Same Bed, Different Dreams (1)
The children who had carried out my orders came filing back, the burning houses that the old-style soldiers had set ablaze serving as lanterns against the darkness that had fallen over Hanseong.
"We're back!"
They gathered in twos and threes before me, chattering at the top of their lungs about everything they had seen.
"The whole capital's a sea of fire — a sea of fire!"
"Those whale-backed tile-roofed mansions just collapsed, I swear they did!"
"Boom, boom! There was chaos everywhere — I've never seen a mess like it!"
They hopped in place and waved their arms wildly over their heads, fussing and carrying on as they described the scenes they had witnessed, all because they thought I had missed those astonishing sights and felt sorry for me.
And yet, among everything they reported, the most striking lines were these:
These shaggy-haired little rascals were having the time of their lives with today's chaos in Hanseong. They grinned from ear to ear at the news that servants of great houses they had never even been allowed to glance at, and the lackeys of corrupt officials, had been beaten to death in mob attacks, and that the warehouses of the wealthy had been stripped bare.
"That's enough now."
These children had no grasp of how serious the situation was. But for me — every nerve strained toward the movements of Heungseon Daewongun and his henchmen — news that someone had been beaten to death by enraged paupers, or that a warehouse had been smashed, was utterly useless information.
As I always did, I calmed them with a single gesture to shift the mood, then picked out the more sensible ones among them and asked:
"Never mind all that. Did you hear any rumors about armed soldiers handing out flags at the houses I marked, heading toward some palace? Or anyone leaving through the Four Great Gates? Or a palanquin bursting out of the royal compound? Even if you chased it down with your own eyes, that's fine."
At that, a few of the children stepped forward.
"Nope! Scary men were shouting in the marketplace that nobody's allowed outside the Four Great Gates tonight!"
"They even scolded us to get home already!"
"We did see grown-ups rushing south, saying there was a huge fire!"
"So no one's forced their way into the palace yet. I see."
Is Daewongun stalling for time against Gojong?
Having wrung every scrap of information from them, I gave one last order to the children who had chattered themselves exhausted.
"Good work, all of you. That's enough for today — go home. Your parents will be worried."
"Yes, sir!"
"Go on, now."
They answered with gusto, but one last little boy still lingered inside the gate, reluctant to leave. I gave his backside a gentle push and sent him on his way, then moved to the guest parlor where I had invited my visitors.
"Is everyone inside?"
"Ah, yes. They're all waiting."
"Forgive me — I was delayed wrapping up matters outside."
I asked their pardon and carefully opened the door. Woo Beom-seon rose to greet me, and two men followed him up from their seats with awkward expressions. Both wore the faded, worn uniforms of the old Training Command.
"Hmph."
The coarser-looking of the two rested a hand on the sword at his waist, looked me up and down, and spoke first.
"Yu Chun-man."
"Kim Jang-son."
Having introduced themselves, they turned their eyes to Woo Beom-seon. He spoke.
"These are the soldiers His Highness the Grand Prince has charged with grave duties."
"A pleasure to meet you, sirs. My name is Syngman Rhee."
"Ahem."
"I didn't expect him to be this young..."
Their replies were different, but the same bewilderment ran through both their voices.
So Woo Beom-seon didn't warn them I was a child.
As if to dispel their doubts, Woo Beom-seon hurriedly waved a hand and introduced me.
"This boy here is the benefactor who gave you that 'advice.' Seung-man — isn't that right?"
"Yes."
Asking pardon, Woo Beom-seon reached a hand toward me and stepped aside.
Well, well. Look at this.
I nodded at Woo Beom-seon's explanation and entered the room. Seeing the seat of honor left vacant as if it had been saved for me, I frowned for a moment, then walked over and sat down as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The seat of honor. The seat of honor.
Animal instinct — or consideration?
It was probably Woo Beom-seon's doing, but the proper play was to go along with it for now.
Then the man who had introduced himself as Kim Jang-son parted his lips.
"Listen."
The moment I sat down, he could hold it in no longer. His face was full of curiosity as he asked:
"Sorry to pester you. But I'll ask again — are you really the fellow who advised us never to kill the director of the Tribute Bureau?"
"I am."
"Truly?"
