Crushing the Scholar's Skull (1)
In the fourth year of King Cheoljong’s reign, in a prosperous household in Donggok-ri, Taein-hyeon, there lived a man who had been born and who had experienced a life as fiery as flames, wandering through the Three Southern Provinces.
These groups consisted of three in total. The two leading the way had shabby appearances, carrying yokes on their backs and hauling jars, immediately recognizable as beggars. However, the third one was dressed in sturdy Japanese cloth (imported cotton) for a coat, wearing a turban, and was empty-handed, so his identity was unknown.
Among them, the relatively older beggar set down the yoke he had been carrying on his shoulder in front of the market and sighed, opening his mouth.
“Everyone has arrived. This is Namwon. As you said, this is the first time for you, right?”
“Yes.”
“Since you made it safely, the divine spirit has helped you.”
The peddler who volunteered to guide the man to Namwon spoke, and the man nodded slightly in the center of the bustling Namwon market where many people passed by and took a few coins from his waist to flick towards him.
“Hard work. Here’s the fee for guiding the way.”
“Aigoo, thank you! Take care on your way, and if you have any business, call me!”
“Understood.”
The peddlers, who were not as generous as expected, bowed deeply and left without delay.
Or not, the man murmured to himself while looking at the larger-than-his-hometown Namwon market and the countless people and goods coming and going.
“… They said there was a talented person in Namwon, but I didn’t expect this level.”
He was the third son of Kim Dae-heum, one of the tohos in Taein, named Kim Gi-beom, with the clan name Dogang (Daokang).
Dogang of Taein-hyeon, Kim Gi-beom.
That is, this outwardly respectable middle-aged man was Kim Gae-nam, who was called ‘Gaenam Gukju’ during the Donghak Rebellion and who beat the skulls of yangban like crazy with his hot-blooded youth.
“Let’s see.”
He touched his slightly emptied pocket after paying the peddler for the guide and started walking aimlessly towards the government office. His only purpose was one thing.
“Well then, where is our young master…?”
He had come to Namwon to find the young teacher, Lee Seung-man, the new Donghak, who had recently caused a stir in the Three Southern Provinces.
Wait a moment. Let’s take a look at Kim Gi-beom’s family background a bit here. His family was a house that had accumulated wealth by their ancestors securing their own land from above, farming, cutting reeds in spring and fall to accumulate salt, and gathering female weavers in winter. When Kim Gi-beom was born, his father Kim Dae-heum was an albuja who had well managed the ancestral property and scraped together quite a bit of money even within Taein-hyeon, belonging to a famous toho family.
But was the fact that the ancestors were diligent and frugal making his family wealthy actually a poison for him?
This Kim Gi-beom, who had no worries about food or clothing after becoming an adult, had studied sufficiently under his father’s support, married normally, and lived a life free from worldly concerns. However, at that time, shocking events (the Opium War, the two Yangyo, the Imo Inran, etc.) occurred one after another, and Kim Gi-beom, who had been exposed to them in succession, could not contain his anger at the way the world was going and finally escaped from the small cage of Taein-hyeon.
Before leaving his hometown, Kim Gi-beom murmured while carefully storing the memorials sent by his friends across the country who had exchanged letters with him.
“The world is in turmoil.”
He had achieved some success even in the small town of Taein, and after teaching for a few years, he naturally became more interested in the affairs of the world than others, which was a curse. His friends, whom he had traveled around the country and associated with, wrote about the corruption of corrupt officials and the plundering of the barbarians in various places, saying that Joseon was in decline. And this was the direct cause that made Kim Gi-beom escape from Taein.
“The patience of the people has reached its limit.”
The court was incompetent, the barbarians were rampant, the in-laws were in power, and the people’s lives were suffering. Moreover, the palace was being built, coins were being minted in large numbers, the country’s treasury was depleted, and soldiers who did not receive their salaries caused rebellions. And in the end, the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty stationed troops in Hanyang, forced unequal treaties, and made them sign. Now, in the Hanyang court, people who can’t even speak the Joseon language are interfering in internal affairs, pretending to be administrators and advisors.
If this wasn’t the decline of the country, what was it?
Kim Gi-beom’s anger burst as he recalled the news from Hanyang sent by his friends, and he hit his chest and began looking for places where people gathered.
According to the latest news from his friends who had delivered news about the Three Southern Provinces, there was a young scholar who was as talented as a shaman and who had come into exile in Namwon.
“Annoying, so annoying!”
That’s why he had come to Namwon. To find that bold young teacher with a special appearance.
“People of Namwon!”
And soon, Kim Gi-beom found the stage surrounded by people in the center of the market and easily achieved his purpose with the booming and bold voice coming out.
When he shifted his gaze to the stage, the young man with a flushed face was shouting.
“This Lee Seung-man is angry today! He is furious today!”
