Busting Skulls (2)

I had spent yet another day diligently sweeping Namwon county clean of commies—no, of Donghak cultists—when Yu In-seok brought a man before me.

"He says his name is Kim Gi-beom."

I cocked my head at those three syllables, which I was hearing for the first time, and Yu In-seok gave the man a shove forward. A booming voice burst out of him at once.

"F-first, allow me to pay my respects to Teacher Unam! This humble one is called Kim Gi-beom!"

"Ah."

At Yu In-seok's introduction I looked the man over from head to heel. He was short, but his shoulders were thick, and he gave an impression as hard as granite. His eyes were a touch sharp; the beard along his jaw was not particularly tidy, though it was not dirty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠either.

What am I getting at? The man had the makings of a true party zealot, is what I'm saying.

When I offered no reply, Kim Gi-beom grew impatient. He flung both hands high toward the heavens, ready to fling himself flat on the ground.

"Then I shall begin with a full prostration!"

"Ah—no! What bowing?!"

"I must insist! Receive my bow first, Teacher!"

"Hey—look at this fellow!"

Was the man insane? Who drops into a full ceremonial prostration at a first meeting?

I barely managed to haul him off the idea of bowing then and there, and from his introduction I had no trouble placing him: he was the one who had been so zealously cracking Donghak skulls at the speaking ground that afternoon. I let him see that I knew him.

"Ah! The speaking ground?"

"That you would recognize a common fellow like me—I am honored! Yes, Teacher! Please receive my bow!"

"What bowing! Get up this instant!"

Overcome that I had remembered him, Kim Gi-beom tried to duck his head again. I stopped him just in time and begged him, please, to stand.

The truth was, a gentleman who looked close to forty performing a full prostration in the middle of the street before a ten-year-old brat was not a sight anyone particularly needed to see.

"Let's set the bowing aside. You're more than twice my age."

"Teacher!"

The ferocity with which he had smashed those Donghak skulls was still vivid in my mind. I took Kim Gi-beom—who was still half on his knees—and hauled him up with my small, childlike hands, then turned to Yu In-seok.

"Does he suit you?"

"Yes, yes. The one I mentioned earlier as being so zealous…?"

"That's right. This is the man. I spoke with him a little on the way here. He's a solid fellow."

"Oho."

Yu In-seok seemed to have taken a liking to Kim Gi-beom as well; he smiled and nodded at my question. Kim Gi-beom seized the opening at once, bending at the waist again and again as he shouted toward me.

"I—Kim Gi-beom! If you would only deign to make use of me, I would not know what to do with myself!"

"I beg your pardon?"

What was with this man? His eyes were half gone already. Was he a Confucian scholar too?

I was so taken aback by this sudden declaration of purpose that I had to fight down a laugh before I could speak. Look here, mister. What exactly are you swearing loyalty to me for?

"What is this, some oath of fealty? I'm not that remarkable a person."

I made a show of declining, waving the devotion off. He only grew more delighted.

"Heavens! And humble on top of it all! I, Kim Gi-beom, have finally found the man I am meant to serve! Today I know I was right a hundred times over to leave my hometown of Taein!"

"…"

I left Kim Gi-beom to his ever-escalating commotion and slid a sidelong glance at Yu In-seok, who was hanging back beside us.

Huh?

Would you look at that. Was that man smiling just now?

I suppose I ought to start with an ideological screening.

Still, Yu In-seok had talked with him on the way and gone so far as to call him trustworthy. I figured I might as well hear the man out, and made the first suggestion.

"Let's talk as we walk. As we walk."

"Yes, sir!"

"…I do like a loud voice."

"Thank you, sir!"

The moment my tone softened, Kim Gi-beom darted out in front of me and began clearing the path.

Hold on, though. Did this man even know where I was trying to go?

"Wait a moment—how do you know where I'm headed, that you're taking the lead already?"

"Ah—well, that is…?"

"Puhaha!"

At my question, Kim Gi-beom's face said he had just realized his mistake, and he stood there like a man who had swallowed honey and lost his tongue. I laughed and told him,

"You've got a thick streak of denseness in you, quite apart from the courage. We're going to the county office. Come. Let's go."

"Y-yes! Teacher Unam!"

Kim Gi-beom collected himself at the order and took the lead again. Yu In-seok, watching the whole performance, laughed without a sound. And so we set out for the county office, where Magistrate Seo Gong-sun of Namwon was waiting.

