The Martyr Shall Return (2)

It was the third day of the hunger strike.

My tongue had scorched itself dry. I no longer possessed even the strength to lift my eyelids. A full day had already passed since the world before me went black.

Clip-clop, clip-clop!

The bustling air of Hanseong still reached me through the skin. From far off came the rattle of cart wheels, the marching cadence of Qing soldiers moving in formation, the chatter of merchants and peddlers tickling at my ears.

Because I had spread my straw mat in the very middle of Gwanghwamun to begin this campaign of vindication, I could feel with my whole body how the townspeople of Hanseong lived their days — and there was not a soul among them who did not know I was there.

I'm so hungry I could die.

My mind was a wreck. The rumbling that had thundered from my stomach since yesterday had finally gone silent. I could feel every last reserve of strength in my body reaching its limit.

The one mercy, if it could be called that, was that even sitting motionless with my eyes closed, I had gained something.

It was my hearing — one of the five senses. It had grown so acutely sensitive that the whispered conversations of the people around me, as I sat half a corpse in formal posture, reached me with perfect clarity.

Talk all you like.

They whispered as they gawked at me sitting cross-legged with both eyes shut. Among them were those who looked on with goodwill as I grew thinner by the day, swaying as if the slightest breeze might topple me; those who found my presence an inconvenience; and those who pitied me — all jumbled together in a single crowd.

Those who found me inconvenient were likely collaborators with the Qing army, or the corrupt officials who had crawled back out the moment King Gojong seized the reins of power once more.

I made a point of committing every hostile voice to memory.

Every last one of you. I'll purge you all, without exception.

And so I listened to their whispers, clinging to consciousness, barely holding on.

There was more.

The Qing officers now garrisoned in Hanseong had come to pity me.

On the first day, after the mutiny had been cruelly put down and the Qing soldiers found themselves idle, they had discovered in me a convenient toy and harassed me with every trick they could invent to break the hunger strike. But once the fast entered its third day, they seemed moved despite themselves by my composure. The officers began to worry over my health and forbade their men from coming near. From time to time they even brought something they called food and set it down before me.

A Qing officer spoke in Chinese, then had his words relayed.

"This is clean — tell him it's all right to eat."

"Child, the officer-sir says you should eat this. All right?"

"..."

"I'll leave it here. If you happen to eat, eat slowly. Swallow it too fast on an empty stomach and you'll sicken."

Nngh...

And so my hunger strike entered its third day: this axe-bearing petition I had laid before the palace gates, a campaign to clear the names of those who, in the aftermath of the Imo Incident, had been unjustly arrested and were now being interrogated in the prison of the Uigeumbu.

A commotion rose around me, spreading through the grounds of Gwanghwamun.

"There he is."

"I see him too."

New voices. A shift in the wind.

The man I had waited for so desperately had come up to the capital.

"Looking at that child, I am ashamed of how long I have hesitated."

The voice was unfamiliar, but a peculiar gravity lived in it, and I opened my eyes a fraction. Behind the townspeople ebbing away like a receding tide stood a middle-aged man in a gat, a tail of several dozen scholars trailing in his wake.

He put a question to me.

"I heard you were a mere seven years of age."

"...That is so."

How many days has it been since I last opened my mouth?

I had barely answered before my hand flew to my throat of its own accord. A faint, metallic tang of blood rode on my ruined voice, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something sharp and stinging climbed up from a throat gone raw.

"I— my throat is—"

The middle-aged man strode forward at once and held out a stoppered water bottle.

"Do not overtax yourself. I have fasted a few times in my own life, and I learned early that this is no work for a human being. Drink. It is the dust that hurts your throat."

So saying, and having confirmed that my eyes were open, he walked over with measured steps, faced me squarely, and sank down onto the ground.

I drained the bottle in great gulps and caught my breath. He smiled and spoke.

"Well then. Let us talk."

"Let us."

He had the face of a yangban with a formidable stubborn streak, but I agreed readily.

His courtesy name was Chan-gyeom. In years to come, the world would know him as Myeonam — Choe Ik-hyeon.

Our exchange began at noon, with the sun at its zenith.