The teacher was in his usual angry tone, harshly criticizing the world as written in the memorials.
Comparatively short Kim Gi-beom pushed through the crowd and arrived right in front of the stage. The teacher who called himself U-nam opened the yellow paper densely written with small characters in his tiny hands and showed it to the audience while raising his heels.
“As expected, he was really a kid. I thought he would at least have tied his topknot.”
“Is this visible? If there are people behind who can’t see well, I’ll read it for you! Who said this? Do you know what this means? And do you know what it means?”
“Yellow Turban, right?”
Kim Gi-beom, who realized that it was the slogan of the ‘Yellow Turban’ from the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, quietly looked around him instead of answering immediately. Judging from the expressions and reactions of the audience, it seemed that no one here didn’t know that this was the Yellow Turban’s slogan.
“It seems everyone knows because it’s famous.”
And the teacher with the same thought as him swept the audience with a satisfied expression and said.
“Then, is there anyone who knows why I brought this here today?”
“?”
The audience below the stage was silent like a dumb person who had swallowed honey at the teacher’s second question. In fact, even Kim Gi-beom, who thought he was smart for having studied a bit, couldn’t guess why the teacher suddenly brought up the Yellow Turban.
“So? Why did you bring it up?”
After waiting for a while without a plausible answer, the teacher pushed the yellow paper with the Yellow Turban slogan aside and took out a new book, holding it high above his head.
“Then, for a moment, let’s put aside this slogan of the Yellow Turban, and is there anyone who knows this book? Is there anyone?”
At the teacher’s question, Kim Gi-beom, who had been able to read the title easily because he was in the front row, answered vigorously.
“ is it, teacher!”
When he answered actively, the teacher lit up his eyes and said vigorously.
“Oh! You are truly a spirited and active student. Correct. This book is a very excellent book called Bulsija-jangbyeon written by the teacher Sim Sang-haeng. It is a ‘recommended book’ that our rational and reasonable seongnihak scholars must read at some point.”
A recommended book! A mysterious word that sticks to the mouth.
“Your words are not inferior to those of the great sages at all!”
“The reason I brought up the story of the Yellow Turban earlier is because it has a great connection.”
Kim Gi-beom, who was tensing his senses while paying attention to even one word in the young teacher’s story who was only a little over ten years old, nodded quickly.
“To explain this book to those who don’t know it, Bulsija-jangbyeon is a logical criticism of how the Buddhist teachings that were corrupt and indulged in debauchery in the previous dynasty were wrong, and how the core Buddhist doctrines of reincarnation, cause and effect, and compassion were so hollow and wrong, and so on.”
As the teacher’s words continued, Kim Gi-beom witnessed the newly written yangban nodding their heads like sparrows pecking at rice in real time from below the stage. This was all unfamiliar to him.
It was truly amazing that those proud yangban nodded without saying a word. Or perhaps it was because it was the sounds they particularly despised, the Bulsija.
“The more the previous dynasty’s words of warning, the young people who fell into Buddhism that distinguished human nature and mind looked at the world nihilistically, severed ties with parents and human relations, and indulged in debauchery. There is a universal principle of the world in this (Reason), so how can they deceive the people with this nonsensical nonsense?”
Then the teacher kicked his foot once with a ‘bang!’ in place and shouted while stretching his fist high to the sky.
The thing he was about to say from now on was the ‘enemy’ of today’s lecture.
“Then, what is the common point between the Yellow Turban and the Bulsija? Aren’t these religions that make people blindly follow and deceive them with nonsensical grounds to make them dissolute? The Yellow Turban’s group was a cult that deceived the people, and the Bulsija that the previous dynasty’s unruly group followed was also a religion, right?”
The teacher’s words were truly right, but Kim Gi-beom felt a slight chill inside. It was natural to dismiss a mere religion in Joseon, where the Wangdao was most firmly established in the East, but the fact that there was a guy shouting courageously in the middle of the street now, when yangban weren’t roaming the streets, was the reason.
However, the teacher didn’t care about the murmuring of the audience and continued the story with courage.
“There are villains in the world who deceive the people when the country is in chaos and take only their own benefit and fill their bellies! That is the people’s opium, religion! We must all be on guard! Right now in Hanyang, the Manchu barbarians are lurking! Right now, Western barbarians are demanding opening with cannons and guns! Right now, in-laws are plundering the country’s treasury like their own homes! Remember that there are hyenas trying to take advantage of the chaos in this country to look after their own interests!”
After shouting repeatedly and his throat hurting, the teacher gulped down a glass of water and continued. His appearance was a bit pitiful.
“Cool!”
Kim Gi-beom was deeply impressed by the teacher’s courage to boldly curse the incompetent court and the king, curse the elders of the superior country, and drive out the powerful Western barbarians.
“Of course, there may be monks who overcome suffering through true practice and do good deeds. A true religion is to pursue correct actions with healthy common sense, not to betray the truth. Those are the kind of people we should all respect. But!”
