The Impotent King (1)

What Cha Un-hong meant by the “matter to discuss” ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was, as Taesu had guessed, trade.

When she heard that he intended to melt down the silver axe, she blinked in mild surprise and asked, “A silver axe, you say? Then you mean to strike coins like those of the French kingdom? Well, I suppose the Joseon courts won’t punish you for it.”

“No. I did think about that, but I’m pretty sure it’d be a loss.”

From what Choi Yang-eop had told him, a five-franc silver coin itself was hard to call an international currency.

Not because the French government was such a nest of coups and revolutions that it made the world seem to wobble. It was, in a word, a matter of tradition.

Europe was a newcomer in East Asia. A more established trading partner would be North Africa—or rather, the Spanish-linked Mexican silver coins that had circulated far longer.

The more fundamental problem was the absolute value of precious metals.

Not “absolute” in the sense of huge, but in the sense of unchanging. Unlike necessities, whose value shifted with each country’s local cost of living, luxuries did not work that way, especially precious metals.

In plain terms, gold and silver were far more valuable when used inside Joseon itself. It was the same reason one dollar meant more in a poorer country.

“So what if I mint this silver into money that doesn’t look suspicious inside the country? Then I use it to buy Joseon goods and sell them abroad—what do you think?”

Even if Taesu’s axe were all converted into five-franc pieces, it would only come to about 1,500 francs. By Korean standards, that was maybe under ten million won. In other words, not enough for trade—hell, not enough for a corner shop.

But in Joseon, it was several times that.

And if he exported Joseon specialties abroad in return, the profit could multiply by dozens of times.

“I did tell you before, didn’t I? Buy where something is special, sell where it isn’t. That’s what I meant.”

“You remembered all that?”

“Of course. Ah, come to think of it, if we weren’t trying to stamp little letters or pictures like French money, maybe there’d be no need to take over a smithy at all?”

Cha Un-hong shook her head.

“No. You did well. In any case, that silver axe showing up in other people’s eyes would have been unsettling. If you were going to melt it down, you’d have to be terribly careful not to let a thing leak out, and then those men go and show up right when you need them. Truly, it seems Heaven and the spirits favor you.”

[Indeed. The gods are very noble—]

Be quiet when I’m talking.

“Hm? What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

It was one thing not to imagine that there was a ghost inside him, but it was perfectly normal for a person like Cha Un-hong to wonder whether he might also be hiding a gold axe somewhere.

Still, she did not ask about a gold axe.

Just as Taesu did not pry into Cha Un-hong’s finances.

Instead, Taesu simply pushed the French trade discussion forward.

“You’ll handle the red ginseng, then? I’ll gather some separately. Silver aside, if we take goods instead of interest, that might turn out to be a fair amount.”

Since Taesu had not been in Kaesong until now, the interest on Taesu Finance had piled up quite a bit.

Just as before, when he had taken Qing silk from the Kim family in Cheongpojeon and sold it on Ganghwado, he could do business in kind.

Un-hong will handle the ginseng. I’ll do silk... or porcelain? What should I sell?

Then the Mountain Spirit butted in again.

[That iron peddler Choi you beat up would do nicely. Cowhide is a commodity the Japanese buy in decent numbers as well. If he’s the sort to openly defy the ban on cattle slaughter, he must have plenty of it.]

Taesu tilted his head. He couldn’t imagine that there were fewer cattle in the West or in Japan than in Joseon.

But there was a reason cowhide was in fact a Joseon export. The Japanese did not eat beef, so they had fewer cattle per capita, and the West used vastly more leather than Joseon did, which meant there was demand there too.

As the two of them were talking over possible goods, Cha Un-hong suddenly asked, “By the way, do you know the proper form of Chinese silver coin?”

“Wouldn’t Choi Yang-eop know? He’s been traveling back and forth to China. I’ve got him pinned down well on Ganghwado, so I’ll handle it.”

