The Bepwols Rise
In Prince Heungseon Yi Ha-eung’s youth, and in the matter of his closest confidant, Cheonha Jang’an, there are two competing judgments.
One is the traditional image: that Yi Ha-eung hid his ambition behind the mask of a dissolute royal and consorted with thugs for company. The other is the revisionist view: that Yi Ha-eung, even as a young man, was already entrusted with major responsibilities in the Office of Royal Relatives, while Cheonha Jang’an was little more than a secretary or bodyguard.
To put it bluntly, both are right. Joseon, as anyone who looked at a byeolgam could tell, was not a country where thugs and ordinary people lived in separate worlds.
Which meant that Byeolgam Jang Sun-gyu, after taking a thorough beating, could just as quickly return to being a decent ordinary citizen.
“No matter how you look at it, stripping a man naked right there in his palace-attendance clothes and dragging him off like some bandit...!”
I struck Jang Sun-gyu again and said, “I didn’t strip you, you idiot. I said I’d give you my clothes. These are—what do you call it again?—a hwa-ui.”
“Do I look like some highway robber to you!”
It was a useless protest against Taesu, who had already learned plenty of Joseon customs from Cha Un-hong.
Since there was no longer any chance of doing business, Taesu left the market with Yi Ha-eung and Jang Sun-gyu in tow and filed a claim for business interruption and emotional damages.
[It would be wise not to seize it by the roots like that. Do you think a gang of byeolgam, who would kick down even the front gate of the Police Chief’s house if their temper were crossed, would tremble before you just because you scare them? They are merely obeying their master’s order to hold their tongues.]
I know that. That’s why I’m pushing harder—to see what they’re hiding. Do I really look like I’m doing this just because I want money?
Before I could even hear the Mountain Spirit’s answer, which was surely something like yes, absolutely, I turned back to Yi Ha-eung.
“So, what was your business? At first I thought you’d come to buy this silk.”
For my part, I had shown him as much courtesy as possible, since he was a figure recorded in history.
Yi Ha-eung didn’t seem to care much about my tone either.
It wasn’t because he had broad shoulders of character. A prince or not, in the end he wasn’t fundamentally all that different from a highway bandit.
“No, no. I had merely come to the market while out for a stroll and thought I might buy some meat, but then I noticed this rare silk and took an interest.”
“If you’re buying, it’s twenty—no, thirty nyang, since your servant dirtied it.”
Yi Ha-eung quickly changed the subject.
“Still, I think I’ve just seen something superior to even fine silks. You must be the axe that everyone in Songdo and Ganghwa has been talking about lately.”
“News travels fast. Did you come looking for me?”
“Hardly. This is the first time I’ve met you today. Still, it’s true I’ve been looking for someone like you.”
Yi Ha-eung’s eyes turned serious.
“As you know better than anyone, the tradition of rewarding loyal service to the state has been passed down since the time of Taejo.”
I, who did not know better than anyone, remained silent. Yi Ha-eung continued.
“Even in recent times, the spirit has not changed. During the Manchu invasion of the year of Byeongja, Ma Giyang carried grain up to Namhansanseong, and Heo Hang raised a righteous army and pacified the Western Bandits in the year of Imjin. Their rewards were by no means small.”
In Ma Giyang’s case, it is even said that Injo granted the monopoly rights to the five major products of the bepusang in gratitude.
To be sure, that story is a bit questionable. Not only because the source is the bepusang themselves, and not only because there are similar recycled legends going all the way back to Taejo, but also because it is hard to believe Injo was the sort of monarch who repaid a subject’s merit properly.
Whether true or not, one thing was clear: the bepusang had a fierce desire for recognition from the ruling powers. It was no coincidence that, whenever politics descended into chaos, the bepusang consistently sided with official authority and appeared as government-backed street enforcers.
But I was not that kind of man. I made a sour face.
What the hell is he on about? Is he telling me to join the army?
[Do you not belong to the Ganghwa Imbang Dongmongcheong? It sounds to me as though he wants you to gather a gang, since the Dongmongcheong’s work is basically carrying clubs and beating people up.]
