The Kingdom of Heaven (1)
Kim Hong-beom, a man from Jangdong in Seoul who now lived on Ganghwado, was originally a Catholic who would be martyred twenty years later in the great anti-Catholic purge—Heungseon Daewongun’s final weapon of isolation, the Byeongin Persecution.
As a soldier attached to the Military Office under the Training Battalion, he also ran a business at home making scrap-metal goods, and had earned a reputation for being diligent. Not lazy, just hardworking, thank you very much.
Since he was both an officer and a blacksmith, he was an excellent fit for the practical management of the Promised Land, a settlement centered on armies and ironware.
The first wave of relocation to the Promised Land was now complete. On the three islands of Ganghwado, Seogeomdo, and Goerido, even the Catholic families who had fled with sacks full of state grain had all gathered together.
Kim Hong-beom, too, had overcome the sorrow of losing his wife at a young age and remarried here to the believer Maria Kim A-gi. In every sense of the phrase, it had been God’s guidance.
Kim Hong-beom, who had been energetically pushing forward with business, now encountered a minor problem.
He had come to seek out the deacon Choe Yang-eop, but instead he turned his feet toward someone else.
Choe Yang-eop was already buried under the translation of imported Western books, on top of the various smuggling operations he had previously handled.
It had been Taesu’s order, yes, but it was not the kind of business Choe himself would have chosen. It had actually been Cha Un-hong’s suggestion, aimed at the future of “opening the ports.”
Even if Choe Yang-eop was a priest, he no longer had time left to administer the sacraments.
He probably doesn’t know the situation very well.
As fate would have it, the man Kim Hong-beom had gone to see was the very Donghak leader who was gradually isolating Choe Yang-eop from the believers in just that way.
Kim Hong-beom asked Choe Je-u, “Where is Executive Park now?”
Kim Hong-beom had been waiting for Taesu, who had gone to the general assembly at Balgasan and was due to return.
But Choe Je-u answered with a merciless reply.
“He was just here, then set off south. I don’t think he’ll be back for a while.”
Taesu and Cha Un-hong had come from Kaesong to Ganghwado, then decided to make their first move through the Chungcheong Province route to the Wonhongju Yukgun Sangmusa.
Originally, Im In-son had volunteered to guide them all the way to Hongju, but Taesu had turned him down.
The first reason was that Taesu had no desire to go into Seoul.
Im In-son would naturally want to stop by places around the capital like Songpa Market and trade out his wares, and if he happened to cross paths with someone like Yi Ha-eung, Taesu might end up having to play a eunuch’s game before he was even prepared.
The second reason was that Taesu himself did not want Ganghwado exposed to Im In-son and the others just yet.
For now they were safe only because the king was turning a blind eye; the moment Taesu’s business became public, everyone involved would be wiped out along with their three generations.
With a bewildered expression, Kim Hong-beom spoke of that terrifying crime.
“No, after the Chaqimbang general meeting, weren’t we supposed to welcome the French people on Seogeomdo?”
“What are you talking about? That’s all already finished. The guns for this time are over there too, so go ahead and take them.”
“It wasn’t only the firearms. This time I meant to ask to meet the Executive for certain, and request that he teach that martial skill to the believers... ”
The martial arts of Park Axe that Son Yu-jak had boasted about were rather tempting.
But Taesu had no particular intention of teaching the Catholics.
In the military, hand-to-hand combat was something like morale: mostly useless in war, yet strangely overemphasized by poor armies with miserable service conditions.
Of course, if it really was as Son Yu-jak bragged—strong enough to burst an ox’s belly with a single kick—then the story changed.
But for that, it would be more reasonable to pray to their god than to Taesu. After all, this side had only received what he had from a god too.
Not knowing the circumstances, Kim Hong-beom inspected the imported goods as best he could.
“Those pistols that came by the handful—are they not here this time? And those swords made of foreign iron were useful too, but I don’t see them anywhere.”
“Since he’s off on a long trip this time, he took some of the goods along for travel money.”
Kim Hong-beom was in charge of arming and training the believers.
So he never got around to hearing that Taesu had also taken away various household necessities.
Kim Hong-beom accepted it at face value and nodded.
Before leaving, he earnestly told them to make sure Taesu was caught and kept in place once he returned.
Choe Je-u, who had deceived no one at all, smiled faintly.
The Catholics and Taesu were, in a sense, allies—not family riding in the same boat.
