His Name, Syngman Rhee (2)

Winter had come, and the world was painted white. Yet the place of my exile in Namwon burned with a heat so fierce it melted even the snow that had fallen around it, as if winter had never arrived at all.

From the courtyard podium that had by now become ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠familiar, I began the morning by bowing deeply and offering a courteous greeting to the hundreds who had come to see me.

Today's subject was a special one.

"People who have honored me with your presence! Gentlemen of the literati! How deplorable is the state we find ourselves in!"

By the time I had begun to write my books, to set my thought in order, and Choe ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Ik-hyeon, Yu In-seok, and Seo Gong-sun had started to disseminate them in earnest across the three southern provinces, the educated class of all eight provinces of Joseon was already boiling over the shocking clauses of the treaty Joseon had newly concluded with the Qing — the Sino-Korean Regulations for Maritime and Overland Trade.

"Look at this!"

I held up the copy of the treaty text that Seo Gong-sun had somehow obtained and sent to me, showing it to the people below the podium, and shouted with a face full of rage.

"Where in all the world is there a suzerain that invokes the Wanguo Gongfa — the Public Law of All Nations — as its pretext, only to deceive and devour its own vassal? I have never heard of such a thing, nor seen it!"

More humiliating still was this: in America they had been on the verge of tearing up a treaty on the grounds that Joseon was an independent nation — until Li Hongzhang browbeat King Gojong into ordering that we ourselves inscribe Joseon as a vassal of the Qing.

"Manchu barbarians!"

When I attacked the Qing so nakedly, a few faces went pale with fear — but the great majority threw themselves into my passion and my gestures, and gave their rage free rein. The handful of cowards, swept along by the many, soon began cursing the Qing without the slightest restraint.

I had grown so heated I had forgotten even to breathe. My face flushed crimson, I roared, the index finger of my rigidly outstretched right hand stabbing fiercely toward the north, where Hanyang lay.

"Pro-Qing sadaejuui toadies and those damned betrayers of the fatherland! Traitors to the nation!"

Spittle flying in every direction, I poured my fury into the crowd and glared.

"Cowards who have forgotten the humiliation of Samjeondo! Trash who have forgotten the spirit of His Highness the Daewongun! Traitors to the nation who sold out the heroes of Ganghwa Island!"

The inequality of the treaty was already well known — but among its articles there was one that enraged the Confucian literati of Joseon above all others.

"How can the Qing's Beiyang Minister be placed on the same plane as our sovereign? Even if the precedent of a vassal relationship has been handed down for ages, what humiliation is this? What face can we show the sages and the ancestors who have gone before us?"

I seized the first page of the treaty in both hands and held it high, and the gat-wearing yangban who had flocked once more today to hear me speak answered with a passion. Most of them were elderly men, and they looked ready to leap onto the podium where I stood and tear the copy of the treaty to shreds.

What kind of word-game was this? How could a mere official stand as an equal to the representative of a people — occupy the same station?

"Sons of bitches! Those swine!"

Did this not wound one's pride? By what stretch of the imagination was this the traditional diplomatic custom of the East, or the Qing's consideration to protect Joseon from Western imperialists? Even the literati of Joseon, slow as their news might be, knew enough to know this. If you were going to make a fool of someone, there ought to be a limit.

"How can this even be compared to the previous dynasty kneeling before the Mongols? Is this not an insult that makes the blood boil and the five viscera seethe? That is what this man thinks!"

And this was a clear interference in internal affairs — an unequal treaty that even the literati and Confucian students of the three southern provinces, the last in Joseon to hear news of the outside world, could easily understand. At this naked display of Qing ambition, every yangban in the country who could recite so much as a line of verse had flown into a rage the moment word of the treaty's signing in Hanyang reached them. And then —

They came as a matter of course — inevitably, naturally — to find me, the man who had imported the advanced civilization of the twenty-first century into nineteenth-century Joseon. Their guts churned and their heads ached, and they had no way to put that rage into words. So they had come looking for someone who would say it for them, and say it to their satisfaction.