I still couldn’t understand why. Not because I didn’t know what use it might have, but because there were simply too many uses for it.
In any case, I had no intention of becoming some great man’s hired thug.
I did know that the man’s future son would become king, but that only made me dislike the idea more.
“Quit talking nonsense and get lost—”
“War will break out soon.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The capital wasn’t ruled by the Andong Kim clan alone. The Pungyang Jo clan, which stood at the head of the anti-Andong Kim alliance, was also a powerful house that currently occupied the position of Queen Dowager. It only looked weak because, in front of the Grand Queen Dowager Kim, it was nothing more than a daughter-in-law.
The Pungyang Jo clan interpreted the crisis as a chance to turn the tables in one move.
King Hwan’s words gave that interpretation enormous authority.
The heretic who fled has finally returned carrying a foreign devil with him. It is just as when Zhonghang Shuo went to the land of the Xiongnu and returned as their mouthpiece. How could we hesitate for even a moment?
Unlike Zhonghang Shuo, who was obviously the sort of man who might betray the Han, Joseon had never even sold Kim Dae-geon to a foreign land. The pretext was perfect.
This was aimed at the current court that had lost Kim Dae-geon, and by extension at the old Noron Cipa that had once been conciliatory toward Catholics.
Both were led by the detested Andong Kim clan the king hated with a passion.
Convinced they had grasped the king’s true intent, the Pungyang Jo faction suddenly began siding with him.
In the end, isn’t he no different from Hwang Sa-yeong? If we had killed more heretics in the year of Gihae, none of this would have happened!
This time, we must not even grant them the chance to apostatize. All of them should be beheaded!
The barbarians are already at the gates. Anyone who speaks differently is aiding the enemy. If we want to restore righteousness, we must kill those men first!
And with that came a new round of pressure: for the reinstatement of key figures such as Jo Man-yong, Jo In-young, and Jo Byeong-hyeon, all of whom had been pushed aside after being “troubled” by some petty pretext.
They even supported the king’s mobilization of the Chongwiyeong. In truth, if that army was going to point its guns and cannons at the capital’s noble families, it would first have to smash the French, so it wasn’t entirely idiotic.
In other words, Yi Ha-eung was presently acting as both a spy and a messenger for the Pungyang Jo faction.
Yi Ha-eung also knew that if the powerless king died without an heir, Yi Won-beom would be the likelier candidate.
But what Yi Ha-eung cared about was not the throne itself, at least not yet. He cared about strengthening royal authority.
In the present situation, where the powerful clans regarded the king as no more than a dog bone to chew up and throw away, the throne had no real value at all.
He was currently relying on the Pungyang Jo clan, yes, but Yi Ha-eung’s true position was closer to that of a bat. In the end, he intended to ruin them both.
Kim Jwa-geun had sent a letter to his adopted son, Kim Byeong-gi, urging him to wrap up the foreign-ship matter at the level of Ganghwa magistrate.
Of course, neither Yi Ha-eung nor the Jo faction had seen the letter, but Kim Jwa-geun’s intent was obvious enough to them. His aim was to prevent escalation and turn the matter into an empty promise that would never be enforced.
Sorry, but that was not going to happen.
Whether the foreign ships retreated or were crushed, the king absolutely needed credit for having repelled the West.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
What did I tell you? This mess happened because you let Kim Dae-geon get away back then!
Strictly speaking, that was a kind of heroic-historical interpretation.
Even in the original history, where Kim Dae-geon did not escape, France still invaded. Kim Dae-geon wasn’t there then, but the remaining Catholics helped the French troops instead.
Still, it was also true that I had helped Kim Dae-geon escape by handing over smoke bombs and the like.
Ignoring the Mountain Spirit, I stroked my chin and asked for confirmation.
“By the way, why is everyone here so quiet? If such a commotion broke out in Seoul, the news should have spread by now.”
“The jinmusa is cracking down on it. Since he’s on the Kim clan’s side, they’re only keeping it quiet. On top of that, the fleet the jinmusa was supposed to arrange keeps getting delayed, so the Chongwiyeong can’t cross over quickly.”
