The Conditions of a Great Power (1)

Exile was a sentence of confinement: the condemned were packed off to some far frontier or lonely island and left there.

House arrest. A political castration, more or less.

It ranked as the second-heaviest of the Five Punishments inherited from ancient China—the same banishment that filled so many historical dramas. In modern terms, it was not so different from being placed under house arrest.

"…Even as recently as the previous dynasty, exile was less about sparing the condemned than about abandoning them. The watch kept over them was a formality and nothing more. A great many died on the road before they ever reached the place they had been sent."

It was the morning of my third month in Namwon. Rain leaked in threads through the ceiling whenever the sky opened, and at night the mosquitoes and lice made sleep a rumor. Into that wretched little room came a rare guest: Choe Ik-hyeon.

He broke off mid-sentence and took in the thatched hut I was living in—a hovel, if one were being honest—and delivered his verdict.

"Dear, dear. The authorities have been negligent. This is nothing but the magistrate's sloth. I shall file a memorial with the Ministry of Punishments at once and—"

"Aigoo. Just come in, sir."

I put on a show of fuss as Choe Ik-hyeon minced into the room on tiptoe, as if the whole place might collapse under his weight.

"If it falls down I'll dig a burrow and live in that. Besides, the county magistrate told me not to set foot past the fence—but the clerks say I can go down to the village, shop the market, run my errands, and not a soul will say a word. I have heard, by the way, that exile is how the contempt for islanders got its start."

"Ahem. Quite so. That is precisely how the custom of despising a criminal and all his descendants came into being. Ah—pour me a little more tea. Kherrgh! Age dries the throat of its own accord."

Clutching his neck, Choe Ik-hyeon sent a look toward Woo Beom-seon. At which—

"Come now, elder. I'm not Seung-man's errand boy—"

"I am asking you."

Every shift of weight in the room sent dust boiling up in a dirty cloud. Choe Ik-hyeon laughed, ho-ho, and Woo Beom-seon, seeing he had no choice, grumbled his way off toward the kitchen.

The moment he was gone, Choe Ik-hyeon's face settled into something like relief, and he spoke to me again.

"At a glance one thinks it a blessing merely to be alive—but His Majesty has shown you mercy. That the place of exile is Namwon needs no further explanation. In the old days this was not a county. It was a prefecture."

"I know that story well enough. Mercy, though—I would call it consideration. And I have never heard of a high minister who opened a new world as King Taejo did, only to die in banishment."

"You are a stubborn one. While you idle the days away in Namwon, Hanyang is in an uproar."

His words called up King Gojong, no doubt clutching his head over Li Hongzhang, the Qing Minister of Beiyang, and the Japanese minister. Come to think of it, the Japanese minister's tantrum over the steamer charter fees had been my work, and the Daewongun's.

But what was that to me?

"Ahem. Even so—His Majesty shoved me into this far corner of Namwon to cut me off politically. If he learns that a Director has come all this way to see me, will he not have your head?"

"If I were the sort of man to fret over such a fault, I would still be drawing a stipend at court. And do not call me Director."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I have submitted my resignation. I am on the road home. What is there for me to do in a court where the queen's kin hold sway and sycophants run riot?"

"…Is resignation something one can do by tossing a letter on the floor and walking out?"

"This is not the first time. His Majesty will make allowances. Or he will not."

I stared at him with my mouth open. He waved the matter aside as if worrying about himself were a luxury he could not afford, and pointed instead at the modest wreckage of my place of exile: the worm-eaten floor, the walls that looked ready to lie down, the roof punched through so that rainwater seeped in drop by drop.

"Never mind that. You cannot even sleep in peace. I shall send word and have my disciples come tomorrow to help repair the house."

"No, you really don't have to—"

"In truth I sent word before I left for Namwon. Guests will begin arriving in a line within two days, if not sooner."

"Thank you."

I bowed my head at once to show my gratitude—and, curious about the kindness, put the question to him.

"Why do you look after this humble one so?"

"Why do I look after you, you ask?"

"Yes."

He rested his chin a moment, as if sorting his thoughts, then answered with a faint smile.

