[The Bitter Bean of Retribution]
If you’re going to grow wheat in Korea, you’re better off branding it as organic to make any real money. Wheat grown with standard fertilizers can’t compete with the quality and price of imported grain, so you might as well slap a "well-being" label on it and sell it at a premium.
However, there is almost no land on the Korean Peninsula that can be farmed without dumping fertilizer on it. So, what’s the solution? It’s using our friend, the vetch bean, as green manure to pack the soil with nitrogen—a plant that can even perform Tekkai to survive the harsh Korean winter.
"Heh heh, brother. Just what exactly do you do for a living?"
"I told you, I’m just a coachman. Why do you keep asking?"
The Tercio brothers kept asking me what I did for a living at every opportunity.
"A mere coachman farming out in the open on royal land? And you’re even getting paid for it? I’ve served in the Low Countries for twenty years, and this country has never once paid my wages on time."
"Aigoo, that must have been tough. It’s heartbreaking when the army falls behind on pay."
Exchanging such banter, I went around the seed merchants of Valladolid, buying up as much vetch seed as I could. The fact that not a single merchant would accept the royal bonds the clerk had procured for me made me realize that this country was well and truly ruined.
"It’s enough to make your blood boil."
In the end, I had to pay with the silver coins I’d accumulated in my Genoa bank account. If there was one silver lining, it was that while grain prices were high because the region was so thoroughly wrecked, seed prices were surprisingly cheap.
The next thing I bought was rope. The rope was sturdy, high-quality, and surprisingly affordable. Then, I went to a blacksmith and ordered a peculiar pair of tongs. They had long handles and short, blunt heads—a tool shaped like a cutter but designed not to cut. It was the 21st-century Korean cattle farmer’s best friend: the Burdizzo.
After grabbing an idle blacksmith and explaining the design until I was blue in the face, I finally commissioned a Burdizzo that satisfied me. As I clicked the tongs together, I thought of the two bulls in the village. It was time for Juan Manuel, the 21st-century cattle-castrating machine, to get to work.
"What are you buying rope for?"
"I’m going to make a yoke for the oxen. Do you happen to know any carpentry?"
"Anyone in the Low Countries who couldn’t do that would have starved to death. What use is a soldier who can’t do that? Give it here. What do you want to make?"
On the way back to the village, I picked up a few L-shaped pieces of wood, and with the Tercio brothers, we struggled to drill holes and fashion a proper yoke.
"Wait, this is a bit different from the yokes I know..."
The refugees I’d gathered from Madrid were busy cleaning or weaving grass for roofs, and they looked at the yoke I’d made with the Tercio soldiers with confusion.
Seeing the oxen brought from Valladolid with yokes strapped to their horns to pull carts had made me pity the beasts. So, I’d made a Joseon-style shoulder yoke, claiming it was an heirloom from my grandfather. To them, it was a completely foreign design. I could see them whispering among themselves.
"This is a special yoke used only by the royal family."
As soon as I invoked the royal family, their skepticism turned to awe. Seeing them whisper about how the royal family must be different, I boasted about how great this yoke would be and went to sleep.
The next morning, when I woke up, two of the refugees had been caught by the Tercio brothers for stealing salt and grain; they were being whipped while hanging upside down.
"Yo, brother! You’re up? I was worried you’d run away last night!"
Looking at the two refugees who seemed barely alive, I said,
"Oh my, I just woke up—what’s going on?"
"These bastards, even though we’re feeding and housing them, they got greedy and turned to thievery."
"From now on, don’t beat them. Just tie them up. We’re short on hands as it is."
I felt nothing as I looked at them. My capacity for pity had long since dried up during the sixteen years I’d spent living in this godforsaken Spain. They were released from the whipping, but looking at their inability to walk, I didn’t think they’d last long.
"If you want to leave, you are free to go. I won’t stop you if I can’t provide for you. But as long as you are eating the bread I provide, I expect you to follow my orders."
I declared this to the rest of them, and none said they would leave. I returned the bonds I couldn’t use yesterday to the clerk and "asked" him to go buy some wine and sausages.
He listened with a face like he’d just eaten dung, but I didn’t care; I went back to my work.
In late August, when it was impossible to even step outside during the day, we spent our time making baskets, sandals, and ropes out of Esparto—a native Spanish grass that was basically natural plastic.
At dawn or dusk, we’d take the oxen out to water them, and during the day, we’d take a siesta or weave handicrafts. Under a sun nearing 40 degrees, the siesta wasn’t laziness—it was a law of survival.
The clerk, who had taken two donkeys and two refugees and hadn’t returned for over a week, finally came back with wine and pork sausages. We applauded and welcomed him as he returned with the look of a victor, leading four wine jars strapped to the donkeys and a few chickens.
"Wow, Clerk, you’re amazing. How did you manage this?"
"It wasn’t easy..."
The clerk wailed in a voice mixed with resentment about how no one would accept the royal bonds, calling it an act of disloyalty. Honestly, I didn’t think anyone would want to accept them either. In this fucked-up Spain, the King is the first one to pull a scam.
