The Conditions of a Great Power (2)
As Choe Ik-hyeon had promised, when a little less than a week had passed, some fifteen scholars clustered at the entrance to our house, their carts and A-frames loaded with tools and lumber for the repairs. Well, calling it "our house" was a bit much for a man in exile — it was a hut crawling with mold and vermin — but it was our house all the same.
"Huh?"
I spotted them lingering beyond the brushwood gate from inside the kitchen. I had been working on the hearth; I wiped my sooty hands on my waistband with a few brisk swipes and stepped out to ask.
"Who might you gentlemen be?"
"Ah."
The tall gentleman who seemed to be their leader set down his A-frame — loaded with what might have been earth or manure — with a heavy thud, and answered.
"We've come at the request of the former Donnyeongbusa to repair the house. Are you the master of this household?"
"The Donnyeongbusa?"
"Lord Changyeom's man."
At his reply the others nodded greetings at me with their eyes, then filed into the yard and began dumping their tools and materials in a careless heap. Watching them, I suddenly remembered who the Donnyeongbusa was, and I bolted out in a panic.
"Ah—ah! Please, come in, come in. I'm the master of the house—no. I'm the convict Syngman Rhee."
I rushed out in a single bound to greet them, and the gentleman who had been walking steadily toward me opened his mouth.
"A pleasure. I'm Yu In-seok."
"Ah—pardon?"
What? Yu In-seok? The righteous-army commander Yu In-seok?
His introduction startled me to the core. Yu In-seok — wasn't he the commander of the righteous army that had seized Chungju Fortress after the Eulmi Incident, at the close of the Joseon era?
Come to think of it, this fellow is Wijongcheoksa as well. He'll go all the way to Manchuria later and fight for independence.
I studied his face slowly as he stood there sweating, without a single word of complaint. He really does look out of the ordinary. Honestly, this one looks like he's got a temper to match Choe Ik-hyeon's...
Unlike Choe Ik-hyeon, whose appearance had been a touch milder than I'd expected, Yu In-seok's first impression was fierce — thick brows, a hawkish, piercing look. The sort of strict class president you get one of in every classroom. The hall monitor type.
When I kept staring at his face from the side, Yu In-seok tilted his head and asked,
"Is there something on my face?"
"...Aigoo, look at me. Please, come inside first. Ah, shall I fetch some cold water?"
"I just rested down below before coming up, so I'm fine. More importantly — which room do you sleep in? The Donnyeongbusa asked that we hurry and repair at least that one room first."
"Starting there? Ah, this way. This way."
It was odd that he would start with my room rather than quarters for the workmen, but I let it go. I showed Yu In-seok the makeshift sarangbang — already so thoroughly eaten through by insects that heating and the ondol floor were useless — and found myself sweeping a hand over the back of my neck as shame welled up unbidden.
"This is what the Major and I did our best to patch up, but, well."
The truth was it wasn't "well" at all — we had made it worse. I realized later that neither of us knew the first thing about construction.
Yu In-seok surveyed the wreckage and delivered his verdict.
"...The authorities really have been neglecting this place. It shouldn't have gotten this bad."
"Is that so?"
When I asked, he jabbed a finger into the roof, from which pooled water had been leaking in streams.
"I've followed the Donnyeongbusa around to a few exile sites myself. This is probably less the Namwon magistrate's fault than some lazy, idle clerk who's lived in this county his whole life. Look here — it isn't just the wallpaper rotting. The ondol floor has completely collapsed. We'll have to tear it out."
"Uh."
Yu In-seok came into the room, jumped in place a few times, and showed me the floor that had given way beneath him with a limp pop.
"Just plan on building a dugout hut outside and living there for a while. Better to tear it down and start over."
"Yes, sir."
No wonder my body kept itching. The bugs had just eaten the whole underside out.
"Even so, I'm a convict serving a sentence of exile. Shouldn't we at least ask the authorities before we start demolishing things?"
"Ah, this?"
Thud. Thud!
Isn't this public property? What if some prickly type comes along later and makes an issue of it?
I started to worry as I watched him drive a roundhouse kick into the floor and walls, but Yu In-seok shook his head as if to say not to fret, and answered with hearty confidence.
"Would they really go looking for faults? We're repairing and rebuilding it for free. They'll be falling over themselves to help, not getting in the way."
"But what are those fired bricks and that lime mortar for?"
"Ah, those? Don't worry about them. The Donnyeongbusa asked us to raise the compound walls higher, in case of thieves."
I tilted my head at Yu In-seok's explanation. Thieves? Who would pick an exile's hut to rob among so many rich houses?