With the word ‘But!’ the teacher took a deep breath, and the audience’s attention focused more. At that time, the teacher did not immediately speak. As if trying to convey his will to each person, the teacher conveyed his will to the audience with eyes filled with burning fire.
“Cough!”
“Puff!”
After a while, several audience members who had forgotten how to breathe like the teacher gasped and choked, and only then did the teacher open his mouth.
“There is a group in the current Joseon that dreams of delusions by taking advantage of the chaos!”
The audience was shocked by the teacher’s bomb declaration.
They had heard the phrase ‘the country is in decline, the country is in decline’ recently, but they had never heard of actual traitors like the Yellow Turbans who would overturn the country by actually bringing about the decline.
“They are hiding among you! You too, even next to you!”
When the teacher pointed anywhere below the stage, the surprised crowd ate up the fear and asked the teacher on the stage pitifully.
“Is it the Catholicism of the Westerners?!”
“Is it that the Catholic guys are going to overturn the country?!”
“No! The Manchu pigs are all trying to make us wear pigtails!”
“Uwaa! The Wangs of the previous dynasty have returned! They are coming back!”
“Jeonggamrok! Jeonggamrok!”
If one were to see ignorant people crying out in great fear, but Kim Gi-beom himself, who had been caught up in it accidentally, trembled in place like a branch in the winter wind from the teacher’s exposure and warning. Thinking deeply, it seemed that the teacher’s words were one hundred percent correct.
“Damn it!”
The reason the country is declining is that the reasons for the decline fill his ten fingers, so it was confusing to figure out which villains were the traitors of the fallen country.
It was because the candidates for the traitor were so many: the in-laws who had become even more rampant recently, or the Qing Chinese interfering in internal affairs, or the incompetent court.
“Aigo, aigo!”
As the teacher’s lecture hall turned into a place of great weeping, the teacher on the stage suddenly pulled out a small axe of his own height.
Yes, an axe.
“Why are you bringing out that-.”
“People of the people!!”
The lecture hall that had been a sea of tears due to the teacher’s powerful roar like a mountain’s roar became silent in an instant. As the sound died down, the teacher asked.
“Do you want to know who the true enemy is?”
The teacher raised the axe sharpened like a knife to his head and aimed it in the four directions one by one and said.
“It is ‘Donghak’! A cult that wore the mask of the Choi clan who was executed for deceiving the people in the previous king’s reign! That damned cult is lurking in this country Joseon!”
At the same time, the people in front of the stage stood up and shouted loudly.
“Cult! Cult!”
They were the newly written yangban. Kim Gi-beom was startled to see the yangban standing up suddenly from the front row with the teacher’s shout. Because the yangban were holding in their hands the same thing as the axe held in the teacher’s hand on the stage. Kim Gi-beom murmured in surprise.
“What, what is all this?”
The audience who saw the yangban holding vicious axes, iron-tipped staffs, clubs, etc., their faces brightened, but the teacher rather proudly addressed the newly written yangban first.
“Then, isn’t it time for our Joseon’s Confucian scholars, who are said to be the center of the country, to step up? Even if the court is incompetent and corrupt, if they can’t protect the people, shouldn’t we make the decision to save the country and purify the Eight Provinces and the Gangsa mountain that has been dirtied by this mere cult?”
“Purify! Purify!”
“If the court is incompetent and oppresses the people and the cult is rampant, then it is the true duty of the Confucian scholars in our Three Southern Provinces to gather and stand up responsibly! Without shame!”
“The duty of the Confucian scholar!”
“People of the people! Confucian scholars! And those who wear hats on their heads! If you are true kings who know the true Wangdao and believe in the goodness of human nature, then right now, roll up your sleeves and join this Lee Seung-man! People of the people! Bear the burden of the Confucian scholar!”
“The burden of the Confucian scholar! The burden of the Confucian scholar!”
As the audience became one, the teacher, confident that preparation was complete, boldly commanded.
“Well! Let’s go!”
“Long live! Long live! Long live!”
Then, with the cheer, the quiet Namwon town was filled with chaos.
In this way, the began centered on Namwon.
The yangban holding axes and clubs led at the very front, and following them, the self-proclaimed ‘good people’ followed farm tools and began looking for the cult groups hiding in various places in the Namwon town to purify the town.
“They’re hiding here!”
“They’re here too!”
The dirty spirit tablets and ancestral tablets that the Donghak followers had worshiped were stepped on and broken, and the trash they called their scriptures were gathered in the center of the village and burned all at once.
And
“These damned cult bastards! I’ll crush them all!”
“Whack! Bang!”
“Let’s find out this friend’s name. He’s the most enthusiastic.”
In the lead, Kim Gi-beom was able to see into the eyes of the U-nam teacher by swinging the club most enthusiastically.