I waited quietly until September passed. When the air began to feel humid and the first rain fell, I strapped the shoulder yoke onto the oxen. Having been fed a bit of beans and barley in preparation for this day, the two oxen headed not to our fields, but to a wheat field in a village some distance away.
And what about our vetch beans? That’s where the sheer labor of the masses comes in—digging holes and planting them one by one. It was less than a fanega, not even 50kg worth of seeds, so I had no doubt they could do it.
"Alright, the oxen are here!"
I came to plow with two bulls whose balls had already withered away thanks to the Burdizzo. One Tercio soldier followed, just in case I tried to run, but we were on good terms, so he just giggled and helped feed the oxen.
"That’s fascinating. Why put the yoke on the shoulders instead of the horns?"
"Hey, is that magic? How do you control the ox with the yoke like that?"
The villagers whispered at the shoulder yoke they were seeing for the first time. But their whispering died down under the fierce gaze of the Tercio brother who was acting as my escort and guard.
"Well, as long as the work gets done, who cares!"
"Exactly! That’s right."
Compared to the primitive Spanish horn yoke, the shoulder yoke is roughly 50 percent more efficient. The two oxen, having grown close to me over the past month of being fed, followed my lead and plowed the field in an instant. Since I wasn’t pulling a heavy plow, but a light Roman-style one, the progress was smooth.
"My, this lad is a hard worker. Or are the oxen just that good?"
"You have to feed and wash them every day. It’s only possible if you care for the oxen just as God cares for us."
After a snack, I was feeding them barley straw and crushed barley grains, and when some villagers gathered, wondering what I fed them to make them work so well, I gave a vague answer. The farmers, who had been making a fuss, crossed themselves and said,
"Hallelujah! Glory to the Lord Christ!"
Seeing their pious display, I also acted the part of a devout Christian.
"Amen."
Thanks to the Tercio brother, who helped with odd jobs because he felt awkward just sitting around, the work went even faster. Throughout September, we went around other people’s fields, getting fed and earning fodder while plowing, and we reached an agreement to be invited to the La Matanza pig slaughter festival this November to take home some pork as wages.
While I plowed other people’s fields and brought back grain and barley for the animals, the refugees, under the watchful eye of another Tercio brother, began the grueling task of planting the beans one by one. Using a single wooden stick to poke holes, drop in a seed, and cover it—a total manual labor nightmare—they continued at large intervals of two steps per hole until they finally managed to plant the vetch seeds over the widest possible area. Seeing the sprouts rise one by one after the rain, everyone cheered and shouted for joy.
"...I feel a bit guilty seeing them this happy..."
I felt a pang of guilt watching their joy, knowing the vetch beans we’d planted weren’t for harvest, but for green manure. That guilt didn’t last even a week.
"Boss, Boss, wake up."
"What’s happened?"
The refugee nicknamed Quixote, who claimed to be from La Mancha, shook me awake. With a face full of despair, he pulled me up and led me outside the village with the other refugees.
-Baaaaaa
It was a wave. The fluffy intruders of that day, passing from September into October. It was a flock of sheep, their numbers beyond counting. As they trampled the field where the beans had just begun to sprout, the refugees who had spent the whole month planting them were sobbing. I pinched my cheek to see if I was dreaming, then looked at the clerk, who had already come out.
"Clerk, this isn’t a Cañada Real (sheep migration route), is it?"
"It certainly is not... but unless we go to court, there will be no conclusion. And even if we go to court, it will likely end with them saying, 'The sheep were hungry, why be so stingy?'"
At those words, I thought, "This is fucked." Now I knew why the farmers were running away. If you harvest five grains from one, and the King takes one, the Church takes one, the nobility takes one, and the sheep eat one—you’re left with one grain. Can you farm with that? Is it even possible?
"I’ve had a bad idea."
Everyone carries a devil in their heart. I moved as my inner devil commanded.
After scouring all the seed merchants in Valladolid with one of the Tercio soldiers, I finally found what I was looking for. It wasn’t with the seeds, but in a box where a grain merchant had accidentally mixed in some foreign grains.
"Brother. What are you going to use that for? That’s a poison bean."
"I feel like I have to eat even this to survive."
"Hmph... you know not to blame me if you get sick from eating that, right? I’m not taking responsibility."
"Of course. I’ll handle it myself."
To a 21st-century modern person, it’s known as a superfood: Lupin. Most people don’t know that lupin contains toxins.
This legume, known as a bio-machine for reclaiming wasteland, contains alkaloid toxins that can send people or animals to the afterlife if eaten in large quantities. Normally, you boil it in water to remove the toxins before eating, but I decided to use this to give the sheep flock a cute little "prank."
And what I didn’t know was that, unlike the detoxified, weak lupin of the 21st century, the lupin of this era was a "bitter" lupin—more bitter, more toxic, and more powerful. It was, in every sense, a "primeval ancient" item.
Author’s Note: Korea uses Hairy Vetch, which has maxed-out cold resistance. Europe uses the original species, Common Vetch.