In truth, the measures taken by Ganghwa magistrate Nam Yi-hyeong were not so different from the smuggling operations of the ginseng peddlers in Gaeseong.
The amount of effort Nam Yi-hyeong had poured into keeping the foreign ships out of the common people’s sight—or at least into making it as though no one had seen them—was not something words could easily capture.
In the original history, when the Gloire ran aground in 1847, Joseon ships had once ringed the area and cut off communication while supplying them. There was precedent for this.
But this time, because the balance of power between the two sides was completely different, the situation was also completely different.
The French ships were now just hanging back, “waiting for a trustworthy reply from the Joseon government.”
Nam Yi-hyeong faithfully supplied them with meat and vegetables by transfer, but the Westerners kept complaining that the food lacked kick and that it hadn’t been grilled evenly, throwing tantrums like absolute maniacs.
And whenever they got the chance, they would creep closer, muttering that they wanted to buy something tasty on land. Since Nam Yi-hyeong had received explicit orders from Kim Byeong-gi, Kim Jwa-geun’s messenger, not to escalate under any circumstances, he could do nothing but pace in frustration.
I said, “If it gets one drop more water, it’ll overflow.”
“Hmm? A wise metaphor. Exactly. The longer this drags on, the more those barbarians will suspect us, and they’ll either strike quickly or leave quickly. And if they were going to leave, they’d already be gone. At this point, they’re practically shouting that they’re going to start a rebellion.”
“If that’s true, why are you still here? You should be running for your life.”
Yi Ha-eung wore the expression of a man who had been waiting for exactly that question.
Yet he did not show off the grandeur of a man preserving the Closed-Door Kingdom like some national treasure.
He also did not speak about the extinction of the powerful clans or the restoration of royal authority.
With an almost leisurely air, Yi Ha-eung opened his fan and said, “If a nation can be brought down by one ship and a few hundred soldiers, then even surviving by running away doesn’t seem worth much, does it?”
Those words made a deep impression on me.
“I’m going to Ganghwa Imbang.”
I turned on my heel at once.
Leaving aside Jang Sun-gyu’s suddenly pale face at the realization that he would not be getting his clothes back, it was a rather impressive sight.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
It wasn’t as though the French fleet had everything their own way.
If Captain Cécille truly had a full heart for attack, the best method would not have been to send a letter and ambush them, but to ambush them first and send the letter afterward.
Of course, because there was such a thing as a pretext for action, it wasn’t so easy in practice.
But sometimes a violent judgment is the right one. Cécille regretted not having simply struck the Joseon forces at once.
Captain Dupré finally admitted the problem he had been too ashamed to raise until now.
“By the time we reached Joseon, I thought it would have passed, but because of the voyage, the cholera has become extremely severe.”
During the First Opium War, Erigon had observed the situation as an on-the-spot observer and could not avoid the epidemic disease that swept the entire battlefield, especially cholera.
At that time, out of 400 men, more than 60 had become unfit for combat.
This time was much the same. In the soldiers’ bellies, the life-force of billions of bacteria—élan vital—kept rumbling and gurgling away.
It was England’s fault, as always. The English, who drank water from the Ganges and spread their diarrhea all over the world, had not only turned thirty percent of their own troops into a human factory for shitting liquid during the Opium War, but had also posed a serious threat to France and many other nations.
England!
Captain Cécille steadied himself.
Joseon had to be opened before England did.
As Karl Marx, currently in exile, had said, English opium and French priests were equivalent. Both were “diplomatic expenses.”
If the priest got killed but the treaty went to England, then France would merely be repeating the old tradition of serving as the British Navy’s bread delivery boy, as it had done every time it built a warship and handed it over.
Wait. England?
Fortunately, the thought of England did not bring only rage. Captain Cécille had a better idea.
There was no effective treatment for cholera in this era. One simply prayed not to die before the disease passed on its own.
But there was a way to make men “able to fight.”
“Use all the opium stored aboard. Make them run somehow, by any means necessary. What is the state of Joseon’s mobilization?”
“There’s no particular sign of it yet. They seem to want to drag things out.”