"Yes."
"Ugh."
When I confirmed it without a shred of hesitation, Yu Chun-man, who had been sitting silently with his arms crossed, looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh.
"Heh. Well, I'll be."
"Hmph."
Kim Jang-son, sitting beside him, reacted much the same. At their response, I nodded inwardly.
Hah. They must think a brat who hasn't even turned fifteen has them by the ankle.
What's more, they were the ringleaders of the mutiny. Every moment they slipped away from their posts to come see me was a gamble — a blood-chilling gamble.
This is a time for patience, not excuses. I have to wait until they turn their eyes to the present of their own accord.
I gave them a moment to gather their thoughts, then cleared my throat and got to the point.
"This may offend you, but let us first establish the facts. The two of you came to find me because the advice I offered you earlier has gradually come to pass — is that not so?"
"More precisely, it's the 'result' of the former Byeolgigun Major sitting here conveying your 'advice' to us."
"Yes, that's correct. But the fact that you turned your steps toward me because of that 'result' — that was your own 'will.'"
"That's..."
When I pressed him, Kim Jang-son glanced at his companion, scratched his head, and answered slowly.
"That's right — I mean, yes. His Highness may have his own plans for dealing with the Min clan relatives, but he hasn't given any orders to those of us commanding the garrisons. That's rather frustrating—"
"Which is why more than a few of the soldiers who trusted us and followed us are discontented. Whatever excuses anyone makes, the men from the old garrisons desperately want those greedy, corrupt bastards put to death."
Bloodthirsty, aren't they.
Yu Chun-man said this as he gripped the scabbard bound at his waist. The look in his eyes alone made the depth of his vengeance and hatred toward the Min clan almost impossible to put into words.
"More precisely — who kills whom, and by what manner of punishment. Responsibility is the real crux, isn't it?"
"That's right. You really do know your stuff."
"Responsibility... A truly difficult and frightening word."
At Kim Jang-son and Yu Chun-man's answers, which had come out exactly as I had expected, I pretended to be at ease, fighting to hide the corners of my mouth as they tried to curl upward — but inside, I was cheering.
Blood will tell!
My prediction that Daewongun was a far more formidable opponent than Gojong had not been off the mark in the slightest.
Like son, like father.
What did that mean? To put it more simply: the Heungseon Daewongun faction now leading the coup in Hanseong was itself split down the middle.
One side was the Uphold Orthodoxy isolationists clustered around Prince Heungseon, along with the old ministers who could not forget the glory days of the Grand Prince's Office.
"So the hangers-on at Unhyeongung have begun to find your presence inconvenient. That's the news, is it?"
"..."
The other side is the old garrison soldiers who exploded over unpaid wages and discriminatory treatment, joined by Hanseong's poor, whose patience had reached its limit over soaring prices and the court's corruption. And these two groups can never see the situation from the same vantage point. They are utterly incompatible.
Incompatible beings. Of course they were. Whether you looked at their social rank or their economic standing, the two groups could not possibly view the present crisis and its true culprits from the same plane.
Daewongun can never purge the royal in-laws and high ministers with his own hands! What's more, executing a host of royal relatives and senior ministers without so much as a proper trial — even Daewongun, who once commanded the realm under the five-character banner of the Grand Prince's Office, would struggle to weather the political aftermath! That old tiger would rather they be beaten to death by the mutinous troops in this chaos.
And using that as his pretext, he would then suppress the Military Training Command that had supported him.
Truly, across all times and places, there had never been a more foxlike scheme.
That's politics for you.
I found the fear barely hidden in those four eyes, so full of vengeance and resentment, and asked:
"I'll ask you straight. Aren't you both afraid that once this uprising is over, His Highness the Grand Prince will abandon you — or worse, brand you a rebel army and try to suppress you?"
"..."
"That's..."
Instead of an answer, Yu Chun-man and Kim Jang-son studied me with uneasy faces. Watching their uncomfortable, tense expressions, I became all the more certain.
Their hesitation was proof enough. They had already followed Daewongun once and witnessed that side of him, which was why they could not answer at once.
The Imo Incident is, however you slice it, treason against the throne. The Prince Heungseon I remember is the kind of man who, the moment his son grants him full authority to suppress the crisis, will turn around and purge every last person who supported him.
