The Divine Champions (1)
Southwest of Ganghwa South Gate Market, where the previous uproar had broken out, lies Ganghwa Namsan. That was the very place where Taesu had first risen from the earth. The Chanwoo Well Spring, where Yi Won-beom and his lover Bong-i were said in legend to have shared their love, is also in this vicinity.
This place was famous for its supernatural phenomena in the nineteenth century.
Three years after Yi Won-beom ascended the throne, hundreds and thousands of people, including high government officials, claimed to have witnessed a “auspicious light” suddenly shooting up from here.
Modern science has since shown that sight is almost entirely a creation of the brain.
So if a king exists but some fool can’t see the kingly aura, it only means he lacks the brain of a loyal subject. Joseon had never hesitated to perform a Confucian surgical procedure to separate such offensive brains from the body.
That was why the Ganghwa locals rushed forward and dropped to their knees before Jeong Won-yong, the Pan-jungchubu-sa who had come to escort Yi Won-beom.
The people immediately proved the fidelity of their occipital lobes.
“The red beam of light was shining there on Namsan just as brightly!”
“We all said the same thing—that it must be the energy of a precious treasure!”
“We’ve been kneeling before Namsan in prayer for days already!”
Jeong Won-yong didn’t ruin the moment by asking if maybe it was just the sunset.
A man of his rank was naturally expected to possess the most loyal optic nerves in the kingdom. So Jeong Won-yong focused his ministerial energy on his eyes and found additional traces of kingly aura that commoners could never hope to see.
Then he reported it to the Queen Dowager.
“Your Majesty, after hearing the Ganghwa people’s words… while crossing Gapgot, I saw a radiant rainbow of colors stretching out like a long bridge. … This is an omen that the nation will flourish.”
Jeong Won-yong lived long enough to find out whether it really was an omen of prosperity.
Thirty years later, just before the ninety-year-old Jeong Won-yong went off to the underworld, it is impossible to know what he thought when he heard of the General Sherman incident.
But he probably wasn’t terribly shocked.
He himself knew better than anyone that in this glorious nineteenth century, the situation was so bad that people had to set fire to their own happy delusions by stringing together supernatural signs like that.
And yet that “auspicious sign” was not merely the ruin of a sorrowful hope.
For one modern man climbing Ganghwa Namsan now, it meant something else entirely.
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The day after the mishap that befell the dyer Oh Bong-gil, a broad-shouldered young man was striding up the slope of Namsan as if he were flying.
Behind him, another youth of about the same age but noticeably smaller was puffing and trotting after him.
“C-could you slow down a little?”
The strange-looking bundle on the man in front looked heavy enough to break his back.
And yet the one who seemed more exhausted was the lighter man trailing behind.
“I told you I was going alone, so why are you following me…?”
From the muttering man’s pack hung grasses, branches, and mushrooms, all dangling in abundance.
There were so many of them that it looked less like a bundle and more like a small thicket.
Anyone with a good eye could tell that most of it was high-quality medicinal herbs. And Joseon peasants were, more often than not, amateur herb gatherers.
Even Yi Won-beom, gasping for breath, had to admire him.
“To gather all this in a single morning… truly, you must have worked diligently at the monastery.”
That praise was meant, in part, to stop Taesu in his tracks.
But Taesu neither stopped his feet nor his hands. He didn’t even answer.
He was talking to someone far more important than Yi Won-beom.
[Now then, next is that tree over there. In the mortal world it’s called the winged spindle tree, gwi-yeon-u. It is excellent for women in labor and for those suffering from tonggyeong, meaning menstrual pain and irregular cycles.]
Taesu stripped the branch as the Mountain Spirit ordered.
The instructions kept coming.
[That herb is dokhwal, the root of giant angelica. Dig it up and make gisaeng-tang, and even a man struck down by wind can be raised back to his feet.]
[All right, this area is enough. Turn around that slope facing south. Yes, that’s right. It’s a field of haesuo that human hands haven’t touched yet. A wondrous medicine said to turn white hair black again.]
Won-beom’s been staring at this like he’s trying to bore a hole through it.
[It’s probably because it’s expensive… and also good for vigor. You said he’s got a girl on his mind, didn’t you?]