"…If you are asking whether a man who considers himself a true scholar needs some further meaning in the conferring of virtue, I can only say there is no single answer. Did you yourself not cry out before the people of Hanyang that a scholar accumulates virtue and discourses on benevolence as a matter of course? But if we are to speak of what I stand to gain… hmm. When I talk with you, I see a possibility—that this country might yet navigate the many hardships bearing down upon it with some wisdom."

"A possibility, you say?"

"That is right. Yes. Possibility. Possibility will do."

He lingered on the word, giving it weight each time, and at some point lifted the pot Woo Beom-seon had set down and vanished from, and poured into my cup.

"If Western brigands and the Japanese and the men of Qing come waving treaties, build houses in Hanyang as they please, and come and go as they like, they will in time take the wealth of our mountains and rivers, and our women, however they wish. Should those of us who already fear this not put our heads together and discuss a remedy?"

"Are you asking me to enter the school of Hwaseo?"

"Put so bluntly, it feels a little strange. But I cannot say that I am not."

I folded my arms and spoke.

"I personally believe that the opening of the country and the opening of the ports, as we now face them, are an inevitability that cannot be resisted—the natural order of history. The bar is already broken and the great gates stand wide. For the moment, we have no power to stop their outrages."

My coolness toward the old reject-the-West line drew a look of frank disappointment.

"You sound rather like the Western-suit gentlemen at court."

"But I believe that friendship which is born of the other side's begging, not of the other side's threats, is the only true peace—the only true amity."

"Oho."

"If we sue for peace because we are afraid, we may buy ourselves a moment to breathe, here and now. But with what will we fill the bottomless greed they will demand afterward? That will be the first sign that a nation is going to fall."

"I agree."

He jiggled one leg lightly, as if to say his eye for me had not been wrong after all.

"When they first came to this land and this sea to treat with us, they drew their cannon and their rifles and then offered friendship. The coat was buttoned wrong from the first hole. True peace and true propriety ought to begin from mutual trust and a kept promise—and even that would barely suffice."

I nodded.

"The second point is this. Our goods, set beside those of the West, are crude and simple in the extreme. Luxury and consumables will flood the country, and the fortunes of our people will come apart with ease. To strike up trade lightly, with no preparation at all, is unreasonable and shortsighted."

"What I fear is the same as what you have named. Our wealth is small and finite. There is much that must be spent at once, and private goods come in all too easily—which is no different from the country taking on debt. What troubles me most is that our precious stores will be stripped bare, and in the end even rice and grain will be sold off at high prices until there is not enough."

"And if that happens, the ones who truly suffer will be the tenant farmers and the people who own a patch of field no bigger than a mat."

"Well said."

In truth, the greatest single argument the Defend Orthodoxy faction had against trade was this: at the principal treaty ports of the three southern provinces, Japanese merchants were buying up rice and barley far cheaper than at home and shipping it back to their own country at a handsome profit. That was the danger they named first.

The Defend Orthodoxy men were never simple fools who wanted to bar the gates again, raise the Reject-Peace steles, and turn their backs on the world. They were people thrashing for a way to live in the world as they knew it—in the world they had heard of and seen.

Of course, the world they had heard of and seen was so narrow that they lived inside the illusion that shutting the door again would bring peace. And they had not even managed to shut it properly. They closed the country's door, and that was all they closed.

So what was I to do with a Confucian literati that had fallen on such pitiful times?

I sorted my thoughts against my experience in Hanyang, and against the memory of how Choe Ik-hyeon and the men of the Hwaseo School had listened to my talks and my speeches.

Throwing the literati into the rubbish heap, as they stood, was not even a strategy worth considering.

I'd be a damn fool to throw them away.

A rough estimate put their weight in Joseon at seven-tenths of the whole. Telling a politician to toss seventy percent of the electorate in the trash was the same as telling him to bite his tongue and die.

Then I need material. Something that lets me keep their support and still lead them where I want to go. Material.

In the twenty-first-century Republic of Korea, winning a district meant having plausible material on hand. Entice a new business into the city. Advertise an apartment redevelopment, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠or a grand new urban plan, and buy the voters' ballots with it.

So. What did the literati want?