Her kindness in implying that he already knew who to beat and therefore wouldn’t need to worry himself was touching—Cha Un-hong was not exactly in her right mind either—but if things truly turned out that way, it would be somewhat troublesome.

“From the way you spoke of boarding a French ship, they’ll certainly tell their monarch, ‘There are many of our faithful in Joseon,’ and bring goods over on that pretext.”

It was a sharp observation, one that would have made Captain Seville wince if he had heard it.

And Taesu and Cha Un-hong, too, would need the help of Catholics in the finer details.

The vanguard of war could also become the vanguard of trade. At the core, the two were the same act.

“Let’s compromise somewhat. I’ll soothe Choi Yang-eop properly and use him to deal with the sectarians. Once the sea is opened, they’ll come flooding in anyway. There’s no end to it if we start killing them all now.”

“Who said anything about killing?”

Cha Un-hong smiled at Taesu, who was already grumbling.

“In any case, as for Chinese silver coin, I’ll give you some and teach you the proper form. It would be better to make majeun.”

“What’s that?”

“Silver shaped like a horseshoe. It isn’t coinage, just a lump of silver, so there’s no need to waste your head over stamping characters or to struggle with inspections. One dip in water, and you can tell what it is. We should gather goods from all eight provinces and sell them to the Westerners with that money.”

That was a tempting proposal. It would save a great deal of labor.

It was not merely a matter of safely disposing of the silver axe.

The hired craftsmen who remained after the disappearance of the leadership—Hwang Cheol-un, Park Moon-hong, and the rest—could bring a great many incidental benefits as well.

Cha Un-hong sent Steward Gong to Ganghwado with Taesu. That was a sign of tremendous trust.

And Steward Gong was exactly the sort ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of man who could stand as that kind of symbol.

He had not merely brought a sample of majeun. After explaining several ways to distinguish it, he added a careful admonition.

“Whenever gold and silver are entrusted to craftsmen for handling, one must always watch for loss with great care. The court itself frets over the fact that if one entrusts a pound of copper, eight nyang disappear. How much more, then, if it were gold and silver?”

If some craftsmen protested that this was the government’s fault for treating them like graduate students who didn’t need degrees, Steward Gong would no doubt snort in contempt.

Just as there is no skimming that vanishes under harsh punishment, there is no corruption that vanishes under generous treatment. By that logic, embezzlement by conglomerate owners or high officials should not exist at all.

Even in Joseon, the kingdom’s greatest embezzler had always been the king. Gojong, whose reign was absurdly long and whose records were well preserved, was a famous example.

If you treated artisans like kings, they would simply behave like kings. There was no reason the lowborn should be virtuous any more than the noble-born were.

“So from now on, weigh the silver axe, melt it all at once, divide it into several lumps like majeun, and let different men melt them again in turn. That way, each man’s responsibility will be plain.”

The craftsmen could not even get angry at Steward Gong’s words, which treated them like thieves to their faces. In the first place, these were men who had already agreed to make counterfeit money.

Taesu rubbed his chin.

“I don’t think there’s any need to melt it twice.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

Taesu had already been thinking that he needed to bring the craftsmen under control.

But “If you don’t want to be executed for taking part in coin forgery, cooperate” was not going to work.

People could not think so far into the future. They only lied to themselves and pretended they could.

There were drunks in police stations every day who kicked a desk and shouted, “Do you know who I am?” There were none who dared do that in a gangster’s office. And yet everyone knew the police were more fearsome than gangsters.

If they could not see beyond what was in front of them, then Taesu would have to show them what was in front of them.

He lifted his axe.

Then he brought it down on the silver axe laid atop the anvil.

A sound rang out that even the craftsmen, men who worked with iron for a living, had never heard before.

It was the sound of metal being cut by metal.

The silver axe let out a metallic scream and split as though it were flesh being sliced open.

When Taesu repeated the chop several times as if he were cleaving meat, lumps the size of majeun ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were soon finished.

