The Ganghwado Treaty (3)
Captain Cécile stared once more at Thomas Choe’s letter.
The signature might have said otherwise, but Cécile had already decided to understand the letter as if it had been written by the hulking doctor seated before him.
In plain terms, the doctor’s message amounted to this:
Leave this time.
And come back next year.
Separate from the Joseon government, there are many civilians who want to trade. I will help connect you, starting with the Catholic believers.
Smuggling itself was not such a preposterous proposal.
Imperialism had, after all, begun with “adventurers.”
In other words: braggarts and swindlers, drunken thugs, dishonorable discharged soldiers, and the like. The men who finally cracked open official trade with Qing China were, in the end, drug smugglers.
If this worked, Captain Cécile’s military humiliation might at least be covered over somehow.
The reasoning was the same as for Joseon’s General Lee Yu-su.
It suited the king’s intentions.
It was just less widely known because the next monarch happened to be Napoleon III, the greatest geopolitical pervert in world history, but the present king, Louis Philippe, who was popularly thought of as a liberal, loved imperialism too.
The right to exploit colonies and exterminate the natives was sublime. To restrict that was nothing less than an intolerable violation of natural rights.
That was the essence of liberalism. So Louis Philippe completed the annexation of Algeria and laid the foundation for colonial France.
Louis Philippe was also the first French monarch to show open, unrestrained ambition toward Joseon.
Why else had Cécile come to Joseon? He was a frontier commander, so he had some discretion, yes, but he could not step completely outside national policy.
If the king’s wishes were truly as they seemed, then with a little massaging of the report he could present himself as the man who had “secured the greatest possible leverage in an unfavorable situation and laid the groundwork for future French expansion into Joseon.”
For Cécile, who currently had no means of forcing anything upon Joseon, it was an offer worth accepting.
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Kim Dae-geon seemed to think so too. He spoke softly in French.
“In my opinion, it would be best to accept. After all, the opening of China began with the tacit acceptance of Westerners coming and going from frontier ports centuries ago.”
Unfortunately, agreement is never governed by logical consistency. It obeys only the desire to agree.
And Captain Cécile’s feelings were badly bruised. He snapped at Kim Dae-geon.
“I did not ask for your advice, Father André. I suspect this is a collusion between the Paris Foreign Missions Society and England.”
That was, admittedly, a reasonable fear.
If things proceeded this way, then next year’s grand punitive expedition, with Glorieuse and Victorieuse included, would go down the drain.
Warships had no business in smuggling. If those two vessels were to join in, it would be better simply to smash Ganghwado to pieces again.
But if next year was the plan, then the factor that had made Cécile launch the expedition now would disappear.
No matter how slowly Joseon moved, one year was more than enough time to complete its defensive preparations.
So if Captain Cécile’s conspiracy theory was right, England could either prevent French force from penetrating Joseon or at least postpone it.
In addition, the Foreign Missions Society could secure the cooperation of England—already believed to have an inside line—rather than France, whose conquest of Joseon was still uncertain.
The fact that the author of the letter was Thomas Choe seemed to Cécile like undeniable proof of collusion.
Kim Dae-geon did not bother hiding his exasperation.
England was the strongest and most living proof that once you left Catholicism, you fell into evil.
To think those drug-running bastards had colluded with the Foreign Missions Society—it was an insult beyond measure.
“The Foreign Missions Society has always rejected any connection to politics.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I lived in Paris, where revolutions broke out morning and night and every citizen was a politician. There is no one more political than the fellow who says he doesn’t want to talk politics.”
Captain Cécile jerked his head toward Taesu.
Driven by a talent that was not quite the exclusive property of imperialists—namely, if I make enough of a scene, maybe something else will fall into my lap too—he went on,
“I have no reason to regard you as anything more than an illegal smuggler or pirate trying to exploit this war.”
He said it in English on purpose.
“I know you’re the leader of that militia. And I have more than enough grounds to judge you a British spy. I could designate you as an enemy and arrest or kill you right here.”
Captain Dupré and the other officers quietly moved their hands to their pistols. Pistols in this age required preparation before they could be fired.
