The Age of the Sea (1)
The next morning, Im In-son finally managed to find Taesu only after staggering around with a hangover and falling over several times.
“Seriously, where did you go, Dobansu, until the sun was high in the sky? The ship has arrived!”
“I can see that.”
He was only looking, of course; his mind was somewhere else entirely. But Im In-son didn’t have the luxury of caring about that sort of detail.
“Good heavens, how could the Hojang be one day off from the date you told us? I, Im, am deeply moved!”
Taesu found it strange too.
The date he had promised Kim Sun-won was today, all right.
And the Mountain Spirit had also guaranteed that if the sea god would just suppress the storm—Taesu, thinking like a modern man, had asked for favorable currents too, but that was like asking a stranger to co-sign a loan—then the ship would arrive today.
Taesu had thought there was no way that promise would come true.
In this era, keeping an appointment down to the day was absurd enough as it was. Trusting the Mountain Spirit had not even been worth considering.
And yet the ship had come.
It was five fishing boats from Ganghwa Imbang, led by Kim Sun-won.
* * *
After returning from Yi Seong-nyeo, Taesu didn’t want to give the Mountain Spirit any more material to strut around with.
So he gave Kim Sun-won all the credit right there in front of him.
“This man here is one of the comrades from Ganghwa Imbang whom I trust most from the heart. He’s been on the water for a long time, so he knows these currents inside and out.”
Kim Sun-won was quick to show humility as well.
“Oh, it was nothing. We made the date mostly thanks to that watch thing you gave me. Western inventions really are full of wonders.”
Im In-son was impressed.
“To come through this sea route when you’re not even from Hongju—most Han River merchants or porters wouldn’t be fit to hold a candle to you.”
Kim Sun-won, still in front of the rational-minded Im In-son and the men of the Wonhongju Six-Gun Trade Association, stroked his beard.
“You still don’t understand. If you’re with Park Axe—the one who brought down the river spirit of the Imjin River—then there’s no need to worry about floods. That’s why I had no fear even when I threw a lone skiff at a French devil’s fortress-sized ship.”
Im In-son and his men could not hold out any longer.
Yi Seong, already shaken by the sea god ritual and rusted stiff from drink, collapsed like the walls of Jericho under the final blow of Kim Sun-won’s testimony.
“I thought it was impossible. Peddlers carrying goods by sea? But if it’s this Dobansu, I suppose it can be done. We’ll spare no effort and throw in our lot with this great cause.”
The Wonhongju Six-Gun Trade Association—no, from this moment on, the Chungcheong-do Baekimbang Bobusang also threw their support behind him with enthusiasm.
Right there, they elevated Im In-son to Hojang and swore loyalty to Dobansu Park Axe.
What this ship carried was not only the assorted goods sold in Gimnyangjang.
It also brought items that had been difficult to carry at the time Taesu first departed because of weight and timing.
“What’s this vase?”
“I’ve seen something like it before. Isn’t this a Chinese Yangchaeja?”
“An absurdly expensive thing! But, Haga, where on earth did a roaming peddler like you see something like this?”
“Well, in the inner room of some rich lady’s house in Jecheon once… no, that’s not it. Anyway, when you work as a peddler of small goods, you end up going from house to house.”
“Then that house’s son must be left-handed like you…. First, let’s start with a beating for breaking the rules.”
It was something Kim Dae-geon, crisscrossing Shanghai and Macau, had sent separately to raise operating funds.
The proud certainty that no barbarian ceramics could sell in front of Joseon white porcelain did not hold, at least not in the nineteenth century.
And that was not only because society had fallen apart so thoroughly that even the ceramics industry had declined.
By the time of King Sunjo and after, astonishingly enough, “Qing-style culture” advanced under “royal leadership.” By the end of the kingdom, it seemed as though Injo and Sejong alike had simply vanished from sight.
This trend spread beyond the homes and ornaments of the wealthy into everyday life. Hot pot is a good example—an element of food culture that would become fashionable again two hundred years later, in the early twenty-first century.
Yangchaeja was already commonplace. Rich households like that lonely lady’s in Jecheon would buy plenty of it.
Kim Dae-geon also sent things that Catholic priests had traditionally used for evangelization.
“Wait! Stop before I break your wrist. You bastard, you’re still drunk. That came off the ship just now.”
“Huh? Oh? I only reached for it because I smelled liquor, but now that I look at it, why is the color like this? And wait—this isn’t a glass bottle?”
“I heard earlier that this is French liquor.”
“What? From France? Then is it maybe piss booze?”
Wine had already been introduced to Joseon 120 years earlier. For the missionaries in Beijing, wine had occupied a role not unlike wet wipes in street evangelism.
Lee Yi-myeong, one of the four senior ministers of the Noron faction, and his son Lee Gi-ji might have spread wine through Joseon after tasting it for the first time.
But the problem was that they were friends with Lee Geon-myeong, the man who had carelessly said Crown Prince Gyeongjong was sterile.
By that point, even the current convulsion of King Heonjong Lee Hwan had precedent.