“A-ah, no, no. No matter how soft silver may be...”

The craftsmen were all deeply shocked. A few of the more timid ones even collapsed onto the ground.

And in the midst of that, the minstrel Kim Yang-won burst into great peals of laughter.

“As expected, Your Honor is magnificent! By shattering silver with black iron, you show a frugality that regards wealth lightly, and by not wasting words you display a plainness that guards against guile!”

Stainless steel, a chromium alloy that would not appear until the twentieth century, was probably more expensive than silver at present, so calling it frugal was a little questionable.

But Taesu was not the sort to fuss over trivialities.

Besides, this wasn’t even a matter of chromium’s superior properties; he hadn’t really “cut” silver at all.

“If ten layers of a thief’s sorry skull were stacked together, would I not still split them in one blow? This Kim is moved once again!”

That was the heart of it.

Even Kim Yang-won’s Samreungjang was terrifying enough. The craftsmen, now feeling an even deeper dread, began minting Qing coins with utmost care.

Taesu also had 10,000 nyang of newly acquired Joseon cash.

Just because the craftsmen had become obedient did not mean he should work them without pay, and trade funds were better the more of them there were.

However, if he wanted to avoid ending up like Hwang Cheol-un or Park Moon-hong, there was something that needed to be “prepared” in advance, unlike silver.

The work of hiding the origin of the suspicious 10,000 nyang was handled by Cha Un-hong, who had obtained a promise that the Catholics would not be killed just for being irritating.

Cha Un-hong, who had once taken down the moneylender Kim Sang-joon, was now put in charge of managing the Kaesong education fund at the order of Yu-su Kim Hak-seong.

Strictly speaking, the Song merchants’ guild held the office, but the office itself knew Cha Un-hong’s merit, so her influence was the greatest.

And the reason rich men set up charities or educational foundations was obvious.

Education and charity are clean goals. If someone says they’re doing good, you can’t watch them too closely or take too much tax.

In other words, if you want to launder dirty money cleanly even when it isn’t counterfeit, there is no better method.

Even in Joseon, where wealth itself was not valued all that highly, educational funds were called uijae, “righteous money.”

Cha Un-hong turned the entire 10,000 nyang minted by Hwang Cheol-un’s gang into uijae.

It was a massive sum comparable to the entire Kaesong education fund.

But financial work is financial work; whether you spend ten won or a hundred million, the practical procedures are the same.

For the officials of the Kaesong seowon, hyanggyo, and Seonggyungwan, who had escaped gambling debt thanks to Taesu, it was no difficult task.

They immediately ran the AI custom-wash cycle.

“Hm? What’s this money, you ask? Aha. It’s the proceeds from selling the rice fields and farmland attached to Yanghyeonggo in the autumn, now coming in during winter. Isn’t it about time to distribute the grain loans? We should release grain into the world like this so the common people can live easier.”

“And why am I short on money, you ask? Do you want to be dragged off to the Kaesong Seonggyungwan student council right now? This is all money to prepare writing materials for the scholars to study!”

“You say you can’t find where all the bronze vessels went, only brushes and paper? You work in a school and you’ve never heard the saying from the Book of Rites that great ritual must be simple? Offerings are about sincerity, not expensive dishes—sincerity!”

Replacing the missing gambling funds had already covered the hole; swapping out money that existed was child’s play.

The 10,000 nyang of forged cash were laundered so cleanly you could have put them in your mouth and sucked on them.

Thanks to the coin-washing fee that Cha Un-hong had not forgotten to feed into the kiosk, the friendship between the Kaesong governor’s office, the education circles, and the merchants only grew deeper.

Fortunately, the court did not have a chance to grow suspicious of anything.

In 1847, after Taesu and Cha Un-hong had spent the year in full swing preparing trade, the Great Queen Dowager Sunwon, Queen Kim, issued the royal order for Gwangjeosa—the “promotion of heirs”—a few months earlier than in history.