The air in the captain’s cabin tightened unbearably.
And then Taesu drew out a silver candlestick.
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Kim Dae-geon thought Taesu’s silver candlestick was a coded request for help. He quickly began thinking up arguments in his defense.
But there was no chance for Kim Dae-geon’s eloquence to be put to use.
Taesu had just been wondering what to do when, all at once, the alarm on his wristwatch began blaring.
That piercing beeping did far more than Taesu had expected.
Nobody in this era had ever heard a watch make such a noise. Electric doorbells were about as advanced as technology had gotten.
The French officers fixated on Taesu’s wrist the way a tribe of hunters would lock onto a Coca-Cola can. Kim Dae-geon did the same.
By then, everyone had forgotten about the silver candlestick.
So Kim Dae-geon did not even realize what was happening until the candlestick flashed past his eyes in a blur.
“!!”
The silver candlestick Taesu hurled slammed into Captain Dupré’s nose bridge behind Cécile.
That was why, when a priest hands a criminal a candlestick, one had better choose that criminal carefully.
Things far worse than Jean Valjean’s petty theft began happening one after another.
Seated where he was, Taesu flung the climbing rope from his shoulder with all his might. It looped cleanly around the back of Captain Cécile’s neck on the other side of the table.
“Graaagh!”
With the feeling that his neck might snap, the captain was dragged forward in a crash. It was terrifying strength.
The Mountain Spirit was thrilled.
[Well? This is the true intent of my stratagem!]
Taesu, instead of marveling, hauled on the rope.
What followed was a headbutt. With a heavy thud, a shock that seemed ready to blow consciousness right out of him slammed into Captain Cécile.
“What do you think you’re doing!”
The officers hurriedly drew their sabers instead of their pistols, but the only man close enough to stop Taesu immediately was the newly unconscious Captain Dupré.
All the other officers stood at least two steps away from the captain. Dupré, sprawled on the floor, was like an obstacle wedged into a crucial choke point, tangling the officers’ feet.
“Aaagh!”
“You idiot, get out of the way!”
“Your saber—put the damn saber away then stagger, you bastard!”
While the officers were busy filming a slapstick comedy, everything was already over.
Taesu hooked Captain Cécile’s neck with his left arm. Then, with his right, he snatched the captain’s saber and shoved it into his belt.
But he did not use the saber or his axe.
What Taesu pulled from his coat and leveled at Cécile was the gas pistol he had never used at Chojijin because of its lack of lethality. Still, at this range, taking a shot to the eye or ear would mean agony akin to death.
Even by European standards, its design looked futuristic, so intimidation itself hardly worked in Joseon. If you want to rob a bank with a twenty-seventh-century galaxy-pattern laser gun, you’d better start by explaining the setting first.
The European officers, on the other hand, were stunned. The producers of such “advanced weapons” were limited, and if it wasn’t France, there was only one other possibility.
Could he really be British military?
Kim Dae-geon swallowed hard as well. Taesu said,
“I don’t know why you suddenly started talking about England, but don’t speak as if you’re above me. You’re not the only one who can kill me. I can kill you too.”
Captain Cécile did not even understand Taesu’s words. When froth is spilling between your clenched teeth and your jaw feels like it’s about to split apart, it’s cruel to demand foreign-language comprehension.
There was only one thought Cécile could manage.
Confirmation of his suspicion.
English.
Not a human being.
Hates France.
He can only be English.
The faintly receding voice of Taesu’s command only strengthened that conviction.
“Pour seawater into every charge for the cannon.”
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A little later, the Ganghwado Treaty was over.
As France’s representative, Captain Cécile even went so far as to accompany Taesu all the way to the Joseon boat.
The sailors, too, had installed a wooden landing ramp—as red-carpet-like as anything could be—out to Kim Soon-won’s ferry to see them off.
By the time the boat had drifted a respectable distance from the Erigon, Taesu untied the rope binding the captain.
Then he stamped the treaty with the sole of his military boot.
Kicked in the rear, Captain Cécile fell straight into the water.