That was my first meeting with Kim Gae-nam—a man who, for all his fire, had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a distinctly dim-witted streak.

The moment our party stepped into the county office, Magistrate Seo Gong-sun of Namwon—our greatest patron and champion, attended by the six-chamber clerks who had long ruled the county as its fixtures, the local functionaries, the military aides, and even the village headman—came rushing out in his sock-feet to greet us.

"Now here are some heroes! Come in, come in! You've handled a business I never even imagined, and handled it magnificently!"

Seo Gong-sun personally gathered me into an embrace—me, who had rooted out the heretical cultists lurking in the county and, while I was at it, cleaned up the thugs who used to throw their weight around every market day—and drew me inside.

Good grief. At this rate people will get the wrong idea. They'll think I'm his own grandson, come down from Seoul.

"Come, come, let's go inside."

"W-was it not possible only because Your Honor extended me every convenience?"

"Set aside the humility! What did I do? Was this not a movement that arose because distinguished scholars who came to see our Teacher Unam joined hands with the awakened Confucian students?"

"Haha. You flatter me far too much."

I moved along under the magistrate's escort, and Yu In-seok naturally glued himself to my heels. Behind him came the local magnates of Namwon and the Yurim figures who had come up from Yeongnam, the Confucian students, the local clerks, and last of all Kim Gi-beom of Taein, who had only just joined us.

I did not look back. I savored, by instinct alone, the feeling of all those men filing silently in my wake, and I smiled inwardly.

Things were falling into place. They were even sorting out the pecking order on their own.

The pecking order. The truth is, once an organization grows and a group swells, friction between the old hands and newly arrived outsiders is as natural as a bolt of lightning from the sky catching in the trees and spreading into a forest fire.

And yet—

"The Deputy of the Royal Clan Office is already waiting inside."

"Of course. I was informed in advance."

"Then let us go in."

The petty officials threw the doors wide from both sides, and there sat Choe Ik-hyeon, already settled in his place. I took in the seat he had chosen and inclined my head, easy and unhurried.

He's giving me proper respect.

He had not taken the seat of honor, but the third place, at the magistrate's right hand. In Joseon the left outranks the right, which meant that Choe Ik-hyeon was either placing me above himself or yielding the higher seat out of consideration.

Our eyes met, and Choe Ik-hyeon shaped the words with his mouth.

"Well done."

"Thank you."

Our organization still had no name, but I could already see its foundations settling into place more firmly than I had expected. I thanked Seo Gong-sun for offering me the seat and sat down in the chair.

Kim Gi-beom found his own way to the lowest place, and once everyone had taken the seats assigned them, Seo Gong-sun—the greatest power in Namwon—opened the gathering, and his mouth with it.

"I have been in this post barely four months, but it is plain that my predecessor made a wreck of both administration and justice. To think so many heretical cultists were hiding in this county. Truly, I cannot bear to face the illustrious ancestors of this land."

He let out a sigh without quite slamming the desk, then turned toward me with a face suddenly full of smiles.

"But our Teacher Unam came to Namwon and would not stand by while that wretched, dissolute rabble ran riot as they pleased. A true mercy. As the local official of Namwon, I thank you once again."

"That Your Honor should raise me up like this—this mere convict can only blush. Everything that succeeded here succeeded because of the elders of Namwon seated in this room, and because of the Yurim who came running from every corner of the country with a great purpose in their hearts. I beg you, set the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠praise aside."

"Haha. To be so humble, even now."

And that was enough warming of the room. It was time to come to the point.

Once I had seen that a cup of wine had made its way around to each man, I rose from my chair, straightened my back, and spoke.

"Magistrate, and you elders. Do you know why even Namwon—one of the greatest counties in all of Jeolla—has been crawling with so many Donghak bandits, working in secret, deceiving innocent people?"

"Hrm."

At the question the elders' faces grew a shade more flushed. Each sank into his own thoughts and kept his mouth firmly shut. Only Kim Gi-beom, at the lowest seat, sat with both eyes wide, staring at me with a bright, burning gaze. I gave a wry smile under that uncomfortable weight.

Look. I know you believe in me—but try using your head a little.

I gave them a moment to think. When enough time had passed, I began.

"According to my own inquiries, nine-tenths of those who follow the heretical cult are illiterate."

"You mean most of the Donghak faithful cannot read?"

