The Incapable Monarch (3)
De Thierry’s smuggling flotilla left Seogeomdo to a grand farewell of cannon salutes.
A few Joseon men who didn’t much care for the French discreetly loaded the guns with solid shot and fired anyway, but none of them actually hit anything.
And so the first trade between Joseon and France came to an end.
Among the small everyday goods exchanged alongside the guns was the token of friendship I’d demanded, and De Thierry—looking thoroughly bewildered—had handed over the French flag as well.
To anyone looking on, it was a flawless victory.
The “Ganghwa garrison repelling the French barbarian vessel, which had tried to approach Ganghwa again disguised as a Chinese ship, by choosing the perfect position and seizing their flag” was a triumph beyond reproach.
That was before the barbarian ship had even made it properly to Gyodongdo, the home base of the Three Provinces Naval Command.
The command thoroughly confirmed that the French vessel had vanished into the far distance.
Then it rolled up its sleeves at once.
What a pity. If they’d come back here, this old man would have smashed that barbarian’s skull for him!
Do you think a weakling who couldn’t even get through the Seogeomdo dock thugs is worthy of witnessing the strength of our Three Provinces “naval headquarters”?
Indeed. Those fellows are the weakest of the scholar-farmer-craftsman-merchant lot...
That was about the size of it.
It wasn’t only the navy that praised this model case of military privatization.
The news also reached the ears of the commander of Chongwiyeong, Commander Yi Yu-su.
* * *
At the time, Yi Yu-su was troubled by a secret royal order.
“Looking at the few imported Western guns seized during last year’s French aggression, they seem quite useful for striking the enemy swiftly with only a handful of troops inside the fortress and in the towns.”
It wasn’t hard to guess why they had to “strike the enemy” “inside the fortress and in the towns.”
Yi Yu-su was certain that even Kim Jwa-geun had not expected the king to react so sharply.
But that was no reason to worry about anyone else.
“Have the commander replicate these guns and distribute them to Chongwiyeong.”
...!?
Even in the sixteenth century, when the technological gap between East and West was not all that large, countless failures were inevitable in the Tokugawa shogunate’s musket-copying ventures.
From the vantage point of 1847, this was no different from telling a neighborhood hardware-store owner to copy a smartphone. Maybe forty years later, perhaps, but right now the people of Joseon didn’t even know what noyeong—gunpowder—was.
Honestly, it would have been far more realistic for Yi Yu-su to go to Jang-dong and cut Kim Jwa-geun down with a sword. Far more economical, too.
Only much later, long after he had retired from court, could Yi Yu-su come up with a slightly more “realistic” plan.
* * *
Just as expected.
From the beginning, I’d intended to sell these guns through contact with the army.
If the king had any sense at all, there was no way he’d ignore the need to strengthen the military after the French had invaded “twice.” So I’d taken the risk and dressed it up as a matter of battlefield achievement.
That said, no one besides the people present and Cha Un-hong knows I acquired the guns through a trade.
Not even Ha-eung, who was grinning all over his face in front of me.
“Haha. Didn’t I tell you? I said you were a man destined for great things! To think the commander of a military camp had to beg for guns—it’s become a rather pitiful affair!”
“I get that, but why didn’t you send the letter to me... Your Excellency? Hm. Right. You sent it to his lordship?”
“Hm? He probably thought you were my junior retainer or something. Well, I did go out of my way for you when I met the commander of Chongwiyeong the other day, so I suppose it makes sense.”
Want me to beat you until your own name spills out of your throat, you bastard?
Who the hell is your subordinate? What kind of scheme were you running behind my back?
That’s just his bluffing, and he’s probably thinking of face-saving. How can a second-rank official associate with a commoner? Besides, even if you’d received the letter, you wouldn’t have been able to read it anyway.
I must not have kept my expression in check, because Prince Heungseon looked at me and said,
“Seeing how composed you are, I feel ashamed. Still, weapons are inauspicious things. This order to procure guns probably doesn’t come from a kindly place.”