In other words, they were telling him to hurry up and choose a concubine so he could produce a prince.

With Chongwiyeong having been founded earlier as well, Gwangjeosa had likewise come early.

It was plain who had collaborated on this.

Older sisters always dote a little on their youngest brother. It could only be Kim Jwa-geun.

Hong Jae-ryong, the training commander and father of the “ill” queen, was enraged not only as a member of the anti-Andong Kim clan coalition, but also simply as a father with a daughter of his own.

The queen had been enthroned only two or three years ago. Even in a modern obstetrics clinic, that would not be rushed into a diagnosis of infertility.

And what on earth did the Great Queen Dowager know about medicine, that she could strut about saying there was “no hope of curing it with medicine”? If royals were going to meddle in medicine, might as well call them nothing more than crab-paste monarchs.

So they blame my daughter for the fact that the little snot can’t perform like a man?

Hong Jae-ryong was a maternal relative too. He knew the health secrets of various kings, the same as Kim Jwa-geun did.

Since this was Joseon, the blame was shifted onto the queen, but no matter how you looked at it, this was King I-hwan’s problem.

If the problem lay with the queen, then why was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠everyone conveniently forgetting that the former queen from the Andong Kim clan, Queen Hyo-hyeon, had also left no children?

The suggestion that I-hwan had been too young then was the sort of thing one should only go and report after hearing that Yejong proved his manhood at eleven. Which meant dying on the spot.

But Hong Jae-ryong, being on the royalist side for now, could never say such a thing.

And yet the thoughts Hong Jae-ryong could have, others could have as well.

The whole Gwangjeosa decree spoke only of the queen, but in everyone’s head, it kept circling back to her husband.

Even the king himself was the same.

King I-hwan, an impotent monarch, roared a command he should never have been forced to hear and kicked over his chamber pot.

“Kim Jwa-geun! You bastard, I’ll tear you to pieces! Don’t you have no children yourself, so you had to take in an adopted son?”

For a twenty-year-old to say to a fifty-year-old was not even worth spitting at heaven over, and yet the meaning lurking in “you too” was telling.

But if he showed it, he would die. The court attendants kept silent.

So the brass chamber pot rolled away with a clattering racket all by itself.

Fortunately, the attendants did not need to curse that some reincarnator had failed to produce an heir and then clean up the room while screaming.

There was nothing inside the chamber pot, which had not been emptied even once today.

As Kim Jwa-geun had guessed, the king’s health was already past the stage where one could speak of it as casually as sexual pride.

I-hwan panted, his face a little swollen, but he could not bring himself to think that this was a check on the Namyang Hong clan allied with the Pungyang Jo clan, or that it was a calculated move to quietly plant distrust in the court about the king’s fertility and stir public support for a “legitimate heir” who was not his own child, to be designated by the Great Queen Dowager.

It wasn’t that the king was stupid. When a man was enraged like this, of course his vision would blur.

I-hwan’s mind went to the thought any man who had suffered the greatest humiliation would naturally have.

Should I just kill them all?

Chongwiyeong had proven its worth by driving off the “barbarians” on Ganghwado and returning in triumph.

Since Gwangjeosa was issued in the Great Queen Dowager’s name, raising troops from there would make him a filthy son turning swords against his own grandmother, but I-hwan did not think that was much of a problem.

Taejong had imprisoned his father, and Sejo had killed his nephew. Look at what Gwanghae-gun did to his mother and younger brother, and what Yeongjo did to his older brother and son. That was the sort of house they came from.

Still, I-hwan was not incapable of thought. It was just that something even more important than thought was being doubted.

The wounded man named I-hwan decided to tread carefully, like a beast of prey.

Author’s Note

1. Gwangjeosa really was issued in 1847. After Gwangjeosa, Hyeonjong took as his concubine Kim Gyeong-bin, by whom he had one daughter, but the child soon died, and Hyeonjong himself died in 1848.