As a believer, Kim Hong-beom should of course have met the deacon Choe Yang-eop and discussed Taesu’s movements.
But he had not done so.
It could not be said that Kim Hong-beom’s faith had weakened. He had not exactly lost his respect for Choe Yang-eop or Kim Dae-geon.
What they had lost was persecution.
Persecution was, in fact, something clergy normally welcomed.
Missionaries from the Foreign Missions Society in the nineteenth century took vows that once they went out, they would never return alive.
Only some modern missionaries who didn’t understand doctrine very well would get themselves caught in countries where travel was forbidden and then whine at the secular government they had always treated like dogshit, begging to be rescued. From ancient times on, no missionary had ever shied away from martyrdom.
Persecution was not an obstacle to mission. It was the goal.
If Christ had not been nailed to a cross, then Christ would not be God. If you weren’t confident in a resurrection skill, you could die in the lap of a concubine forty-seven years younger than you like Muhammad—but then the limit would still only be “the messenger of Allah,” not Allah himself.
But that persecution had disappeared.
Freed from persecution, they found room to be rational.
Like Kim Hong-beom, who, without any particular awareness of the factions at play, simply thought, “This isn’t Choe Yang-eop’s department.”
But was a rational religion still a religion at all?
The believers who had entered the Promised Land had been stripped of hardship. Now they were nothing more than an ordinary armed religious group.
And the cause and effect that had freed them from persecution all traced back to Taesu.
Is this what it means to be the alpha and the omega?
Choe Je-u, who had been studying Christian doctrine as well for the sake of Donghak, let out a whistle.
Once the Executive returned, a great many things would have changed.
The Promised Land business and the smuggling operations were known only to a limited number of people, but the news of the election of the Dobansu of Balgasan’s Chaqimbang could not be kept so secret.
Taesu’s inauguration spread rapidly through the local commercial world.
And although last year Taesu’s red ginseng trade route had been ruined, the news also reached Jo Deok-rim, the chief official in Incheon, who still held considerable influence there.
More precisely, it reached Jo Gwan-seop, the illegitimate son who had been in charge at the time.
Taesu’s strange bearing was unforgettable. In an instant, the pieces of Jo Gwan-seop’s puzzle snapped into place.
Jo Gwan-seop’s eyes widened.
That’s the bastard who came sniffing around to sell ginseng back then!
Jo Gwan-seop went to see Kim Byeong-gi, whose situation in some ways resembled his own.
Of course, Kim Byeong-gi was not an illegitimate son himself. It was simply that his plight before his father was similar enough to make him feel like a Korean Robin Hood in reverse.
Kim Byeong-gi understood the story immediately as well. As expected of a noble lineage, his mind was sharp.
“You said he was that fellow who had been living under the roof of the descendants of Prince Euneon, doing menial work, right? Then everything fits. Yi Won-beom and that riverbank hooligan are both probably not unrelated to that heresy cult.”
When the Kaesong merchants who had vanished at Seungcheonpo were seen during Kim Dae-geon’s escape incident, there had already been signs they were “helping the heretics.”
That was why Jo Gwan-seop had not been able to actively track down Taesu and take revenge all this time.
At the time, after Jo Deok-rim had gone to Kim Jwa-geun and barely managed to smooth things over, Jo Gwan-seop had had no choice but to keep a tight grip on his own neck.
Still, from that moment on, Jo Gwan-seop had suspected that Taesu was connected to the Catholics.
And Kim Byeong-gi had seen that Yi Won-beom possessed a silver candlestick that was clearly a Western object.
He had merely failed to secure it because Yi Won-beom handed the candlestick over to Taesu. At the time, Yi Won-beom had clearly said he’d sold it to a traveling peddler.
When the illegitimate son’s IQ and the adopted son’s IQ were combined, an answer worthy of a true eldest son was produced.
Yi Won-beom is using Park Axe as a tool to communicate with the West!
However, Kim Byeong-gi did not go so far as concluding that Yi Won-beom had to be subjected to the rack.
His goal was not Yi Won-beom’s execution, but the opposite. His father, Kim Jwa-geun, was already considering Yi Won-beom as the next king.
What Kim Byeong-gi wanted was to control Yi Won-beom. Even the blackmail he had attempted with the candlestick had been meant only to find a weakness to exploit.
Fortunately, Jo Gwan-seop had also gotten the gist of it from his father, Jo Deok-rim.