And so I scratched, with gusto, the itch of those who had traveled from afar to see me.

"The pro-Qing toadies of Hanyang! The profiteers and treacherous ministers of the court! The incompetent royal in-laws! These are traitors to the nation who must be purged — enemies of the people! Long live Great Joseon!"

I clenched both fists and drove them toward the heavens and bellowed, and the crowd, inflamed by the sight, stamped in place or brandished their walking sticks threateningly at the sky, giving their fury a body. Watching their reaction, I swallowed a thoroughly satisfied laugh.

Yes. Yes — this is it.

The masses were like this. It made little difference whether a man was a hidebound Confucian scholar who had studied as much as a man could study, or a butcher who had slaughtered cattle in the marketplace. People cheered for inflammatory phrases and speeches, and they grew addicted to them. When people gathered, they became simpler, if anything.

It was working. It was working far too well.

I looked into hundreds of pairs of eyes in which a madness was steadily rising, and I made them a promise. The speech had reached its climax. It was time to drive the stake home.

"People of Joseon! Literati of the three southern provinces! Pillars of Joseon, students of the classics! Do you intend to stand by and watch the Qing army that has illegally occupied our capital these past months, and the traitors to the nation who collaborate with them? I, Syngman Rhee, can no longer endure such immoral and unlawful outrages! I cannot stand idle while those vile and filthy pro-Qing toadies oppress and defile our beautiful mountains and rivers, and our neighbors!"

The most important point in public speaking is this: to draw up the crowd's rage and emotion with a will, while simultaneously drilling into them that the speaker himself is the alternative — the solution. In other words, to imprint upon the literati of the three southern provinces that an eight-year-old child was Joseon's last bastion.

"People! This speaker, Syngman Rhee, cries out to you with all his voice! I give you my word!"

I forced out a few tears — enough to make the onlookers' ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hearts ache and their heads grow hot — then raised my voice as if to make the mountains leave and the clouds scatter.

"The. Syngman. Rhee. Spirit! Remember it! A promise! I give you my solemn word!"

"Thank you! Thank you!"

It was nominally a lecture, a reading of the classics — but the place of exile had become a speaker's platform in all but name, and today too I gathered the discontented literati and carried my oratory on with passion.

When I finished the morning's speech and stepped into the room, the man responsible for this whole state of affairs — Choe Ik-hyeon — opened his mouth at me at once, his face sour with displeasure.

"This isn't it!"

"What is it now that doesn't sit well with you?"

"No. This isn't it!"

And then he proceeded to roll around on the floor like a brat whose pocket money had been confiscated.

I stared at him with an expression of pure incredulity, which only made him shake his head with still greater passion, determined to make his dissatisfaction thoroughly known.

"This isn't it! That's not it either!"

Fuck, what is he, some porcelain master? "This isn't it"?

Choe Ik-hyeon, for his part, did not so much as glance at my face. He had his own piece to say, and he said it.

"It's boring. It's stale! You can't truly capture the people's hearts like this!"

"What are you—"

He wasn't a child, and yet every time a speech ended it was like this? The people who had come to see me were out there loving it.

And boring?

Was this man actually joking? I was on the verge of becoming the idol of the three southern provinces' literati.

Looking at Choe Ik-hyeon rolling on the floor, utterly unaware of any of this, I began to seriously wonder whether the geomancy of Namwon was simply bad.

Has some demon actually taken up residence on this mountain?

Or perhaps the Choe Ik-hyeon recorded in the history books had been half whitewashed. Perhaps Mr. Choe was, it turned out, a dopamine addict who had staked his life on a dangerous independence struggle and even hunger-struck against Japan — something along those lines.

It was then, while I was lost in this earnest contemplation, that Choe Ik-hyeon spoke to me.

"The Confucian literati of Joseon are not as simple as you think! The young, hot-blooded students might get swept up in the atmosphere and act on your words alone — but those of middle age and older will think differently once they get home! Face. They care about face!"

