Arbitrary Trial (2)
“This way.”
“Ugh.”
The place I was dragged to by the commander’s iron grip was the Hyeongjo, right outside the Uigeumbu.
I shivered at the thought of actual torture, even though I had joked about it earlier. ‘Damn it, damn it! King Gojong bastard!’
Honestly, it scared me. No, honestly, who in this world isn’t afraid of torture?
“They really plan to torture a seven-year-old kid?”
More than anything, the fact that in Joseon—where medicine was still pre-modern—being tortured meant certain death from aftereffects, even if I somehow survived, only stoked my fear further. They said that after ten days of beating, it was already certain to leave you mutilated. Even if I spoke up bravely, I had to count every blow while watching the king’s eyes.
“Damn it, damn it!”
That was when it happened.
“Transfer him to Hyeongjo.”
“Really? Okay, pass it on.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Hyeongjo?”
At the mention of Hyeongjo, my ears perked up. I strained to listen as the Uigeumbu managers and commander chatted among themselves.
“Still, we’re lucky. It’s a national interrogation.”
“That’s right. We were already burning inside from cursing the Military Affairs Hall during the banquet.”
“Military Affairs Hall? Oh my, the world.”
“We’d be burning inside too. The orders were decided for the sake of the state, but we eat the curses.”
“We’d be dying of injustice too.”
Listening quietly to the surrounding chatter, I learned that my arrest had taken place at the Uigeumbu, but because the king’s brother, the severity of the incident, and public sentiment, they had opened a national court.
“Did I survive?”
From the situation, it sounded like they wouldn’t torture me as harshly as Chief State Councillor Hong Sun-mok or Yang Heon-su. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“They don’t want to dirty their hands directly.”
Here, a “national court” referred to a temporary special investigation agency established as a royal privilege to interrogate major traitors. It was also known as a “national interrogation” in our knowledge. Of course it wasn’t strange that King Gojong had ordered it; national courts could be set up temporarily in any place or institution other than the Uigeumbu and Hyeongjo.
The only thing that struck me as odd was
“Is the criminal Lee Seung-man?”
“Yes, confirmed.”
“Good. Bring him in.”
“What is this?”
Contrary to my expectations, the Uigeumbu commander and doctor led me not to any harsh torture devices or restraints, but to a simple court consisting of a long table and about ten chairs laid out on the floor.
They made me sit on a plain-looking chair and told me to relax.
“Eh?”
At the surprisingly gentle treatment, my tension melted away. With a puzzled expression, I asked the commander handing me the rope, “...Weren’t we supposed to be tortured?”
Instead, the commander looked at me with surprise and asked back, “Torture? W-what kind of nonsense is that? Torturing a young boy like you? Who would say such a thing?”
“I, wasn’t I arrested as a major traitor?”
“No, it is true, but what torture would be done to you, who is not even seven years old? I don’t know if you picked up any nonsense words from the prison inmates... but we are people too, people.”
Shaking his head vigorously, he strongly denied it and gave me a brief explanation of the national court.
“Today, since His Majesty is not present, this is called Chuguk. Chuguk is where about ten envoys appointed by the king take turns interrogating you. Judging by the number of chairs and their splendor, it seems like a Samseong Chuguk—ministers from the State Council and managers from the Uigeumbu and Saheonbu take turns interrogating you.”
“Is that better?”
“Of course. Envoys who receive gold or secret orders often decide Chuguk according to the king’s will, but like the principle that more people make it fairer, Samseong Chuguk is the largest and fairest Chuguk. Anyway, since you are detained on the same grounds as the traitors in the prison, if you explain well, you might be able to clear your grievances to the interrogators.”
He then advised that if they had tortured me in the Uigeumbu, they would have twisted my body and burned my thighs with hot irons, so I should clear all grievances today and voluntarily admit my crimes to leave this place.
“The one who sent you here is because there are people in the Ministry of Home Affairs who feel sorry for you.”
“Eh?”
“Just know that.”
The commander and doctor who had lightly tied me with rope so it wouldn’t hurt too much pitied me and gave one more warning.
“Without fail, don’t say you did wrong, but logically explain your situation to the Saheonbu managers in charge of Chuguk and the young bureaucrats in the cabinet. They say there are quite a few people who feel sorry for you since they heard your explanation early on.”
“Would it be okay to tell me such stories?”
“...We also don’t want to see the Qing soldiers in the capital.”
Finally, those who despised the Qing soldiers standing in for the guards outside the palace disappeared from my sight.
Thus, my trial in Joseon began for the first time in my life.
*****
I had to sit quietly for a long time, and at the end of boredom, I finally spoke up. The Hyeongjo clerk who had been giving me intermittent news honestly told me, “They just decided your punishment and everyone is making it hard on each other by passing responsibility.”
And not long after, people started coming out one by one from inside the Hyeongjo.
“Start the Chuguk.”
At the end of the line of incoming officials, the oldest minister sat at the center of the table, and the official at the left end asked me. Unlike the other ministers, he was a man wearing Western suits.
“First, is the criminal Lee Seung-man?”
“Yes, it is.”
I nodded slowly and answered. The man in the suit wrote my name in the document and began the interrogation.
“The person in charge of the criminal’s Chuguk is Seo Gwang-beom, the Jib-ui of Saheonbu and Chamchangwan. Remember this well.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“What crime name are you standing here for, or have you received a detailed explanation of the previous court positions?”
“Eh?”
What kind of talk is that?
I shook my head with a puzzled expression, and he calmed me.
“If you don’t know, just say you don’t know. This is not to reprimand you.”
“Ah, at first I was just brought to the gold office. But in the prison, the commander told me-.”