And his first targets would be these two men sitting before me, who had led the uprising at the Dobongso.
The two men, burning under my pointed gaze, finally let out a long breath and laid their worries bare.
"No point hiding it. You're right. Ever since you gave us that advice, we've felt more than a few flashes of déjà vu carrying out His Highness's orders."
"He permitted us officers to control the Four Great Gates and occupy the various offices, but as for executing the Min clan relatives and corrupt officials who'd been named as the guilty — he gave no reply, no reaction at all. Well — he did let a few words slip."
"But he has never once clearly, satisfyingly ordered us who to strike and who to bring down."
"And the fate of the Drill Corps, still sitting pretty inside Hanseong, worries us as well. Rumors that an envoy from our side went to their barracks have even started circulating among the soldiers."
"Even if they — our second target for overthrow — quietly joined our side, it's obvious how the soldiers would take it."
"Once you've raised a revolt, completely sealing off the enemy's military power is the first principle of the art of war. We find His Highness's vague opposition to disarming them deeply suspicious."
And their fears were no idle anxiety. They were entirely well-founded.
In fact, from the tenth of June onward, Daewongun — having received full authority from his son Gojong to suppress the crisis and made a spectacular return to the stage — had immediately sent men to the Chungyongcheong stationed at Bukhansanseong Fortress and to the Drill Corps holed up in their garrison, hard at work on the under-the-table preparations to turn around and crush the Training Command soldiers he had used as his own pieces.
Truly, a masterstroke among masterstrokes — the kind of move only a ninth-dan political grandmaster who had survived in beggar's rags in the cracks between the powerful clans could make.
If every move played out according to the board he had designed, the only one who would stand victorious in the end was Heungseon Daewongun.
If it had gone that way, it would have been the perfect return of a king.
Of course, that was setting aside the fact that I alone knew the future — that this scheme would be smashed to pieces by the Qing army his son Gojong would cry Tasukete! to for help.
"In that case."
Having poured out all their worries and fears, the two men straightened their postures and asked in a grave tone:
"What should we do, then?"
"About what?"
"Don't play dense! A way to prove to our men that His Highness the Grand Prince won't abandon us — that he'll punish the corrupt officials and put the Min clan to death!"
True to his looks, Yu Chun-man — a man of impatient temperament — shouted at me, his voice thick with passion.
"Three thousand soldiers of the Three Armies Command gathered around us, full of fighting spirit! Counting their families, more than twenty thousand of Hanseong's common folk have joined this crisis! Are you saying you're fine with Hanseong becoming a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood?!"
And in that voice, I found myself reconsidering the Joseon householder who carried so much on his shoulders.
A mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
Perhaps it was because Yu Chun-man's shoulders — so bold, so full of a warrior's spirit — were trembling, however slightly, unlike his voice.
For a moment, the hellscape of Hanseong he imagined and the orange-lit panorama of Seoul I had once seen with my own eyes flickered before me. I rubbed my eyes for no particular reason and answered him.
The tip of my nose stung.
"...Of course not. I am a citizen of Joseon, the same as you."
"Then why on earth—"
"Let me sum this up. So the two of you who came to me today simply wish for His Highness the Grand Prince to acknowledge your rank and your merits, and for the court's new restoration to give separate care to the circumstances and treatment of Hanseong's common people. Is that it?"
When I asked, Kim Jang-son added:
"The corrupt officials and the rotten royal in-laws, too."
"Especially those who played lackey under that wicked creature Min Gyeom-ho, including the Board of Taxation and the Tribute Bureau — they must be punished."
"Very well. Easier than I expected."
I smiled and nodded, and Yu Chun-man asked back with a dubious look.
"Easy, you say...?"
"That's right. First — the Tribute Bureau director and the clerks under him that you already captured. What have you done with them?"
"We seized them and just locked them in the prison of the Uigeumbu we recaptured."
"Good. Then from now on, how about you move as I direct?"
"You?"
And so it began.
Behind the two men who were staring at me with puzzled eyes, Woo Beom-seon met my gaze, then quietly rose from his seat and vanished outside.
The night in Hanseong was not over yet.