"W-well, isn't that obvious? The Donghak bandits are generally tenant farmers, or men with no proper roof and no proper work who just wander in circles…"

"If they cannot read, then how do the Donghak faithful organize a church and compose those preposterous scriptures of theirs to delude the people?"

To those who asked as if the answer were half obvious, and to those who asked as if it were half bewildering, I explained with a calm face.

"Naturally, to spread their doctrine and take in new believers one must be able to recite the scriptures, so there are those among them who can read. They are the remaining tenth of the church."

"The remaining tenth?"

"Mostly ruined gentry brought low by the misfortunes of a previous generation, and widows who whiled away their days in ordinary households. Those are the main stock."

At that, several of the men let out deep sighs. Except for Seo Gong-sun, who had only just come down from Seoul, a few of the older Yurim already knew the story.

And in truth, the gender ratio and class composition of the Donghak faithful were anything but ordinary. Donghak was never the exclusive property of the lowborn, the tenant farmers, the bottom of the heap.

That was why the historical shockwave Jeon Bong-jun and the Donghak brought down in 1894 had been so tremendous. Had the Qing and Japan not intervened, the nation of Joseon would have stood at a great crossroads.

And yet—

"Then why is it that the crowds who follow Donghak only grow by the day? The great majority of them cannot even read the words written in their own scriptures, and it is not as though the cult's leader sits on some bottomless granary rich enough to buy every last heart with coin. And however starved a man may be, however addled his wits—that ruined gentry who know the words and the principles of the sages should come to believe in such a heresy is absurd on its face."

"Come now, Teacher, don't keep us in suspense—just explain it plainly, would you? We old men will burst waiting."

"Haha. Very well."

A scholar who had come up from Yeongnam pressed me, and I raised both hands to settle the room before I went on.

"It is simple. When the country is hard-pressed and the people lean on some heretical cult that deludes them, it is because they have had no opportunity to encounter the words of the sages—or because they cannot read."

The mood of the meeting darkened. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the dismay was something you could feel on your skin. After a long silence, Choe Ik-hyeon opened his mouth.

"So you are saying the common people have had no path toward what is right—or even the chance to encounter it."

"That is so."

I nodded to Choe Ik-hyeon, who had grasped the intent of my argument with perfect clarity, and explained.

"Chinese characters are a foreign culture to begin with—Chinese culture. They are hard merely to memorize, and harder still to understand. And with tens of thousands of graphs, an ordinary person can scarcely hope to truly grasp their meaning, let alone command them. Even scholars who pride themselves on a lifetime of study must put their heads together over old allusions and archaic language before the writing will yield. How, then, are our poor people, who live hand to mouth, to dare knock on the village-school door in search of teaching?"

"So the point is this. Translate the Three Bonds and Five Relationships, the Lesser Learning, the Myeongsimbogam, and the like into the vernacular, or into accessible literary Chinese, and teach them to the people? Then heretical cults and forbidden books like the Jeonggamnok could not very well circulate openly in the middle of town."

"You have understood it exactly. That is precisely it."

I bowed my head to the scholar who had hit upon the answer, then drew three books from the bundle I had brought and spread them before the company. The moment I laid them out, the gentlemen—who loved a book the way ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠other men love a meal—crowded in, craning their necks.

"What is all this?"

"I've never seen a one of these titles."

Dozens of pairs of eyes went wide with the asking, and Teacher Unam, who had written the books himself, spoke.

"Read the titles, if you would."

"Ahem. Let's see…"

They were all books no one had seen before, and the scholars were just warming up to debate their authenticity and their source when I told them, "I wrote them all. Elder Chan-gyeom, who is here with us, kindly helped compile them with his own hand."

"All of them, you mean?"

"B-but Teacher, your age—"

"Quiet. Quiet now."

As the room began to murmur, the Teacher thrust one fist into the air as he had that morning at the speaking ground, and roared.

"Yes!"

"Now—to the first success of we patriots, for the purification of the fatherland!"

And so, at Teacher Unam's bold vision, the town's men of power, the administrative officer sent down from the court, the grand elder of the Yurim, and the hot-blooded Confucian students who had come up from the countryside all shouted together and roared their approval.

About a month later, tens of thousands of copies of an unidentified ideological tract, along with a reading primer printed in strokes far thicker and cleaner than ordinary hangul, began circulating through all eight provinces of the country.