Not a kindly place? Wasn’t the point of guns to strengthen national defense?
Ha-eung cautiously, and in a roundabout way, explained the reason.
I was dumbfounded.
So right now the king—no, not even a king in the noble sense, just some young upstart—was so furious at being called “old man” that he was planning a palace coup to wipe out all his ministers?
If the one saying this had been Son Yu-jak, Kim Yang-won, or Gwak Cheong-gye, I would’ve just told him not to talk nonsense, knocked him on the head, and forgotten about it.
But this was royalty, and for this sort of information he was a reliable source.
Looking at it from that angle, it wasn’t entirely incomprehensible.
Maybe in the Joseon royal family, sexual vigor was such a serious matter that it determined the legitimacy of the king’s bloodline. Wait—if that was true, then wasn’t Won-beom actually fit to be king?
Once again, my expression must have led to a misunderstanding, because Ha-eung hurriedly said,
“It’s only natural that you’d be worried. But after his majesty crushed the Western barbarians so thoroughly last year, his dignity has risen high indeed. How could he possibly forgive such impudent ministers?”
In other words, because of you, the king got cocky and decided that if he could smash barbarian skulls, he might as well smash Joseon skulls too. Because of you.
Don’t say it twice.
In any case, I could also see why Ha-eung was telling me Yi Yu-su’s message. Why he was revealing this sensitive political matter to me.
He wanted to help the king.
More precisely, he wanted to kill Kim Jwa-geun and the sedo clan.
Probably for the sake of the son who would one day succeed him.
And he wanted me to play a central role in that.
That was why he was hinting at the coup plan. Besides, if he tried to hide it and said nothing, I might go around blurting to everyone that I was just some legitimate military supplier selling guns to the army and spoil the whole thing.
That was the context for Ha-eung’s next words, too.
“I’m not asking you to manufacture the guns yourself. If I report things properly above, they’ll loosen up the border defenses a little, so couldn’t you somehow bring imported guns in from China?”
“From abroad?”
“Yes. Don’t pretend to be surprised. Everyone in the world knows Songdo merchants have all sorts of hidden dealings, and for you, isn’t that a bigger profit than money? Though, of course, the loyalty of restoring the country’s discipline is even greater.”
Who called him the Heungseon Daewon-gun of isolationism?
Either way, a squash vine had come rolling in with the gourd. I’d only been thinking about money.
Take it too eagerly and it’ll look suspicious. Pull back a little.
I knew that.
I drew the line.
“I’m not much for difficult words like national discipline or loyalty.”
You’re telling the truth for the first time today.
“Shut up... Since the matter has come up, we should respond to it first. A merchant does only a merchant’s work. As you say, if you leave the western sea to me and pay a proper price, I’ll try to procure them somehow.”
“I knew you’d be a man of breadth! Leave it to me.”
* * *
King I Hwan’s will was, once again today, to emulate Jeongjo.
“King Jeongjong once merged Tongwiyeong into Jinmuwi and then separated them again after the complaints of shortsighted ministers. I shall complete that undertaking myself.”
The Three Provinces Naval Command on Gyodongdo.
Jinmuwi on Ganghwado.
Both were naval forces guarding the sea beyond the Han River.
Even a modern person would get them mixed up.
Joseon people were no different. The proposal to absorb Tongwiyeong into Jinmuwi had come up plenty of times even during Jeongjo’s reign.
So the king didn’t need to rack his brains for any special justification.
The Three Provinces Naval Command disappeared.
The reason it was the command that disappeared was simple: Gyodongdo was too far forward to function as a headquarters. It was better to concentrate everything in Jinmuwi on Ganghwado.
And so Gyodongdo, the bottleneck on the road to Kaesong, was left empty.
In practice, I no longer even needed to run smuggling.
And that wasn’t all.
Commander Yi Yu-su also did what he could within his own authority.
“They say the Kaesong magistrate drove out the vicious usurer Kim Sang-jun and abolished the abuses of Uijae, handing it over to the educated men among the Song merchants. We’ll follow that example. Bring the Chongwiyeong troops stationed at Imjinjin into the capital.”