Honestly, these youngsters nowadays.
[You’re that age now too.]
More or less, that was how it went.
The Mountain Spirit taught him which medicinal plants could be gathered on Ganghwado in the spring. They also picked mushrooms—delicious shiitake among them—even though they weren’t exactly medicine.
Since the whole most laborious and time-consuming part of this kind of industry—the searching—had been cut out entirely, the efficiency was downright factory-like.
If the ginseng hunters from all eight provinces, who bathed, purified themselves, practiced abstinence, and poured all their devotion into begging for the “spirit’s help,” had known, they would have rushed to the pond at once and started hurling axes at one another.
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I summed up the situation with a polished old saying.
“Even a junkyard dog gets to eat half for free when he’s at home…”
[Hm? What was that?]
“I was praising you. Anyway, when are we going to dig ginseng?”
[Ahem. Didn’t you hear me yesterday? Digging ginseng without a Hwangcheop is illegal.]
Oh, please. It was illegal in Korea too, and no one there had ever bothered to follow the law—so why would anyone in Joseon? That dye merchant, or whatever he was, told me enough to understand the level of this place.
[Pretend you’re gathering herbs for now. Haedong Joseon is a great country of medicine, after all. Even this can make money. And while you’re at it, keep that boy away from here.]
Fair enough. We’d only known each other for a day or two, but I could already tell Won-beom wasn’t the type to keep his mouth shut.
I turned toward him, still wheezing as he followed behind.
Then I asked as indirectly as I could, “Don’t you have something else to do here?”
Hey, don’t make that face like you’ve been caught.
I knew it the moment you started insisting on coming along. You were just trying to slip off and meet your girl, weren’t you?
I tossed him one of the smaller haesuo roots from earlier.
His face immediately lit up. Tsk tsk. At that age, a man ought to worry about having too much vigor, not too little. Was his body so frail because he ate that sort of meager fare every day?
“Don’t keep her waiting too long. Go on.”
“As expected, the only one who understands me is you, hyungnim!”
And with that, Won-beom, who had somehow started calling me his elder brother, vanished like the wind.
That was a lightfooted skill worthy of a martial-arts novel master. Even if that really were the legendary thousand-year haesuo, it probably wouldn’t have boosted his internal energy before he ate it.
Either way, it didn’t matter. I’d gotten rid of the nuisance, and now it was time to get down to real work.
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They say ginseng grows on south-facing hills bathed in sunlight, while the roots themselves hide on dark, inconspicuous north-facing slopes.
I hurried along in the direction the Mountain Spirit had shown me.
There wasn’t even a real path. I had to force my way through gaps where only beasts could barely leave a trace. It was an extreme mountain-climbing course that should have knocked me flat long ago, but apparently divine power really did exist.
Against the backdrop of dry branches cracking under my military boots, the Mountain Spirit’s bragging voice floated in again.
[Spring is not the season for digging ginseng, but if you’re going to steam it into red ginseng and sell it to the Qing, that much doesn’t matter.]
I remembered something I’d once heard from laborers back in Korea.
“If it’s real wild ginseng, isn’t it a little wasteful to turn it into red ginseng?”
[What choice is there if you don’t want it to rot? These days, they say there are so many people in China turned into opium-mad addicts by those British bastards that red ginseng works wonders. That’s why it fetches a higher price.]
Really? I’d never seen druggies in Korea chugging red ginseng extract. I should’ve packed red ginseng candy instead of regular sweets in my bag.
[In any case, ginseng is bound to be a case of the more the better for the Songdo gang. Without a Hwangcheop, even if you dig it up, they can pin a weakness on you and make it hard to get a fair price. Better this way. They themselves are in no position to stand on ceremony, so they can be persuaded easily enough.]
The Mountain Spirit’s “plan” was to sell the wild ginseng while vaguely hinting that I knew about smuggling, then drive the price up. I asked with some reluctance, “Those guys are professionals… no, people who make their living doing this. Will that really work?”
[You just have to read the room and know when to pull back. If those fellows have a backer too powerful to threaten, then you can cut ties with that Kim Soon-won or whoever he is and join them instead, taking a cut from the smuggling profits. What do I care about promises made to a traveling peddler?]