Lee Geon-myeong and his son were crushed like grapes of wrath by Gyeongjong’s hand in the Shinim Persecution. After that, there had been no meaningful imports or domestic production to speak of.
So this, too, had to be expensive.
All one had to do was hide the fact that it was French, a country whose image had somehow become that of a gourmand nation turned excrement nation.
iPhones are assembled mostly in China, but the people who use them still feel the scent of California.
That is the “brand value” that cannot be left out of commerce. With the help of the Bobusang, those skilled merchants immediately relabeled the wine as “Hanzhou liquor.”
Now it was time to collect payment. Hojang Im In-son said to Taesu:
“We don’t have strange things like that, but the heart of trade is still cloth and rice, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed.”
In the past, Seoknidang Lee Jae-un—perhaps the only scholar ever to have written a book on asset management—had said this:
‘Merchants who deal in cloth and rice are the highest class; those who handle weasel pelts, colored paper, Chinese stationery, sugar, and the like come next; and those who trade horses and cattle, or ginseng and silver, come after that.’
This meant that the overall scale mattered more than the price of any one item.
And cloth and rice had another meaning as well.
They were the standard and foundation of Joseon currency.
Cloth and rice were not things that became money. They were money itself.
For grain that could not be brought in immediately, Im In-son wrote out certificates. A kind of promissory note.
Of course, since Im In-son was only a second-in-command among peddlers and not a grand merchant chief, grain alone could not cover the full price of the goods.
So there were actual products as well. Along with a huge quantity of cotton cloth, Im In-son brought out a specialty item that was not cotton but was hardly inferior to it.
It was the perfect thing for this season, when summer was just beginning.
“If you talk about Hansan in Chungcheong-do, famous across all eight provinces for mosi, even the finest cotton cloth can’t help feeling ashamed. When I first took it from the Hongju Imbang on the way here, I was half skeptical, but it was worth trusting the Dobansu’s word.”
The quantity Im In-son offered was exceptional even by Bobusang standards.
[Hah, setting aside the rest, just the mosi alone is two hundred bolts. If you run this trade only two or three times, you’ll eat up the entire annual volume moving through a big city.]
That was only possible because the Chungcheong-do Bobusang had both a long tradition and strong unity, even compared to other regions.
What’s more, Im In-son gave Taesu a higher price than the one he’d gotten for the goods sold in Gimnyangjang.
“After all, Gimnyangjang isn’t a place you can reach by boat, is it? As you said, we’ll move more of the Imbang down to the coast, so you should do bigger business with us.”
Gimnyangjang in Gyeonggi-do was an important place too, so it couldn’t be neglected.
But Taesu promised to consider it carefully. In this age of the sea, Chungcheong-do Baekimbang had significance no less than Gimnyangjang.
* * *
[How is it? Don’t you feel a bit more inclined to show this great one some respect now?]
No, he did not.
[Come to me again whenever you like. If you’ll only bow politely and beg, there’s no reason I couldn’t help you every time you launch a ship.]
‘No thanks.’
[You stubborn brat. Is this really the time for pride? First make the business happen, then talk. Your great unified Bobusang plan is just a beautiful dream if you don’t have ships.]
Taesu snorted.
The Gyeonggang merchants sailed around just fine without tying themselves up with a spirit and an axe.
As Cha Un-hong had said, they controlled so many large ships that they outclassed even the Joseon navy.
Right now, he only needed this trick because Ganghwa’s First Fleet was such a shabby collection of fishing boats.
If the enormous profit the Chungcheong-do Baekimbang now offered, and the even greater profit that would come from using that as a base to seize control of all eight provinces, was there, then he didn’t need any weird supernatural nonsense.
Taesu thought that was what human modernization really was. It certainly wasn’t because the Mountain Spirit was getting under his skin.
From the start, he’d probably just been cheating with weather that would have been storm-free anyway. Did every other boat flip because they failed to hold a ritual?
[You there—by the look of your manner, you’re not thinking of breaking your promise, are you?]
‘What do you take me for? I keep my promises. I’ll definitely send Yi Seong-nyeo to Ganghwa. But I’m not going to trick some unwilling shaman into doing it.’
No matter how badly he wanted to shake off the Mountain Spirit, Taesu was not the sort of man who could swindle someone else’s second life.
But the Mountain Spirit smiled like a con man.
[If she is unwilling, that is another matter.]
‘What did you do to her in her dreams?’
[Ask me again when the time comes. Ah, here she is now.]
Yi Seong-nyeo had already packed all her belongings. She came to Taesu and bowed.
“After having a strange dream yesterday and thinking it over, I believe I’d like to go to Ganghwa.”
“...Are you sure you should decide to live in a place far from home so easily, based on something as flimsy as a dream?”
“Even in my hometown, the only people who helped me were peddlers with no hometown of their own. From the first time I met the previous Hojang, I felt a peculiar energy. It seems the spirit chose me and spoke through the Dobansu.”
“...”