"Thieves? Is that so?"
"Well, these are troubled times, aren't they?"
Something in my expression must have stung him, because Yu In-seok hid his face as best he could and called out to the others.
"Anyway. Right — get the furnishings out of here and strip the roof. Heave!"
Having demolished our sitting room with a few kicks, Yu In-seok gave orders to the able-bodied men who had come with him, then dusted off his hands and shoulders, sat himself down on the wooden floor, and turned to me.
"More to the point — I hear your gift of speech is quite something?"
"Pardon? Mine?"
I pointed a finger at my own chest, and Yu In-seok nodded. He put a hand on my shoulder and pressed down.
"Yes, you. Lord Changyeom has been advertising that a genius of the ages — a madman — has appeared."
"A genius, I'll grant you, but a madman—"
What kind of nonsense is that?
Genius I could understand. But a madman, just like that? The madman was Choe Ik-hyeon himself — the one who, a few days ago, had swallowed a bug, awakened into a mustachioed nationalist, and been ranting since the crack of dawn about the "national spirit" and the "soul of the people," demanding we join him in a historic struggle.
...If this old man is going to go mad, he could at least go mad gracefully. Who's calling whom a lunatic?
Of course, crawling into ground zero just to watch a nuclear explosion because the world had already gone to hell — that was the act of a madman. Beating myself up for not bringing beer was also the act of a madman. But this was not a ruined Republic of Korea. This was Joseon, on the brink of ruin. And the problem was that the madman in question was Choe Ik-hyeon — and the one who had awakened him was me.
Following the chain of cause and effect to its end, I found myself at the terminus, and I conceded the point.
...Maybe I am a madman.
At any rate, Choe Ik-hyeon, convinced he had attained a great enlightenment by being with me, had stubbornly refused to go home until Woo Beom-seon hid all his brushes and books on the mountainside. Only then had he vanished into the village. I still remembered the look in Choe Ik-hyeon's eyes as he came back barefoot through the dawn mist, having found his brushes and books after all. My knees went weak just thinking about it.
Terrifying.
"Did you have a nightmare or something?"
"Ah, no. But what's this about me being eloquent?"
I put a question mark on my face and rolled my eyes, and Yu In-seok elaborated.
"You said the essence of every great empire that left its name in the historical records was the nation and its unique writing system, did you not? I heard that from Lord Changyeom and thought on it deeply. And the more I turn those words over, the less wrong they seem."
"...Well, it's something of a chicken-or-egg problem, but in truth this humble one believes that once a writing system is established, the formation of a nation is inevitable."
"Chicken and egg. So the question of sequence need not overly concern us."
"Yes."
"But I have a question. Then how do we distinguish between the Chinese characters of the Central Kingdom and our own speech? We use the same characters as they do, and yet we have different cultures and traditions, do we not?"
"If you well remember that the roots of our Joseon begin with the Three Han, then you will well understand why we speak a different language and use different characters. Above all, writing is merely something we created artificially in later times, is it not?"
Yu In-seok closed his eyes for a moment, lost in thought, then spoke.
"Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. Everyone knows the saying, but it is useless if not practiced. If we ourselves do not know our own identity — if we have no proper standard by which to distinguish what is ourselves from what is not — then what good is any of it? The Three Han. Yes. We are not the Han people of the Central Kingdom, but the descendants of the Three Han. Writing and language are merely what can be seen. The gap that opened when the roots themselves diverged cannot be bridged by anything. Only virtue and benevolence exist as a morality equal for all, and that alone can serve as a standard. If I cannot be myself, and I have no standard by which to tell friend from foe — then how am I to stand against anyone? The nation. What binds us — is it regional ties? Or tradition flowing down from antiquity? The language by which you and I communicate?"
"..."
I shuddered as I watched Yu In-seok question himself — going beyond a mere reconsideration of national identity to Shin Chae-ho's struggle of I and not-I, the definition of ethnic nationalism, and even the womb of universal moral concepts and the principle of national self-determination. Frankly, if you added Choe Ik-hyeon — who a few days ago had started ranting about the "soul of the nation" and "national spirit" like a man struck by lightning — Joseon's Neo-Confucian scholars were starting to become genuinely frightening.
What is this? Are Joseon Neo-Confucian scholars just... like this?
I would realize later, to my astonishment, that Joseon Neo-Confucian scholars generally were like this. This was the average. People who examined themselves, researched, practiced, and then synthesized their theories — those were Neo-Confucian scholars.
"Self-strengthening, self-reliance, self-determination. Is this the subjectivity of a nation?"
"Yes, well..."
"And what binds them together like grass is morality — the kingly way."