The French sailors, who had been standing by, rushed in to save him in a panic.
Kim Soon-won’s possessed rowing carried Taesu far away long before the sailors could even think about rescuing Cécile.
Of course, nobody could fire the cannon.
Not because it wouldn’t go off. Because they respected Captain Cécile so deeply.
As befit a captain who was loved by his subordinates, Cécile, once he returned, immediately freed them from the great absurdity called war.
With a dazed expression, he said,
“Withdraw.”
Because the officer in charge, Captain Dupré, was unconscious, nothing that happened that day was recorded in the rough draft of the Campagne, the Erigon’s voyage log that documented this entire voyage to the Far East in painstaking detail.
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“The barbarians are retreating!”
“Long live His Majesty the King!”
The people all praised the king who had driven off the foreign invaders.
As expected, Joseon’s golden fleet was magnificent. The moment the majestic navy surged out under the orders of the royal command, had the barbarians not turned tail and fled?
On the other hand, Jinmusa Nam Yi-hyung, who had first been defeated even with Yi Sun-sin’s spear turtle ship and later had essentially had his mouse taken away from him, saw his standing shrink dramatically.
Considering the factions to which Lee Yu-su and Nam Yi-hyung belonged, this incident could be described as a proxy war between the king and the Andong Kim clan fought at Ganghwa, with the king winning a round.
For Kim Byeong-gi, who had been controlling the Ganghwa governor’s office as one of Kim Jwa-geun’s hands and feet, it was simply unacceptable.
Originally, Kim Jwa-geun had expected the Western barbarians to retreat only after Joseon suffered enormous damage.
The king would be humiliated, and Kim Jwa-geun, who had worked so hard to prevent escalation, would be able to lament the king’s foolishness and recover his influence at court.
Given Joseon’s and France’s military capabilities and international standing, Kim Jwa-geun’s prediction was perfectly accurate. In actual history, the Byeongin Yangyo had gone much the same way.
That is, if some modern man with an axe hadn’t barged in and chopped everything to pieces.
But reality had been different.
Ganghwa Eupseong had not fallen, nor had the Oegyujanggak royal library been looted.
If the campaign had truly unfolded as the Byeongin Yangyo had, then even Kim Byeong-gi would have been killed along with the plunder of Jeondeungsa. Instead, he was safe.
The losses to the government forces amounted to only a handful of warships. For an invasion by a Western great power, it was nothing short of miraculous.
It looked as though the king had defeated the West, which even the Qing emperor himself had been unable to stop.
Kim Byeong-gi chewed his fingernails.
I need to find a clue for a counterattack!
Given his father Kim Jwa-geun’s cruelty, there was no way he would be forgiven just because he was his son.
This was a country where the king himself could stuff even his own flesh and blood into a rice chest and starve him to death—what, then, could one expect of an adopted son? Even if he didn’t die, Kim Byeong-gi’s ambitions to become the next great power-holder as the scion of a noble house would all be washed away.
The root cause was that Kim Jwa-geun’s prediction had been wrong; why should the son take the blame? It would be dangerous even for a modern person to ask such a question. When business goes sour, the salaried employee gets fired instead of the CEO. That is simply how the world works.
Kim Byeong-gi grew serious.
And that seriousness soon brought a recent memory back to him.
Yi Won-beom opened the gate in confusion.
“My, my—why have you come so urgently, sir?”
Kim Byeong-gi said, panting,
“I hear your household has fallen on hard times? I’ve come especially to buy your belongings at a good price.”
Yi Won-beom wondered if Kim Byeong-gi had gone mad.
So peddlers were thriving on Ganghwado these days, and now the son of a public office family wanted to become a merchant too?
It seemed that way. Kim Byeong-gi went straight to the point.
“When I came by before, I saw a silver candlestick in your house. I’ve always had a taste for curious ornaments, so I’ll buy it from you at three times the value of the silver by weight.”
It was the same candlestick he had seen on his previous visit.
Back then, Kim Byeong-gi had not known its identity.
But then Yi Won-beom had gone around bragging that he had also held the rear during the retreat from Chojijin and overawed the French barbarians.