Right now they are starving for recognition. For proof that they are not dead yet. If I can persuade them that Joseon can survive the opening of its ports—that their thinking was not wrong, that a way still exists for them to stand on their own in the world—then they can accept this change.

Yes. What they feared was not the extinction of Joseon in its feudal shape. The dismantling of the status system and the collapse of slavery were debates they had already finished, long ago. Time was the only question.

The status system will be abolished anyway.

What they truly feared was this: that the literati themselves would lose their role and their use, and be treated as old men shut up in a back room.

I finished arranging the thought, opened my eyes wide, and spoke.

"…What you fear most, sir, is the complete extinction of Neo-Confucian values and ideals."

"Ho-ho. You drive a poor student rather hard."

He tried to laugh it off, hiding grief and fear behind the rim of his cup. I sat up straight and faced him.

"Even if All Under Heaven is turned upside down, the Right Path remains constant. Is that not a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠needless worry?"

Faint as it was, Choe Ik-hyeon's voice trembled.

The point I had driven home was a blade, and it had found the unripe place in him where the fear still lived.

I did not let up.

"But to the common people—what does a Confucian value matter? What does a Neo-Confucian ideal matter?"

"Hrm. That is rather radical talk, from the sound of it."

"But it is fresh, is it not? And did you not come to me because you were sick of the Hwaseo School going around and around like a mill-wheel?"

"So I have walked into this snare with my own two feet."

He started to rise, disappointed. I shook my head and spoke quickly, before he could leave.

"I am not saying Neo-Confucianism is wrong. I am saying that what matters most is what the people stand to gain by following it—what advantage it offers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠them."

"The people, calculating profit and loss in the following of the Right Path…?"

At the dazed look on his face as he asked it back, I stamped my feet and laughed, making a show of it.

"Haha! There, you see. I knew you would say that."

Whether it was the words or the manner that did it, I could not say—but when I beat my chest in frustration and slapped my knee, Choe Ik-hyeon quietly lowered himself and sat again.

I set my posture right and spoke to him.

"Farmers who sweat blood all day and cannot keep even a quarter of a quarter of the harvest—do they have time to grasp the Way of Confucius and Mencius, or the bearing of loyalty and filial piety?"

"…"

Most of them would live and die without ever coming near a village school. This people might rank first or second in the world for hunger of learning—but a man has to put food in his mouth before letters will enter his eyes.

"And how can a son of a great house—born rich, born comfortable, who came out of the womb already knowing the Thousand Character Classic and the Three Bonds and Five Relationships—see the same world, and run the same life, as the son of a tenant farmer who ate dirt? You and your students have taken the wrong starting point from the very beginning."

"We… have thought wrongly…?"

"All Under Heaven does not turn on people reciting the classics. Every one of us lives by influencing the others, and leaning on them."

So saying, I quickly sketched the character for person on the table.

He seemed struck by what I had said. His beard trembled in fine threads, and his pupils had gone wide. No—what had shocked him was this: I had taken the people one ought to worry about, as the subjects of politics and of trade, and stretched that circle from the scholars who strung lines of text together to every common person without distinction.

I pressed him. The first rule of argument and persuasion is never to give the other man time to think and put his thoughts in order.

"Why will the world not stand with the literati in their opposition to trade? Why, even when they know that trade costs us in the present hour, can they not stand with you? The ones who lose at once from the opening of the ports are not the landlords playing games with land. They are the artisans who make goods, and the brokers. Are they not?"

"Th-that is—"

"Why? Because they do not know that this thing called trade is a danger to us right now. Because even though they may be eaten at any moment, they scramble for the money in front of their eyes—and that is why they cannot stand with the literati. Sir. You and the yangban must not merely oppose, and shout, and scold. You must persuade the people. You must make them understand why they are truly in danger."

Choe Ik-hyeon had gone rigid under the weight of too much at once. I pulled down the stack of papers I had piled on the writing desk. They were filthy with heavy strokes of ink and with pencil brought in from the West, and they were covered in a script alien to the Joseon of this day.

A scholar to the marrow, even now. The moment those transferred pages caught the eye of a man like Choe Ik-hyeon, I asked him outright.

"What are the conditions of a great power?"