“Then we’ll do the one thing they hate most. Have our soundings and sea routes already been measured?”
“Yes.”
“The day we first arrived was the full moon... so in a little while it’ll be the new moon.”
In this era, European military stubbornness was not all that different from that of the Imperial Army a century later. Diarrhea was just another problem to be overcome with fighting spirit—and drugs.
Captain Cécille, brimming with that very fighting spirit, made his decision.
“Six nights from now, on the night of the new moon, we force our way through the channel and land.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Jang Sun-gyu, who had had his clothes stolen, needn’t have harbored so much resentment.
I had used them exactly according to the will of their owner. With Jang Sun-gyu’s silk clothes and court accessories and so on, I recruited bepusang.
It wasn’t exactly because I was greedy for money. The bepusang were a symbol of loyalty: if a comrade called them in the name of righteousness, they would spit out whatever they were eating, leave their stalls half-open, and come running.
More than a hundred people gathered, centered around Ganghwa Imbang Dongmongcheong.
Of course, I was not the deputy representative of Ganghwa Imbang, nor was I the head of the Dongmongcheong, the large chief. I was neither an executive nor the assistant steward.
The two months or so of reputation I had built up played a major role in their answering my summons.
Park Axe, the man who went all the way to Gaeseong, made our neighborhood’s name ring out, and came back on top of it all is taking up a club!
Market people who only knew me as the fellow who had given O Bong-gil a beating and driven him off, along with the thrill-seekers and low-ranking errand runners who had secretly heard the blood-soaked rumors of Seungcheonpo, and even the rough little scoundrels who admired violence, all came slouching over.
Cha Un-hong, after hearing the message, also rushed to send a contribution fund.
She might be said to be pro-opening-to-the-West, but precisely because of that, the invasion had to be stopped.
If it came to an actual fight, then even defeat could be counted as one of the ordinary hardships of war.
But “trade after losing” was the worst possible outcome.
No one needed to know the future. For a merchant, it was instinctive knowledge that once your bargaining position had been broken, all that remained was exploitation.
Just as important as those who went out to fight with money and force were the people who wandered around whispering about it.
The former were salt; the latter were water. Water, far more abundant than salt, dissolved it and carried it everywhere, spreading the salty taste as it flowed.
By the time Ganghwa magistrate Nam Yi-hyeong, who had been focusing only on the sea, noticed what was happening, the whole of Ganghwa had already entered a voluntary wartime footing.
The temporary militia office was the travel inn where O Bong-gil worked.
While I sat there as though I had become the leader overnight and met with people one by one, the Mountain Spirit said,
[If you are going to raise war funds, and at the same time secure a reward in advance for serving the country, there is a good place for it.]
At the Mountain Spirit’s soaring zeal for righteous resistance, I felt a bad premonition.
And the nonsense that followed did nothing to dispel it.
[There is an Outer Gyujanggak next to Yi Won-beom’s house. The magistrate’s office also serves as an outer military warehouse, so they stockpile military supplies there—and they’ve put in a great deal of silver ingots. Nineteen crates of them, at least several thousand nyang.]
...Aren’t you supposed to be the mountain spirit of Joseon?
[Hmph. At last, the punishment due for a court that cares only for rituals at places like Chamseongdan and never once bothers to look this way has arrived. Since the regular army has all gone out to block the foreign ships, if we take down just one or two of them... the rest will flee...]
I hurled the axe and cut off the connection.
That axe flew straight into the large willow tree outside the side gate. The tavern erupted with admiration and praise for Park Axe’s might.
Speaking to the Mountain Spirit who could not hear me, I said, “You lunatic. If I were going to become a murderer and robber, I’d have done that back in my hometown.”
That night, the people of the nation of murderers and robbers quietly put their boats into the water.
Author’s Note
1. Before oral rehydration therapy was developed in the latter half of the twentieth century, opium was one of the standard treatments for cholera.
Its side effects were worse, of course, but it really did stop diarrhea. Mixed remedies containing opium, brandy, and spices—such as the brand Clodaine—were even called “a gift from God.” This, too, made its way to Joseon and was used there.