“S-sir... The money collected at Imjinjin isn’t just customs duties. Without the ferry and market revenues, we can’t possibly maintain the army...”
“Are you telling me ferries and markets exist only on the Imjin River? Your extortion can happen somewhere else, so hurry up and obey my orders!”
“Somewhere else” was, of course, another military camp’s turf.
But once this was done, the king would be behind them.
Chongwiyeong had already absorbed some of the trained troops as well. The profits of other military commands were no longer a problem.
Yi Yu-su imposed his vision on his troubled subordinates.
And about a month passed.
By the time the guns “obtained from China” had been sold to the king at five times the French market price, and the Annals recorded that “Bobusang peddlers fought French pirates and seized them,” Taesu and Cha Un-hong were walking along the Imjin River ferry landing just as they had when they first met.
* * *
Cha Un-hong noticed Taesu’s gaze lingering on her and asked,
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“That outfit suits you pretty well, too.”
I meant to praise how good she was at dressing as a man, but Cha Un-hong took it a little differently.
“You like this side of me?”
Taesu didn’t answer, despite the mountain spirit’s constant needling.
Instead, he asked something else.
“Doesn’t it feel like there are more people here?”
Taesu thought it was the more important question, while the mountain spirit and Cha Un-hong thought it was absurd.
Cha Un-hong puffed out her cheeks and came to a stop.
Taesu ignored her and walked right past.
Watching his back, Cha Un-hong gave up after a moment and followed after him.
“Of course. Just not being fleeced by the army means pure profit. Isn’t that a dream come true for merchants?”
It had always been a busy place, but now it had to be called something else entirely.
Salt sellers and pottery sellers no longer shuffled through with heavy loads on their backs, stealing wary glances at everyone they passed.
The tax that had been levied merely for unloading goods had been abolished.
Seriously? You don’t have to pay tax just for loading or unloading? There were so many petty bastards around who’d charge you for every single footprint if you stepped off the boat and then back onto it.
What, did this guy sit at the same table as a damned Chinese? Why don’t you trust people when they speak? You pay once when you set up your stall, and then once more as the so-called “success drink” if a deal is struck between merchants. That’s it. See those few men out there from Ganghwa’s garrison?
Ganghwa’s garrison? You mean Park Axe? Then is the rumor true—that Park Axe reported his achievements to the king and got all those miserable tax officers and soldiers thrown out of here?
You don’t say. He could’ve earned a post through military merit and changed the life of some poor peddler, but they say he couldn’t turn his back on his suffering comrades.
Huh. Never in my life did I expect a saint to appear among merchants!
The fish market, which before had only ever been set up enough to serve the soldiers’ free evening snacks, was now spread out in grand style.
It was as if they had just remembered this was a riverbank.
Travelers who no longer had to pay the Imjinjin toll wandered the fish stalls without a care.
Did they bring this straight from Ganghwa? I hear Ganghwa’s garrison has been running several boats lately.
If it isn’t dried fish, it won’t upset my stomach, right...? Let’s see. Hmm, a little bitter. Eh, forget it.
Hey, wait a second. You’re complaining it tastes bitter when you’re the one who scratched out lice with a fingernail and then used that same hand to tear into the fish? Who do you think you’re fooling? Hand over the money and take it, now!
W-what? Why is the market spirit so stingy? At this rate you’ll drive all the customers away... nghk!
Including a few who had been a bit too carefree, most of the passersby soon became customers.
In this lively market, the only people with dark faces were the boatmen, worn down by overwork.
The rest were singing the praises of the flourishing northwest commercial district of Gyeonggi Province.
Walking along the river and accepting greetings from the merchants, Taesu suddenly said, as though only just remembering,
“But if Song merchants and Ganghwa’s garrison are going to collect the tax and split it as ‘money for defending the country,’ isn’t that the same thing for them?”