“Forcibly arrested and detained without announcing the crime name. Remember that.”
“Eh? Ah, yes.”
He listened to my words and hurriedly wrote something down. Seeing that, I made a blank expression.
“Doing modern trials in Joseon? Suddenly?”
I had been tilting my head at the unfamiliarity of the Joseon trial, but then I got enlightenment from the young bureaucrat’s warning and introduction.
This was not just a measure to shut my mouth.
“Unlike what I heard, this Chuguk is unfamiliar to you, so you are surprised. Don’t worry. This is a Chuguk permitted by His Majesty’s benevolence, accepting the will of the ministers and foreign envoys. It is a slight introduction of the judicial systems of various countries. I advise you not to worry too much, as His Majesty has the same intention to clear your grievances as before.”
“...Your virtue is boundless.”
“Oh, this is a traditional Chuguk, but not a Joseon-only Chuguk!”
Seo Gwang-beom.
In our textbooks, he is often named as a leader of the Gapsin Coup, the enlightenment faction. He was a person who sentenced leaders arrested in the Donghak Peasant Revolution to death after modern trials, and from 1881, he cut his topknot and wore Western suits, and was one of the most radical enlightenment faction members who translated and distributed the Bible.
I should have realized that when he introduced himself.
Only then did I relax and carefully look at the faces of the young bureaucrats sitting opposite me.
“Chief State Councillor Kim Ok-gyun, Hanseong Pan-yun and Pan Uigeumbu-sa Park Yung-hyo, Finance Minister Park Jeong-yang!”
There were three people among the major officials and ministers present at the Chuguk whose names I had heard of. Of course, the highest one leading the Chuguk was the Heungin-gun, the Minister of Rites.
My expression, which had been clashing with strange expectations, burned red with sweat and expectation.
“Your crime name is collecting rumors from the people and mixing them up. Simply put, it’s a crime of treason, but no one thinks you spread such nonsense alone.”
Today, Seo Gwang-beom said to me, simply listing the crime name, etc.
“Do you have anything else to say? Do not refuse any wishes to clear your name to His Majesty or personal requests. There will be many difficult things after the Chuguk starts in earnest.”
“Personal, wishes?”
“Yes, if you want something, tell me anything. However, it will be decided after the cabinet meeting whether to grant your wish.”
Seo Gwang-beom, who had been explaining enthusiastically to me, personally came in front of me, showed the document, and said kindly.
He personally wanted to have the modern judicial system recognized by the Western powers as well in this trial in Joseon.
After that, I looked at the expressions of Kim Ok-gyun and Park Yung-hyo, etc., and told him quietly.
“Then, please do this.”
“Eh...?”
After a while, Seo Gwang-beom, who received my request, had a shocked expression as if he couldn’t imagine it, pulled his neck back from me, and soon left the seat as if running away. As if he had seen a monster.
I muttered to myself while crossing the ministers watching us from the floor with that person.
“...Is that so surprising?”
Anyway, I sincerely thanked King Gojong for setting the board in my favor.
Honestly.
*****
King Gojong, after finishing the interrogation, frowned while receiving reports from the Chamchangwan Seo Gwang-beom and the Joseon Kingdom’s envoy, Finance Minister Park Jeong-yang.
“Public court?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I did say that.”
“Come closer and explain in detail. Public court?”
The minister bowed long with hands clasped politely to the king’s command.
“Your Majesty, with deep tolerance like your command, the criminal is willing to defend himself in front of all people and praise the monarch’s virtue, so please allow public court-.”
“Enough with the nonsense. So, does that mean to hold the Chuguk in the middle of the day in the market? Is there such a case in the Veritable Records or the Great Records? I don’t recall hearing about it.”
When the king was negative, Seo Gwang-beom, to counter it, cited foreign examples and begged.
“I know that in various Western countries, it is called a public court and the system has continued from ancient times.”
“No, even if so, it doesn’t create troublesome things for the people? It might incite people to spread nonsense to the people.”
“But if we do this, all the people will praise the monarch’s governance and punishment without doubt, and the Qing, Japan, and even the Western countries will compete to praise our Joseon’s modern judicial system and the king’s wisdom and wisdom.”
“...Hmm, that’s what you say.”
After pondering with Seo Gwang-beom’s persuasion and the rejection of the Qing case in the morning, and Park Jeong-yang’s support, King Gojong brushed his beard.
“Even the Qing envoys were trying to withdraw their feet, and from the petitions from Jeolla Province, it was said that the Japanese movements were really cunning and unpredictable, so should we organize the situation here?”
In fact, the party that wanted to stabilize the unstable political situation after the military rebellion as soon as possible was King Gojong himself.
The falling royal prestige and his own face due to the Qing army that landed in Joseon, suppressed the military rebellion, but didn’t even think of returning immediately was also a problem, but if all the ministers who rebelled against him after the Great Yuanwei’s regency were removed, there would be no talented people in the court for the king, Gojong.
Moreover, the Qing was refusing to move according to his will any longer.
“Tsk, how did it come to this.”
Annoyed, but denying that the culprit was himself, Gojong decided to think positively.
Anyway, since he had given punishment and time for reflection, forgiveness was also a virtue of the monarch, and remembering the king’s past admonitions from the Great Queen Dowager, he granted it casually to Seo Gwang-beom.
“Then do as you wish. Deeply reflecting on it, there’s no problem.”
“Your virtue is boundless.”
Two days later, King Gojong, who had a headache from the seven-year-old boy’s passionate speech that burst out from the Chuguk including the Qing’s minister, admiral, Japanese consul, and including the people of Han-yang, kept regretting his current self.