The North's Love House (2)
The reason I had the ondol built in the North was, of course, the memories of my past life.
"Captain Heo, did you know?"
On an ordinary day of duty, the history-obsessed duty soldier launched into yet another story.
"Apparently, a Little Ice Age hit even during the Joseon Dynasty."
"Ice Age? You mean the one where the dinosaurs froze to death?"
"That's the Ice Age. What I'm talking about now is the Little Ice Age."
It was the seventeenth century.
A Little Ice Age descended upon the peaceful land of Joseon, they said.
Until then, the ondol had been regarded as lower-class culture, something the upper classes who used braziers rarely employed. But those swaggering upper classes all froze to death, while the lower classes who knew how to use it properly survived.
The high officials finally realized, "Ah, if you want to live, you have to use the ondol," and so the ondol culture spread throughout Joseon. That beautiful custom of good manners was exactly that.
The point here is that seventeenth-century Joseon was a place hit by cold that rivaled Russia's, and the ondol was the technology that allowed survival even in such extreme environments.
Kraaah, bartender, close the shutters!
It was a story that forced you to down a hefty bowl of national pride, but it was actually based on fact.
After building the hanok houses based on the ondol, the Northern architectural masters clamored that they had to remodel their own homes with it right away.
"Alright, building the ondol alone isn't the end. See this heat source here? We'll call this the agungi. And this place above it, stacked with clay and stone, is the agungi. It's a kind of rocket stove, and on top of it we place a huge cauldron... no, an iron pot. That way, we preserve the heat while simultaneously cooking food that retains continuous warmth from that heat, right?"
"You can keep stew boiling continuously?"
"Even after getting off work and going home in the evening, you can eat stew that hasn't gone cold?"
"KRAAAAAH!!"
Food, clothing, shelter?
Solving the residence problem meant improving food as a bonus.
Well then—
"I'm glad you've all awakened to the greatness of this ondol. In that case, I hope you'll spread this widely throughout the North. It's too regrettable a technology for us alone to know, isn't it?"
Long-distance business trips, I suppose I have to go?
When a superior unit issues orders to a subordinate unit, hoping that they will propagate intact all the way down is close to pure delusion. You never know what distortions might arise in the middle, or what mutations might take root under the banner of "unit circumstances." The military as an organization is extremely conservative by nature, so it can't be helped—but there are times when you have to force change for the sake of change itself.
And for that, the easiest method is still to run on your own two feet.
"What? You're going in person again?"
The moment I announced, the instant I woke, that I was setting out on another tour, old Max's eyes bulged as if they might tear open. From what I heard, I had gone on more tours in the past month than in the entire previous year.
But right now, at least, it was necessary.
"It has to be now, or never."
I had already passed the ondol to the architects. Turning them into a combat engineer battalion was the natural next step. Escorted by territory soldiers, the men who had received the technology from me set out for the nearest settlement—Jemili Village.
The reason I went with them was simple.
"We're going to rebuild the houses..."
Proposing to tear down homes and raise new ones in this cold was bound to draw fierce resistance.
"Th-this season is a bit..."
Even when the architects offered to do it free of charge, the village chief of Jemili Village looked thoroughly reluctant. That mild a reaction was only because I was standing behind them; without me, there was no telling how those solid muscles of his would have expressed refusal.
But—
"It has to be now, or never."
In a North that was one giant forward unit, resistance of this level was expected. A village chief was roughly the equivalent of a forward-unit commander, so of course he would try to dig in his heels. That was precisely when the division commander's personal visit became necessary.
"Flatten it."
"Yes, sir!"
"Alright, let's go in—!"
"Aigoo!! Wait!! Stop, you bastards!!"
There were far too many problems scattered across the North for me to waste time arguing with a village chief. I ordered the master builders to demolish the chief's house on the spot, and they took up warhammers—why those counted as construction tools I would never know—and began smashing the place to pieces.
"Come, come, Village Chief, climb into the carriage. I've already prepared temporary quarters for you at the Grand Duke's residence."
The chief, who had nearly fainted trying to stop the combat engineers, was hauled onto the carriage by the powerful hands of the territory soldiers. Even if otherworldly hanok rose quickly, people still needed somewhere to stay for a while, so clearing him out first was necessary.
And as I watched the chief being carried to the rear and the house he had lived in, I felt once more that this choice had been the right one.
So this is the house of the man who lives best in this village, huh?
The village chief's house in Jemili Village was a wooden dwelling, far better off than that miraculous hovel I had first visited last time. But only that far. At least the livestock shed and human living space were separate, yet the people still slept on the bare ground with crude wooden platforms, and the fireplace was nothing more than a half-baked stove that barely qualified as a pechka.
From what I hear, nearly every technology in the North has gone extinct.
I had no idea what the technological level of this world as a whole might be, but the Northern Grand Duchy itself had lost far too many techniques. There was no point expecting advanced engineering from them; we needed to resupply appropriate technology suited to local conditions.
"I'll take responsibility for whatever comes after. Flatten the whole place."