“The spirit who appeared to me in the night stood with one foot on Guan Yu and one foot on an octopus, and declared that you had subdued all these evil gods and brought the ship safely in, and that I should take that as my sign. And the ship did, in fact, arrive safely.”
“...”
“My path is decided as well. I will follow the spirit’s command and build a shrine on Ganghwa Namsan, then offer rites there.”
Taesu could only force the words out after a moment.
“Then what about your livelihood?”
“I still have money, and the spirit said it would take care of the rest. If my divinations keep proving accurate, people will come flocking to me. Especially for finding money-making objects and matching men and women into fated relationships, it seems I’m quite gifted....”
If Yi Seong-nyeo had been tricked by the Mountain Spirit into abandoning her trade, Taesu had meant to persuade her not to.
But he could not think of anything more impressive than the vision the spirit had already shown her. He couldn’t tell whether the bastard was a middleman or a god.
Taesu said weakly, “You may be being deceived by some wicked ghost. How about just going back to work in Ganghwa Imbang?”
“No. My heart has already left trade behind. Perhaps the spirit saw that in me, which is why it chose me.”
There was nothing else he could do.
All Taesu could do was ask Kim Sun-won to take good care of Yi Seong-nyeo.
* * *
The Mountain Spirit spoke with that same goat-idol expression on his face.
[Now that a human with strong spiritual power is settling on Namsan, I can finally return to being a proper spirit again.]
Was that his way of saying he was going to leave me and move over there? That would be welcome.
[No, that won’t do.]
‘What? Then why did you scam Yi Seong-nyeo with all that talk about divination? By your own logic, you won’t even be here to read fortunes.’
The conversation itself felt like it was dragging him into something bizarre, but once he’d asked, he couldn’t stop.
Yet the Mountain Spirit answered calmly.
[It is not a scam. It is possible.]
‘What?’
[Why else would I need a human with spiritual power? Yi Seong-nyeo will open the door to the divine force that had been shut, and connect me to Ganghwa. As for those who come asking for divination, I will simply answer them.]
Wait a second.
That meant he could talk to Yi Seong-nyeo anytime, anywhere? He could? And he could see what was happening in Ganghwa too?
[That is so.]
Hey, don’t just brush that off, you Joseon mountain spirit. That’s a phone call.
While I was grinding my brain over the importance of that, the Mountain Spirit added more.
[Regrettably, I myself cannot directly wield the power of the gods, but Yi Seong-nyeo will be able to use it. Think of her as a steward in charge of the granary.]
Ordinarily, wouldn’t that be called a “priest” or a “shaman”?
[Without a master, a steward may still stand in and draw out the grain. Yi Seong-nyeo will likely become a shaman unlike any seen since that Dangun and Chachung—and unlike anything the Three Han have seen in thousands of years.]
Only after a moment did I understand what he meant.
In other words, if you treated spiritual power like money and other shamans like employees who drew a wage, then Yi Seong-nyeo was basically a CEO entrusted with the company’s entire assets.
[Of course, if this great one were not a powerful high-ranking deity, then even if I opened the warehouse there would be nothing much to see, but I……]
I couldn’t hear the rest.
Did I just create a Shaman King?
* * *
While Taesu passed along a few more instructions to Kim Sun-won after hearing about Yi Seong-nyeo’s capabilities, the deal was concluded.
Once the Chungcheong-do Baekimbang had noisily departed too, Cha Un-hong appeared quietly.
She had only come over from the opposite direction after deliberately pretending to be late.
[What is this? That fellow who’s always glued to you was gone when things were busy just now, and now he’s coming back only after… Wait. I can feel some strange power surging up. Don’t tell me…]
It really did sound like a specialty worth being confident about with Yi Seong-nyeo. Taesu answered by hurling the axe far away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Practicing with the axe.”
Cha Un-hong accepted that and touched the bundle Kim Sun-won had delivered.
Tied firmly to the porter was red ginseng, Cha Un-hong’s main product.
“I told them to send it as soon as it was steamed, and it seems it’s all finished now. From Jeolla-do, where we’ll go next, I’ll help carry my share too.”
“Will you be all right without Song Jipsa?”
“I’ll be fine. Song merchants usually use a lot of assistants, and I also have a Hwangcheop as ‘Cha Un-hong’s assistant.’”
Now they were alone. Cha Un-hong leaned back as if to lie down and rested her head against Taesu’s chest.
“We should hurry on the road. Aren’t you bringing the axe?”
Taesu stroked Cha Un-hong’s hair as she looked up at him.
“Just a little longer.”
Author’s Note
1. Yangchaeja, as the name suggests, is porcelain influenced by overseas lands across the sea—here, “overseas” refers to Southeast Asia.
2. Lee Geon-myeong was executed after hinting to a Qing envoy that King Gyeongjong could not father children. Of course, that was not the cause of the Shinim Persecution; if anything, it was part of the process, or the result.
Wine was difficult to bring into Joseon because there were no suitable grapes, but castella, which the Lee Geon-myeong father and son were served alongside one another, did enter Joseon.