"I doubt they'd care more than an elder lying on the floor staging a protest."

"...Ah!"

This had been a daily occurrence all last winter, and so, unlike other days, I simply stood there with my arms crossed in silence. Choe Ik-hyeon soon realized his own shame and returned to the stern demeanor of a Neo-Confucian scholar. Too late, of course.

"Ahem. What I mean to say is this."

Having come to his senses belatedly, he steadied his voice and began to advise me in earnest.

"It's too difficult. You talk a great deal, but the content is too hard. Literati of comfortable means like ourselves understand everything you say and share the feeling — but for others, it is a struggle."

"That's why I told you I mix in some cursing and repeat the inflammatory language, so the people can understand it easily, didn't I?"

Why else had I brought the advanced civilization of the twenty-first century with me? Surely not simply to bewitch more people?

Though the speeches the fascists and the communists use are certainly effective, I'll grant that.

"That's one thing, and what I mean to say is... how should I put the expression. Watching what you've been doing lately from the side, it rather resembles the Donghak's Podeok."

I was taken aback by Choe Ik-hyeon's assessment that I resembled the leader of a cult.

"Po— Podeok?"

"Mm, yes. Podeok. It resembles Podeok. Even when those people live quietly in hiding, once their numbers grow they don't stay hidden. I once saw them rolling about at what they called a gathering. Thinking back on it, it's frighteningly similar. The mob going wild in front of you looks like Donghak bandits."

"..."

I looked like a cult leader? Me?

Choe Ik-hyeon's criticism was so cutting that I went blank. Seeing my expression, he came back with a face that said Did I go too far? and hastily began trying to take it all back.

"Ah — ah! But there's no one else of your caliber! I spoke too harshly! To dare compare you to the likes of Donghak bandits? You speak well, you write books well, you have courage! Moreover, at such a young age, already so thoroughly versed in the sages and the classics—"

"...Wait. Just a moment, Elder."

I waved off Choe Ik-hyeon, who was fidgeting at the sight of my face crumpling of its own accord, and sank into thought.

Yes. It was lacking. That last two percent.

My instinct was speaking. I was missing something. This was an opportunity.

What is it? What am I missing?

Let me put the thoughts in order.

Choe Ik-hyeon had harshly criticized that the speeches resembled a Donghak gathering, and had also expressed the concern that unless a man possessed a certain level of learning, few would truly understand the meaning of what I said. And thinking about it objectively, his advice was not particularly wrong.

So. What was the problem? I found two answers at once.

The first:

Mannerism.

Choe Ik-hyeon had merely been putting a difficult spin on the fact that the speeches had gone slack — or fallen into mannerism.

I am fortunate. And blessed. To have a great man at my side who will catch me the moment I slip.

I gave sincere thanks for this bond that heaven had joined.

"Thank you."

"Hm...? Ah. As long as you understand. As I thought — you are the genius I recognized. The most important virtues of a Confucian scholar are practice and self-reflection. Excellent."

When I conveyed my thanks with grateful eyes, so unlike my first reaction, Choe Ik-hyeon grew awkward and shifted his gaze to the ceiling.

And then —

"Elder, I need to go down the mountain for a bit."

"Down the mountain, all of a sudden? What business do you have in the village?"

I answered Choe Ik-hyeon's question readily.

"I need to go find the Donghak followers."

"Wh-what!? Donghak?!"

At this bombshell of a declaration, a shocked Choe Ik-hyeon tried to stop ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me, insisting that I had not yet been released from exile — but I had already begun hurriedly writing a letter to Seo Gong-sun, the Magistrate of Namwon. To go down the mountain, I would need the permission of the local administrator, after all.

The second secret to winning popular fame and support at the same time.

Yes. The second realization.

How did the Nazi Party gain its popularity?

How? By beating the Communist Party to a pulp, that's how.

Then who, in the Joseon of this moment, was the Communist Party?

"Donghak."

It would be the boy Syngman Rhee's first sacrificial offering.