Word that Choe Ik-hyeon had come up to the capital drew Confucian students and scholars in clouds. The common people, sick of a king who swung the blade of his purge as wildly as a shaman in a bungled ritual dance, and the bored Qing soldiers with time hanging heavy on their hands, became our audience.

When he judged that enough people had gathered, Choe Ik-hyeon, appearing as the king's representative, put the question to me.

"Why do you raise this disturbance here?"

"Because the wronged have been bound in chains and detained though they have committed no crime."

Choe Ik-hyeon inclined his head.

"And who are these wronged of whom you speak?"

"Hong Sun-mok, who once held the office of Chief State Councillor; Min Yeong-hwan, who served as Head of Sungkyunkwan; and the other loyal ministers who exhausted every means to calm the crisis and restore order, only to be blamed for the mutiny itself."

"Chief State Councillor Hong Sun-mok stands suspected of inflating a small matter into a great one, thereby clouding the sovereign's judgment. Daesaseong Min Yeong-hwan, before the incident was even suppressed, met privately with the Un-dang faction, harbored improper designs, and thereby placed his own kinsmen in danger — an act contrary to propriety. How can you call such men innocent?"

"His Majesty had already issued a royal edict, summoning the Daewongun and the old loyalists back to court, commanding them to soothe the people over the injustices of the mutiny and to stabilize the realm. The orders of the government offices flowed from the very highest place. How, then, can this be called a crime against the fundamental moral order — or the crime of deceiving the sovereign and misleading one's superiors?"

"The Daewongun took the old court as his model, and sought to drag a newly reformed government back into what had been."

"And so His Majesty informed the suzerain of this upheaval, and instigated the Qing army to abduct his own father?"

"..."

At so naked a question, Choe Ik-hyeon closed his mouth for a moment, and the crowd around us held its breath. The only ones who looked on with folded arms, as if they found the whole affair merely interesting, were the men of Qing.

"Please answer me. Why should the Daewongun — the king's own father, and a loyal subject — have been packed off to faraway Tianjin in the very midst of restoring order?"

He was caught, and he knew it.

This is not merely king and subject. It is father and son. How can he possibly dodge that?

In a world where even the abduction of an ordinary politician could explode into an international crisis, what would men of letters make of it when the politician in question was the king's own father?

They will conclude there was another political conspiracy nested inside the coup itself.

And what of the townspeople of Hanseong, who still remembered that the crisis had been settling?

That was why Choe Ik-hyeon hesitated.

The relationship between the Daewongun and the king.

The bond between a sovereign and his own father had collapsed into ruin — a household more wretched than any commoner's. Did he truly have to spill that ugly fact in front of the people of Hanseong?

After a moment, having finished weighing the matter in his mind, Choe Ik-hyeon opened his mouth.

"Very well."

In the end he chose to step around the trap I had so openly laid, and turned the conversation aside.

"But I still do not understand. If all you ask of His Majesty is the vindication of the wronged, this is excessive. A memorial would have sufficed."

He glanced at the rusted axe lying untouched beside ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me, and at the hunger strike itself, and called both of them too much; then he turned his eyes to the crowd as if seeking their agreement. A murmur ran through the onlookers.

"There seems to be a hidden purpose in your actions."

What he was truly asking was this: Are you not using vindication as a pretext to gather a mob and intimidate the court?

I nodded slowly, conceding the point, and answered.

"I wish to recover the Kingly Way that Joseon has lost."

"The Kingly Way?"

The word caught him. Fine wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes, and he askedasked again.

"What is the Kingly Way to you?"

"Mencius taught that a scholar may speak of benevolent government only when the righteous will of all under Heaven puts the law fiercely into practice. Sir — do you believe that benevolent government has descended upon Joseon as we speak?"

"The mutiny has been quelled. The treacherous ministers are being punished according to the law of the land. Those in hardship may now petition the court for aid according to their circumstances. This alone, I would say, stands far more upright than the rule that came before."

"This humble one never dreamed, sir, that you could speak like a trumpet of the court. Mencius said: Excellent governance founded upon benevolence and virtue, leaving no cause for regret, is the beginning of the Kingly Way. The rule that has come to Joseon in these days holds neither benevolence nor virtue in its breast."

I wet my throat against a burning thirst, then spoke not only to Choe Ik-hyeon but to everyone gathered around us.