They were not the hidebound reactionaries being dragged through the mud in textbooks and on the internet. They were just talkative old gentlemen who loved books and enjoyed sitting alone in a corner, picking up ideologies and theories and groaning over them by themselves!
...And that's what we call a weirdo. This is starting to get a little scary.
I sat quietly for a long while and listened to Yu In-seok. I didn't know it at the time, but among the people of Joseon, the posture of listening attentively was a deeply grateful and considerate act of respect — especially for Neo-Confucian scholars, who talked so much they bored their listeners.
Then other voices tickled my ears.
"Well now, they've already started."
"Hm?"
I had just been sitting there quietly, watching Yu In-seok hold forth all by himself, when the scholars — having already hauled every stick of furniture out into the yard — wiped their sweat, clustered around the two of us on the wooden floor, and called out.
"Don't hog all the good talk, Commander!"
Having said that, they began unloading on me everything that had been filthy and stifling about the state of the world. They treated me like Zhuge Liang's brocade bag of stratagems, sitting me down with care and then hurling their questions at me one after another.
"Our country keeps buying cheap, high-quality cloth from Yanjing and the Japanese, and isn't that the problem? Our industry and manufacturing can't even come close to theirs — what are we to do?"
"The Japanese are using their treaties to corner the rice market, and the damage falls indiscriminately on the farmers. What must we do first to protect our grain and our people?"
"The government has kept the mines closed all this time, fearing people would grow extravagant if gems were dug up — but now Qing Chinese and Japanese are tearing them open, and I fear they'll defile the mountains and rivers. What should be done?"
"They say England and Russia are the foremost great powers of the West. Which side should we stand with?"
"The Americans are hunting whales and fish in our waters and dragging them off to their own land. By what means are our fishermen supposed to protect the fishing grounds?"
"W-wait a moment! Hold on!"
If it had been one or two people asking questions, I would have answered them readily enough. This was something else entirely. These gentlemen had the pressure and the stares of a corporate job interview — worse — and they were trying to pin me down with questions.
...What about this? What should we do about that?...
Finally I hit my limit and let out a scream.
"Aaaah!"
Save me! I'm terrified! What even are you people!
To survive, I executed an emergency evasive maneuver, putting distance between us, and shouted.
"Get away from me!"
"Huh?"
Just like Choe Ik-hyeon, whom I had barely managed to drive off the other day — those dozens of pairs of eyes gleaming like his glittering pupils filled me with a terror beyond any threat to my life. I threw both hands in the air and bellowed loud enough to shake the mountain.
"Help me! Somebody help me! General Woo!"
Unfortunately, not long after I screamed, I remembered that Woo Beom-seon had gone down to the village first thing in the morning, following the smell of cooking meat.
"Hey! He's running!"
"Catch him!"
So I ran.
And the moment I tried to flee, the scholars on the wooden floor sprang up and shot toward me like arrows leaving the string.
"Aaaagh!"
I leaped to my feet and bolted for the brushwood gate, making for the mountain path down to the village, desperate to escape Yu In-seok and the scholars who were pelting me with questions like a swarm of angry bees.
Or rather — I tried to escape.
Wham!
"Whoa!"
"What are you doing?"
"L-Lord Changyeom. That's—aaaagh!"
I hadn't seen the person coming in through the brushwood gate — Choe Ik-hyeon — and smashed my nose into his chest. Clutching my stinging nostrils, I caught sight of something poking out from the bundle at his side and nearly died of fright.
"Hhhk!"
Books. Books. Books. Dozens of blank volumes waiting for my words to fill them. The devil was already here!
"H-help—!"
"...And where do you think you're going."
The moment I tried to crawl across the ground and flee outside, hands erupted from somewhere and seized my ankles. Once I was pinned and couldn't move, their commander spoke.
"Come now, let us go inside. Every hour is precious. We must devise a secret plan to save the nation."
"Uwaaaagh!"
"You are a precious pillar of the nation and the people. A treasure."
"Uwaaaagh!"
"Yeoseong — start by building the walls higher. We can't have our pillar getting any foolish ideas."
"Yes, Elder."
"UWAAAAAGH!!!"
It was a trap after all, Choe Ik-hyeon!
Recognizing that everyone gathered here was the enemy, I began screaming for Woo Beom-seon at the top of my lungs.
"General Woo! General Woo!"
"It's no use. I told the Major I had business in Jeonju and asked him to send someone."
"Uwaaagh!!!"
"Come, come. Let's go."
And so I was captured.
With a pitiful scream, the boy was seized by a pack of greedy old men.
It was a day in the early winter of 1882.