In any case, Jo Gwan-seop’s real target was not Yi Won-beom either.
He said slyly to Kim Byeong-gi, “It would be difficult to stir up the royal family too carelessly, wouldn’t it? After all, it’s a house that drew the concern of the former king, Sunjo, and Crown Prince Hyomyeong... Still, there can’t be any harm in arresting one commoner and questioning him, can there?”
If Yoo Je-pung and the rest of the pack from the peddler intermediaries had heard that, they would have worried there was very much to lose—but at present, they were in Shanghai, reduced to “obedient believers” beneath Kim Dae-geon’s overwhelming sacred force.
So Kim Byeong-gi asked about something else.
“Didn’t that man say he might have taken out the Kaesong gang that served under you all by himself? Would such a person really come quietly if arrested? Now that he’s even become the Dobansu of Balgasan, he must have a lot more followers.”
Jo Gwan-seop gave a crafty smile.
“From what I hear, he set off south on an overland trip with only a single child servant accompanying him.”
“Is that true? If he’s the Dobansu of Balgasan, he should be able to assemble a far more impressive entourage than that.”
“Peddlers travel in groups when they’re causing trouble, not when they’re actually doing business. Besides, the position of Dobansu doesn’t give him free rein over all the property along the road.”
Jo Gwan-seop’s observation, as a commercial expert, was accurate. After all, Taesu had gone on this journey precisely to improve the condition of the bobusang, which could not properly function as a “commercial organization.”
In any case, Jo Gwan-seop’s words, based on intimate knowledge of the existing peddlers’ order, rang with confidence.
“Since it hasn’t even been two years since that man left Yi Won-beom’s house, there’s no way he has a trade convoy of his own. It’s not so strange, really.”
Given that much evidence, Kim Byeong-gi had no choice but to accept it.
Then I suppose I should petition my father to crack down even more severely on the identification of heretics.
Kim Jwa-geun would approve as well.
The left hook the king would aim at Kim Jwa-geun at the moment of decision was obvious.
Collusion with heretics.
Given Kim Jwa-geun’s wartime sabotage, it was an accusation that could be made stick. With the support of the Pungyang Jo clan—which would be swept away along with him after the coup—it would be even easier.
For Kim Jwa-geun to survive the crisis, there was only one method.
He would have to prove his loyalty by crushing heresy with even greater violence and zeal.
At the same time, by restraining the future king Yi Won-beom in advance and filling him with a sense of crisis, it would become easier to manipulate him after his enthronement. In plain terms, it was gaslighting.
And for all of that, they would have to capture this Park Axe fellow and beat him until he testified.
Jo Gwan-seop also seized the opening to pursue revenge with gusto.
“This is a gihwa—a rare opportunity. I’ll use my own people, so all you need to do is say a word to the local magistrate on that side.”
“Very well. Which way did he say he was heading?”
After passing through Ganghwa from Kaesong, I hurried my steps toward Yongin’s Kimryang Market.
That was because I planned to go through there and head down to Chungcheong Province, where Im In-son was waiting.
As we entered a mountain that, from its location, was probably what people now call Cheonggyesan, Cha Un-hong said brightly, “I’ve never been to Kimryang Market myself, but I’ve heard plenty about it. After all, it’s where the Chaimbang, the peddlers’ branch headquarters, is located.”
According to the explanation, Kimryang Market was a day’s journey from Juksan Market in Anseong and sat on the route to the Three Southern Provinces. It made sense for the peddlers’ branch headquarters to be there.
If Kaesong was the political center of the merchants, then Kimryang Market was the economic center, perhaps.
I nodded.
“Right. I’ve heard of it too.”
That wasn’t a lie. I knew Kimryang-dong in Yongin City, after all. I’d thought Kimryang was a person, but it turned out to be the name of a market.
Still, the way I chose the road without hesitation would make me look like I knew Kimryang Market very well indeed.
Thanks to the Wi-Fi internet of a modern man, of course.
[Oh, then allow me to introduce myself. Hmm? Ah, I’m the Mountain Spirit of Ganghwa Namsan. I had a bit of trouble and descended to the human world by taking refuge in a mortal vessel. What? You think I stole peaches and got exiled or something? Don’t talk nonsense and just tell me the way. Kimryang Market... over the pass and straight on? Thank you.]
To take my mind off that maddening telepathic chatter, I turned to the side.
A donkey was plodding along.