"…A great power, you say?"

"Yes. Great powers like Qing, or like Britain in the West, or like the Russian Empire. Why are they called great powers? Why do they command, at once, the fear and the respect of All Under Heaven?"

He blinked twice. Then he closed his eyes and answered.

"Vast territory. People beyond counting. Boundless wealth growing from the soil. Would it not be those?"

I shook my head. Quite firmly.

"You are right. And you are wrong."

"Why?"

In that instant the roles between us reversed. I tried not to let it show, and explained to this old man—who had rounded his eyes in honest question—as if I had become the teacher.

"Those three things belonged to the Yuan as well, when they ruled the previous dynasty. Overwhelming martial prowess. The enormous territory and the vassal states that followed it. Wealth torn ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠away by plunder and dominion. And they perished in less than a hundred years. How do you explain that? Were they truly a great power?"

"…"

His mouth had fallen open. Then he shut his eyes and sank into thought. I did not stop talking.

"I will give you a clue. Britain is nothing but a barren island, and for hundreds of years it has grown rich by crossing rough seas. Russia is a hollow empire: half its land is wasteland and frozen earth, and its people live hard lives. Of the three, only Qing is a great power in the old tradition—one that conquered All Under Heaven and governed it for a long age. And yet those same people are now invaded by the Western nations and treated unjustly. Why is that?"

"Territory and population, industry and wealth. The difference between Qing, and Britain, and Russia. The difference…"

I could not have said how much time passed. I flicked a fingernail against the side of a teacup that had long since gone cold, and spoke calmly to the old man who sat repeating the word inside his mouth like a fool.

"…It is because they are a Manchu nation, sitting on Han land."

"Ah!"

"Britain has long carried confidence in its own blood and its own history. Russia remembers its tradition and its being, under the Tsar. Only the people of Qing and its princes regard one another as oil regards water."

And then the old man opened his eyes wide, as if a great understanding had struck him, and looked at me.

"So it is. No—yes! That was it!"

Choe Ik-hyeon was moved enough to seize the edge of the table and tremble. I could not have said in any detail what my counsel had done to this rigid—and perhaps most dangerous—man. But I was certain it was not for the worse. His eyes were shining at me in a way that could not have been more favorable if he had tried.

"Tell me more. More!"

He was suddenly as full of blood as a man who had not seen fifty. He shoved his face in close, as if he meant to tip the table over.

"Speak quickly!"

"Y-you needn't rush me. We have plenty of time to talk today. Please sit back a little. Yes. At any rate, to put it simply—in my judgment, the conditions of a great power are only two."

"And what are they!"

He roared it in a voice like a thunderclap, loud enough to strip the hearing from my ears. I answered with a sickly look on my face.

"A p-people, and a script! A script!"

"A people? A script?"

"A people bound as one is like iron quenched many times in flame. A script is the true-cut foundation stone you need to raise a great palace. Only when both exist can you stand against the storms that are coming—and against history itself—and survive."

"A people, a script, a people, a script, a peo—"

"E-excuse me?"

The answer seemed to please him. He murmured the words over and over, then fixed me with eyes that looked as if they were on fire.

What was the matter with this man today?

Was this what he had always been?

I thought he was not merely a hidebound Confucian—but was he always this hot-blooded? Or did I take him wrong?

I could not have said how we had arrived here, but the roles between us had reversed again. I watched him with uneasy eyes as he began to shake—like a man coming apart, or a patient taken with a chill.

And then—

"History!"

I ducked in a hurry, getting clear of Choe Ik-hyeon as he flipped the table.

"Eek!"

The teacups hung in the air. The papers I had put in order came down like the white snow of January.

"W-what?!"

I started and stared, in a panic, at Choe Ik-hyeon's face.

"Hah!"

Th-this was bad. This old man's eyes had gone completely over.

W-what have I done?

As if a spirit had ridden him, Choe Ik-hyeon's eyes had rolled until the place where the pupils ought to have been was nothing but white. He surged to his feet, climbed onto the overturned table, and launched into an oration.

"Y-yes?! What?!"

By then I was beginning to be afraid.

I had a feeling I had awakened something I should not have.