"Yes, sir!"
And appropriate technology for local conditions included the art of handling people as well.
"Everyone move faster!"
"His Lordship has guaranteed it! Every house we finish nets each of us a performance bonus of fifty shillings!"
"Ooooooh!"
What moves people, after all, is gold. For men setting out on their first long-distance work trip, performance pay had been promised—travel expenses proportional to distance plus bonuses based on results. The faster and more houses they built, the larger the bonus grew, so the Northern master builders demolished the chief's house at terrifying speed and raised a single hanok on the site in no time at all.
The entire process took barely three days.
"W-what is this?"
Returned from the rear, the village chief of Jemili Village gaped at the house standing before him. However fine his old home might have been by village standards, it could not begin to compare with the hanok the builders had newly raised.
What truly stunned him, though, was—
"Huuuuh!!"
"Is it warm?"
"It feels like I'm being baked like bread!!"
The heat that struck the moment the door opened. When we seated him on the lower heated section that had been pre-warmed before his return, the chief shot up as if springs had been attached to his backside.
"W-wait! But...!"
"What is it?"
The chief still could not fully accept the sudden reconstruction event that had been thrust upon him. To twenty-first-century Koreans, having one's house rebuilt was the best of all possible news, but medieval people simply lacked that kind of real-estate sense.
"If it's this hot... f-firewood? Don't tell me you've burned through all my firewood?!"
Above all, he looked wary that the resources he had stockpiled might have been exhausted.
"Three."
"What? Y-you mean only three left...?!"
"We used three pieces of firewood."
"I-is that really true?!"
"You'll see for yourself when you check, so why would I lie about something like this? Ah, and among the timber from the old house we tore down, anything reusable has been stockpiled separately, so the firewood supply has actually increased."
"...!!"
The instant he saw the warehouse packed with supplies, the chief's brain melted soft.
"Aigoo!! Young Master!! Loyalty!! Loyalty!!"
Where half his heart had still been loyalty to House Wintershield and half wary of unfamiliar orders, the chief now swung fully into the ranks of the fanatically loyal. With the chief thoroughly cooked and seasoned, I could expect positive reactions no matter what project I launched in Jemili Village from now on.
And that same deed generated additional gains—
"What's that?"
"Weird shape..."
"Still not as good as the old log houses, is it?"
"I don't know? I think the design looks better."
The hanok built in the center of the village became, in itself, an excellent political education room. Every fashion is like water—it flows from top to bottom. Once the chief's house had been changed, the villagers began stopping by to look it over whenever they passed.
And then—
"Chief, what is this?"
"Mmm? Don't tell me you still don't know what an 'ondol' is?"
"What? Ondol? What's that?"
"Come inside and sit down."
"What do you mean... Aaaaaaagh!! My ass!!"
When a person gets something good, the instinct to show it off is natural. Without anyone ordering him, the village chief of Jemili Village would seat passersby on the lower heated section and host an event that seared their backsides whenever they asked what on earth the thing was.
And anyone who tasted that cozy heat was bound to covet it.
"No, how in the world does this work?"
"Us too, please teach us too!!"
"What?! You get this much heat while using less than a tenth of the usual firewood?"
An unexpected ondol craze swept all of Jemili Village, and I was not the sort of man to hesitate when the water was high and the oars were ready.
"The time has come. Combat Engineer Battalion, sortie."
"Why are we a combat engineer battalion?"
"Ah, if the Young Master says you're a combat engineer battalion, then you're a combat engineer battalion!"
"We'll be back!"
Realizing it was time to overturn the entire unit—no, the entire village—I sortied the combat engineer battalion. Persuading people one by one could invite all sorts of pushback, but since every last one of them wanted reconstruction of their own free will, free labor came as a bonus.
Northerners basically all come with passive skills in construction, butchery, and hunting already unlocked.
Men who built houses, hunted, tanned hides, and sold goods in this land of bitter cold did not need much time to absorb hanok techniques. Moreover, they were not building for strangers but for their own homes, so they threw themselves into the work with even greater zeal—and the result was—
"Huh, is this really that Jemili Village?"
"You don't recognize it?"
"In a mere two weeks it has become an entirely different village."
Exactly two weeks.
That was how long it took to raise a hanok village on a northern snowfield.
Even looking at the sight with his own eyes, old Max reacted as if he could not believe it.
Well, fair enough.
A freezing snowfield.
In a land where snow fell year-round, pure white flakes melted the entire world into white. That was still true now, yet the direction in which the color was spreading had changed.
"Smoke is rising endlessly from the chimneys."
Yes.
Until now the white paint that dyed the North had fallen from sky to earth.
But now the smoke rising from every chimney in the village was dyeing the sky pure white.
"It is as if one is looking upon the tenacious will of the Northerners who live even in this barren environment."
The elderly butler compared the scenery before him with a richly emotional, poetic expression.
The will of people, is it?
I smiled faintly.
"Yes. And this is only the beginning."
As long as I was here, the North would develop even further.