Even if I was the representative of the bobusang, this was still a guild, fundamentally a collective system.
Besides, since I had delegated almost all administrative authority to Choe Je-u, I still had very few people directly under me. And the few I did have were all busy acting as my proxies in Ganghwado and Kaesong.
So if I didn’t want to carry the massive load of merchandise myself, I had to buy a donkey—horses, apparently, were out, because I wasn’t a yangban.
I didn’t think it was impossible with my own strength, but there was no need to invite hardship for no reason.
Cha Un-hong looked somewhat hopeful, but I decided against answering that by showing off my strength. That would only end in something more miserable.
[If you asked, there’d be plenty of fellows at the Ganghwa branch willing to carry a pack on their backs for no pay. Why didn’t you just say you wanted to travel alone, you idiot?]
Idiot? This isn’t my fault.
Didn’t you see that bastard, what was his name, Jang Pil-ju or something? Even if Cha Un-hong didn’t get caught, she was still dangerous. When possible, it was better to keep the overnight party small.
The Mountain Spirit seemed to keep grumbling, but I turned back to the donkey. Hmm. I’d call it Porter.
Whatever my affection, I still couldn’t exactly pet Porter or anything.
Look at this bastard baring its teeth. What, just because I nearly snapped your neck, that’s how you look at your owner?
Just as I’d heard, donkeys had a far nastier temperament than horses.
I’d thought it would be easy, the way Hu Seon-saeng dragged one around in the buckwheat field, but that was a miscalculation. Porters these days were all sold with the ability to be driven by a class-two license, weren’t they?
Can’t you do something about it?
[It is not one of my dependents.]
What bullshit.
In the end, I just handed the reins to Cha Un-hong. If I put too much force into it and damaged something so expensive, that would be a problem.
Cha Un-hong was unexpectedly skilled.
“If you go about in peddler’s clothes, there are many times you have to carry luggage. I’ve led one a few times before.”
As she spoke, she tapped the ground with the tip of her foot.
“Though I did get my foot stepped on by a donkey once and suffered for several days. But with these shoes you gave me, I think I’ll be all right.”
What Cha Un-hong wore was a leather shoe made in Goerido, modeled after my combat boots in shape only.
From what I’d heard, Joseon leather shoes were mostly of the hye type—shoeless around the ankle, basically like rubber shoes with leather slapped on top.
But with the ankles and insteps left exposed, they weren’t much use for rough work. They were shoes for people who didn’t work in the first place.
There were also the military-style hwa shoes with ankles and insteps covered, but in my opinion the protective part wasn’t sturdy enough.
That was the part I was targeting with this product. Leather took time to process, so this trip would serve as the rollout.
The hardened upper around the instep and ankle was, to exaggerate a little, armor-grade, so even if a donkey stepped on it, you really wouldn’t be badly hurt.
The soles, too, used a Western method from this era, layering leather over and over in place of rubber. I’d mixed in Joseon shoemaking techniques and hammered iron studs into them as well.
I had to thank de Thierry for providing his own shoes as the pattern. Mine would be impossible for Europeans to imitate, even if they tried.
We had quite a few of those Western-style leather shoes in the luggage.
My goal was not to become the shoe king of Joseon.
Think of it as a sort of preventive shot for future Western trade. If you want Koreans to eat coriander, it’s better to start them off with mala-tang.
Cha Un-hong, who had effectively sponsored the effort, seemed ready to give a positive review.
“In any case, these would sell well to long-distance market travelers. Climbing mountains in straw sandals is a miserable ordeal, but on these mountain paths it feels as though one is stepping on clouds.”
Right? That’s why even though I wear Joseon clothes now, I still walk around in combat boots.
[Such theatrics. Acrobat troupes hop over and tumble around in straw sandals alone like monkeys.]
That’s because footwear isn’t important for those movements. As long as the floor is padded, you could do it barefoot.
[Then what kind of work actually needs important shoes?]
Well, that would be...
“Aaaagh! Help me!”
...that kind.
Cha Un-hong and I looked at each other.
Then, without either of us saying a word, we sprinted in that direction.
Author’s Note
1. In the story, Kim Hong-beom is 26 years old. His remarriage in 1847, which is the year of the story, and the rest of his career history are also historically accurate, as is his reputation for diligence.
2. Kimryang Market is Kimryang + market. There is a legend that a man named Kimryang once existed there, and another theory that the pronunciation was simply distorted over time.