The moment Yi Won-beom and France appeared in the same sentence, Kim Byeong-gi’s thoughts began racing.
French barbarians… that thing belongs to the sorcerous sect!
It was not, of course, that Kim Jwa-geun had chosen Yi Won-beom as the next king in order to have him “martyred.”
He intended to offer up a leash for controlling Yi Won-beom as a gift to his father.
Conversely, if the current king tried to purge Yi Won-beom early, it would also serve as a safeguard to ensure that he wasn’t killed off as a heretic. Kim Jwa-geun would be satisfied.
It was not a bad plan.
Only, Kim Byeong-gi’s misfortune was that he was a scion of the nobility.
If he had known even a little about commerce, he would never have made such a suspicious proposal that a hundred out of a hundred people would run from.
Sure enough, Yi Won-beom took an awkward step back.
“W-well, that’s very kind of you, but I….”
“Name your price. I can pay more, of course. I’ll have it brought here shortly, so….”
He had not even brought a smartphone to wire the money over—because he’d need to carry cash by hand to avoid leaving a record—but for someone like Kim Byeong-gi, that was not a problem.
The problem was Yi Won-beom. He scratched his head.
“That candlestick has already been sold to an acquaintance. There were some circumstances….”
Strictly speaking, it had been stuck into Captain Dupré’s face, but the result was the same: it was no longer here.
Kim Byeong-gi asked with the expression of a man who had just lost his homeland,
“An acquaintance… who? Where is he now?”
Yi Won-beom was no longer the naïve youth he had been a few months ago.
Having already sensed something suspicious, he hedged just enough to avoid telling a blatant lie.
“Well now. He was a peddler, so by this time he’s probably off somewhere else already.”
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Ten days after the frigate Erigon withdrew, Cha Un-hong sat face-to-face with Taesu for the first time in a while.
“You handled it as well as could possibly be done.”
Taesu still looked a little uneasy.
“Will it really work out? Even if you bribe the magistrates and the army, it can’t be easy to have no surveillance at all in the place where a war actually happened.”
Taesu had taken some scolding from the Mountain Spirit and studied up a little.
The Gyeonggi Naval Commander concurrently served as both governor of Gyodong and Samdo Naval Commander-in-Chief, overseeing the navy under the command of the Jinmusa.
Gyodong lay north of Ganghwado. In other words, it could keep watch over both Kaesong and Ganghwa at the same time.
But Cha Un-hong did not seem worried.
She lifted her chin and said,
“If the Commander-in-Chief and the Jinmusa had been doing their jobs, do you think those barbarians would have dared haul their ships all the way to Chojijin? Besides, from here on out, you can even breathe easier.”
“Why?”
“Because now the state will have you take care of that side’s defenses.”
More precisely, not Taesu, but the Ganghwa Imbang peddler company.
Yi Ha-eung had spoken to Lee Yu-su about it, but the rewards for the peddler company were awkward.
It was not a matter of resources being wasted.
Since the king had sent out Chongwiyeong, the credit for repelling the Westerners had to belong to Chongwiyeong.
But if the battle of Chojijin were made public, it would naturally be revealed at once that Chongwiyeong had done nothing at all except avoid being plundered.
Besides, Chongwiyeong existed to strengthen royal authority, not to defend Ganghwado. They had to return in triumph, boasting of their achievement in repelling the Western invaders.
So it was best for the peddlers to quietly receive private benefits without the matter ever being politicized. That was the harmony between the greater whole and the lesser streams.
One such benefit was exactly the defense of Ganghwado.
The reason this was a privilege rather than forced labor was simple: in Joseon, the military was finance.
Joseon had always been a master of privatization. Tax, security, and the military had all been outsourced to civilians long ago.
“They’ll probably soon let the Ganghwa Imbang collect market dues, ferry tolls, and boat fees, then send them around to inspect the various islands.”
After all, there was no reason for the state to collect highway tolls from itself.
Everyone in court would know it. It was a business they had agreed from the start to pretend not to see.
And as the price of looking away, the court would fail to see something very important.