonsense?
Why would he run, of all things, now?
It didn't make sense, did it? Far fewer of the royal in-laws had died than in the original history, and the rebels hadn't even stormed the palace, let alone openly threatened to kill the Queen. The corrupt officials? We didn't kill them — we took them hostage and locked them all in prison.
Wait. Then — could it be...
A single hypothesis flashed through my mind, and I shuddered. I looked at the ministers and officials gathered around Daewongun and fell into shock.
King Yi Hyeong had, from the very beginning—
...considered himself excluded from state affairs, and so he summoned the Qing army?
That was the only explanation that made sense. He had felt threatened by Daewongun's regime, which had begun to function smoothly even without him. From the start, he had never cared about the purge of the Min clan — his own arms and legs — nor about the Queen's safety.
Good God.
I barely managed to swallow the curse that rose naturally from my throat.
"That son of a bitch..."
And on this point, even the great Daewongun's reaction was no different. He muttered like a man whose soul had left his body.
"What...?"
"Your Highness!"
At a story so far beyond reason, Daewongun, who had been about to put on his shoes, collapsed onto the veranda with a heavy thud. The ministers and Min Yeong-hwan in the courtyard rushed toward him.
Daewongun, his face emptied of spirit, asked again.
"...The palace is empty? And the Queen? The Queen Dowager?"
Min Yeong-hwan shook his head as if none of that mattered and answered.
"It is exactly as I said, Your Highness! His Majesty has vacated the palace. His Excellency and I did not know the circumstances, so we were interrogating the soldiers and eunuchs who had been on duty at the royal quarters!"
"N-no, that's not it. Why would His Majesty vacate the pal—"
"Your Highness!"
At that moment, Military Commander Heo Jeong, who had been grimacing with a grave expression throughout their exchange, reported cautiously with a look of sudden realization.
"Ugh! There was intelligence that several palanquins belonging to the Inner Court left the palace in the early hours of dawn, but..."
"Good God."
"Why are you only telling us this now?!"
"P-please, just hear me out! Her Majesty the Queen refused the soldiers' inspection, claiming it was Inner Court business, and we barely obtained her understanding to conduct a search! Even then we had no choice but to lift the curtains and verify identities, and finding no problem, we let them pass—"
"And now that problem has arisen, has it not?!"
Watching this wrangling, the two ministers standing nearby, Han Seong-geun and Yoon Ung-ryeol, let out groans. Military Commander Heo Jeong's testimony was proof that Min Yeong-hwan's report was no lie at all.
"Has there ever been a calamity so outrageous as this!"
The King had fled. Abandoning his wife and his mother. Or perhaps the Queen had known all along.
"W-what are we to do about this?"
"..."
In the unprecedented crisis of a king who had fled, someone asked the question — but among all those present, not a single person answered.
Myself included.
Honestly, how was anyone supposed to predict this?
I thought that if anyone was going to flee, it would be Queen Min running for Chungju. But the King fleeing?!
Pacheon — the flight of the court. For Joseon, which had enjoyed centuries of peace, that word had faded in people's minds until even its essential meaning had grown dim.
And that shock was far too dangerous a thing for an elderly man.
"Ghhh...!"
A single strangled cry, and the foam that spilled from his mouth began to fell a great ancient tree. Daewongun had toppled onto his side.
"Your Highness?"
"Your Highness! Your Highness!"
"C-call a physician! Carry His Highness inside!"
The veranda descended into pandemonium. Some fussed that Daewongun should be taken to the inner chambers; others hoisted the fallen man onto their backs and raced inside; still others followed, stripping off his official robes and kneading his limbs.
"Your Highness! Your Highness!"
Among them, Shin Jae-hyo, the loyal retainer who had served him with zeal for decades, wore the most wretched expression of all. He wailed like a child who had lost a parent as he ran inside, and the commotion gradually carried across the courtyard and beyond the walls.
"What's going on in there?"
"Hasn't it been rather noisy for a while now?"
"Elder, has something happened at Unhyeongung?"
"Th-this is—"
As the interior grew incomparably more chaotic and loud than before, the people outside began crowding toward the walls and the main gate.
And this was more than enough to plunge the ministers of a nation — who had just been struck, in real time, by a triple blow of terror: the fallen Daewongun, the fleeing King, and the landing of Qing troops — into a state of panic.
"What do we do now?"
"First we strengthen the palace defenses and convene the cabinet—"
"His Majesty isn't even in the palace, and you talk of strengthening?!"
"For now, perhaps the Military Commander should take responsibility and receive the Qing troops at Incheon?"
"You mean this man, who has no military command authority whatsoever? Are you in your right mind, sir?"
"Then shall we go to the empty throne and report it?!"
"For now, as a temporary measure, we should obtain the Regent's permission—"
"Are you blind? His Highness the Daewongun has just collapsed!"
"Enough, enough, enough!"
A mess among messes, a shambles among shambles — there could be none worse. The court ministers, divided by faction and family, began shifting blame onto one another. With giants like Chief State Councillor Hong Sun-mok and Kim Byeong-gi absent from their seats, men who had never even held the leadership of their own clans or parties were compounding chaos upon chaos.
No — perhaps this was a foregone conclusion all along.
I could now understand, at least a little, what confidence had led Daewongun to confront Qing China first, and why he had so readily acknowledged and kept close a man like me, who had no foundation whatsoever.
The moment Daewongun's powerful authority vanished, this unstable coalition government would not last long — and Daewongun himself had sensed that from the very beginning.
This feudal, antiquated system was infinitely frail and precarious unless a charismatic leader stood at its head.
And so I admitted my mistake.
I was wrong.
I looked with a bitter expression at the men jabbing their fingers at one another. Even then, not a single one of them showed any sign of taking responsibility or of trying to command the rest.
"At a time like this, shouldn't the military officers step forward?!"
"And then, once the situation calms down, you'll prosecute us for overstepping our authority — that's your scheme, isn't it?!"
"Has there ever been a man so irresponsible!"
Military command is important. Responsibility is important. Rank is important. That was why, even in this extraordinary hour, they shoved responsibility and the hilt of the sword onto one another. They feared the aftermath.
Yes. I was far too complacent.
Yes, I had been complacent. From the start, putting that old tiger at the forefront and trying to calmly design this land's future may itself have been arrogance.
New wine in new wineskins. The words of the ancient sages had not been wrong.
Looking at the vanished Daewongun and the empty space he had left, I finally steeled my resolve and slowly climbed onto the table spread across the veranda. Not a soul tried to stop me.
Once I stood upon the table, my eyes at last level with the others, I stamped my foot hard in place.
"Gentlemen!"
When I made that noisy, tremendous sound, every gaze in the room flew to me and stuck.
Contempt. Anxiety. Tension. Indifference.
Those looks — ones I had grown used to by now.
In a low voice, I spoke to those who stood dumbfounded, those who huffed and raged, and the commoners who had been swept in from outside by the commotion, their minds in disarray.
At those words, most wore expressions of incomprehension. To them I spread both arms wide, bowed at the waist, and opened my mouth once more.
The feast was over.
Now a new path had to be sought.
Even if that path would be harder and more difficult.
But if one had failed, one had to pay the price first.