"Ever since the age of Goryeo, our country has borne the name of a Chinese vassal — and yet our land, our people, and our government have all stood on their own, self-reliant and self-determining, without suffering so much as a hair's breadth of Chinese interference. In our prime, our armies numbered a million; treasure filled the storehouses; the people were prosperous and the population flourished. We met crisis at the hands of Emperor Yang of Sui and Emperor Taizong of Tang, yet even they could not escape defeat by our mountains and our heroes, and were forced to turn back. In later years we received the invasion of Kublai Khan — who made the world tremble — eight times over, and only then were we subjugated. When all under Heaven groaned beneath their hooves and begged to become slaves, we stood and fought for decades!"

Never, at any time, had the people of this land a history of voluntarily bowing to foreign power. That was the proof: though empire after empire had risen to unify the Central Plains, this land had never come under anyone's direct ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠rule.

"In the time of our King Taejo, the Japanese marauders invaded again and again, and again and again we drove them off. In the Imjin War, though the Ming sent aid, the merit of victory belonged entirely to our soldiers, who burned and sank Japanese ships by the hundreds. When the Qing invaded in the Byeongja year, had they but listened to Im Gyeong-eop's counsel to strike at once against their heartland, the Qing would have perished on the spot. That we failed to use that plan is a bitter regret — but it is not, in truth, that we lacked the strength!"

I rose to my feet then and there, threw both arms wide, and cried out to the people with a passion that sent heat flooding into my flushed cheeks.

"From all of this it is plain: our country may be small, but our people are fierce and tenacious by nature, and wise — in no way inferior to any other land."

The Korean people were not, and had never been, a race of slaves. They were a people who fought when they had to fight, who never surrendered — a people with the tough, stubborn vitality of weeds. No one had the right to force unjust yokes and chains upon them any longer.

And so King Gojong, who had reported a disturbance inside his own country to Qing in order to claw back his power, could not but be called a man without virtue.

Gojong is a son of a bitch!

That was the will I meant to plant in the people of Joseon. You are not in the wrong. You are the victims. Every last scrap of blame belongs to the tyrant Gojong.

At last, with Choe Ik-hyeon listening in tight-lipped silence, I turned to the crowd and drove my conviction home — to the people, and among them, to the Confucian scholars so often dismissed as hidebound.

"Benevolence means that one reproves a crime in order to set a person right — not that one multiplies the guilty without cause and terrorizes the hearts of the people. Virtue means providing for the living and burying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the dead without leaving cause for regret. The court as it stands does the opposite of both. How can this be called benevolent government?"

"That boy can talk!"

"A child, and yet his learning is truly outstanding!"

As I refuted him point by point, the onlookers burst out with shouts of encouragement, like the chorus at a performance. The students and scholars who had spent their whole lives digging into Neo-Confucianism stood with their arms folded, sunk in deep thought.

I stole a sidelong glance at them and let out a sigh of relief inwardly.

Thank God the effort I wrung out of myself these past few days wasn't wasted.

All through the hunger strike I had worked myself to the bone to criticize Joseon's politics in terms that fit the country's reality — or rather, the common views and assumptions of Joseon's people in this era.

And the final conclusion I had reached after careful deliberation was the fundamental philosophy Confucianism had bequeathed. Its very definition of justice.

At last I addressed Choe Ik-hyeon, and the disciples of the Hwaseo Academy who had followed him up to the capital.

"The channels of speech are what the sages of old insisted must be kept open and working, especially in times such as these. His Majesty discourses only upon benevolence and righteousness. Yet the commands he issues — the orders that go out before any edict is truly put into practice — have self-interest tangled in their intent. So how could a humble person such as I tremble in fear, shut my mouth, and lay down my brush? If one is a scholar — if one is at the very least a man of learning who has read the classics and seeks to follow in the footsteps of the sages — one must not fear punishment. That is why I have come to stand here."

As I finished the speech and turned my back, the people's thunderous applause and cheers rose behind me.

The students and scholars gathered before Gwanghwamun held their breath and examined their consciences, and it is said that the air of Hanseong — which had been held in a choke under the king's reign of terror — was, if only slightly, allowed to clear.

Three days later, I was taken under arrest to the Uigeumbu.