“Not at all. First, all the layers of skimming off the top by the army are gone, so we can collect far less than before. And more than anything, the ones collecting and the ones paying are all merchants themselves.”
It would be a lie to say there was no violence in the process of collection even now.
But this was different from the army’s simple algorithm of pay up and you’re spared, refuse and you get beaten.
That kind of system is simple, which also means it’s full of loopholes. As a result, it’s hard to win trust.
But among merchants who know one another well, “self-governed” oversight becomes possible.
Any bastard who won’t pay even a heavily discounted membership fee for both items and amount should be expelled from the group chat, as far as I’m concerned.
“Besides, unlike the soldiers who used to collect money and then swallow it without ever offering a grain to the spirits, now it can actually be used for us. Everyone can see it, can’t they?”
Taesu followed Cha Un-hong’s gaze and looked up.
The crumbling west gate of Imjinjin had been beautifully repaired.
In the original history, it had been such a massive undertaking that Chongwiyeong had even had to issue a magical merit certificate that runs on time—a cheap official license awarded for service.
It was true that they had dressed up the visible exterior first in order to shut down criticism that they had handed a strategic point to merchants, but the effect was greater than expected.
The government is like trying to scoop water with a dozen broken ladles. If you leave the market to merchants, everything works out just fine!
Of course, even without listing the disasters that future privatization would bring, this was still a dangerous line of thinking.
It was only because the Joseon government’s capacity for control was so utterly pathetic that this was, comparatively speaking, the lesser evil.
The kind of control I mean here is more metaphysical than administrative or military.
If you wanted 200 guns, you should have opened formal trade, or at the very least gathered public opinion and devoted yourself to weapons development even if failure was obvious.
Instead of tacitly permitting smuggling.
If you wanted to energize a monetary economy, you should have either officially authorized private minting or, consistently and firmly, banned it and found a state solution.
Instead of pretending not to notice counterfeit production.
No matter how sophisticated a bureaucracy may be, a country with control like that will never be respected. Even North Korea has a neat organizational chart.
Cha Un-hong had also heard about the sexual-vigor coup from Taesu.
The king believed he had secured a “righteous cause no one could object to” by getting the ministers to reject his anti-corruption measures, and was gathering his momentum, but he was overlooking a deeper problem.
If a Confucian state gave up its role as the teacher of its subjects, then what were those subjects supposed to believe in and follow?
Would a struggle to seize such a state’s throne be seen as a righteous campaign, or as pointless upheaval?
Lost in thought, Cha Un-hong studied Taesu’s profile.
And she thought about why she had been drawn to him.
Taesu’s knowledge of the West was nothing remarkable compared with Kim Dae-geon’s. In terms of actual business ability, Cha Un-hong was the real expert.
His face and body were a little wasted, sure, but as Gapyun had said, he wasn’t the only one in the world like that.
Still, Taesu seemed to have some kind of standard that even she herself couldn’t quite grasp.
Some standard that this flailing, unstable country did not possess.
It was backed by a will and by action strong enough to make it real.
Cha Un-hong couldn’t tell what it was.
So she wanted to know.
She quickened her steps, caught up to him, grabbed one sleeve, and shook it as if complaining.
“Hm?”
Taesu, misunderstanding her, tilted his shoulder slightly toward her.
In truth, Cha Un-hong hadn’t prepared herself to say anything yet, so she was a little flustered.
But Cha Un-hong was quick, as always. She naturally brought her mouth close to his ear.
“Of course the most important thing is the goods we’re bringing in from the French. Half the dry goods over there now are Western cloth. Scissors and watches sell well in the wealthy houses of Songdo, too.”
Taesu felt pleased at that.
But after walking a couple more steps, he came to an abrupt halt.
Why did I think I was pleased?
Was it because of the profits from the tax collected at Imjinjin, so much it amounted to outright deception?
No, that didn’t seem to be it.
Taesu admitted it honestly.
The vibration that had just trembled at his ear pleased him more.
So Taesu slowed his pace a little.
The two of them walked at the same speed, looking toward the same place.
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