Was this bastard a Mountain Spirit, or a back-alley thug? He said he was descended from an illustrious house—was he actually some sort of court schemer?
Regardless of my suspicion, the Mountain Spirit seemed thrilled.
[Do you see that jutting rock over there? Below it. The descent is rather rough, so rest for a moment. This place hasn’t seen human footsteps in a hundred years, so there’s no need to hurry.]
I believed the Mountain Spirit.
It was a bitter mistake.
A moment later, the instant I poked my head out from behind the rock, I saw not one human below but four.
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I was above on the slope.
And they were below, hidden in the shade.
That was why neither side noticed the other until we had already come this close.
I quickly flattened myself behind the rock. Then I snarled at the Mountain Spirit.
Hey. What was all that about a hundred years?
[This shouldn’t be happening… Who are those fellows? They don’t look like locals.]
I looked down as well, but all I saw was a grim scene.
The earth had been torn up, and the men were calling to one another in excited voices.
I couldn’t make out the details or see any ginseng roots from this distance, but it was enough to guess what was going on.
Should I just give up and go back?
Or should I search around to see whether there was any ginseng nearby they hadn’t noticed yet?
I focused my awareness on the Mountain Spirit to discuss it.
At that very moment, a dark declaration rang out within me.
[Draw the axe. We’ll rush them.]
I recoiled, once again recalling my suspicion that this spirit was a thug.
What?
[Then what, you’re going to let those bastards sweep up all the ginseng? Didn’t you say you needed money? We should take it from them now.]
That’s how you make money in Joseon?
Insufferably, the Mountain Spirit pointed out that Koreans were the same way.
[Weren’t you killing six people just the other day? What are you hesitating over now?]
Hey, don’t drag that into this. Did they run a scam on me and steal my lease deposit or something?
What had those ginseng hunters done wrong? It stung, sure, but I should curse my own incompetence and back away.
[I don’t care about the ginseng. That was only a pretext because of you. Those fellows are vile traitors. We must act at once.]
Is that really a proper label for ginseng hunters? Wait—don’t tell me you mean they don’t have that Hwangcheop license or whatever?
To my question, the Mountain Spirit answered with grave solemnity.
[Those men are not ginseng hunters.]
Then what are they?
[Heretics.]
I started wondering whether it was acceptable to laugh here.
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“I heard something.”
A sharp-looking young man glanced around.
But below him on the slope, Taesu was nowhere to be seen.
At that moment, the man standing beside him said, “There was no inspection. It was probably just some mountain beast, Father.”
Unusual for someone barely in his mid-twenties, the young man had in fact received full priestly ordination, and that was the title he was addressed with.
The first Catholic priest of Joseon.
Kim Dae-geon, Andrea.
As a man who would later be canonized as a saint, it wasn’t strange that the Mountain Spirit of Namsan had sensed a threatening energy.
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As a child, Kim Dae-geon had followed Father Maubant of the Paris Foreign Missions Society and studied in Macau and Manila.
There had been courses that looked suspiciously like espionage training—mapmaking, smuggling techniques, foreign languages, and the like—but in any case, the main subjects were theology and philosophy.
Kim Dae-geon was indeed the sort of talent the Foreign Missions Society would have taken note of.
Over the past two years, he had roamed between Uiju, Gyeongwon, and Jemulpo, doing splendid work ferrying out Joseon believers and bringing in new French priests.
But not every believer is a genius spy like Kim Dae-geon. For serious missionary work, the line was simply too thin.
Besides, their recent entry through Ganggyeongpo in Gangwon Province was more accurately called a shipwreck than an arrival.
That ridiculous stroke of luck had no practical use beyond deepening Kim Dae-geon’s faith.
So at present, Kim Dae-geon was carrying out an order from Bishop Ferréol, the Apostolic Vicar of Joseon, to establish a stable infiltration route.
The route Kim Dae-geon had chosen was the Hwanghae Province passage, using Baengnyeongdo as a base.
For modern people, Hwanghae Province’s Eunsanjin might sound familiar as the place associated with Indangsu, but as Simcheongjeon shows, it was an area of savage winds and waves—and an even greater menace than both put together, namely the “Chinese ships” that prowled those waters. Sim Cheong herself was sold to Chinese merchants.
King Yeongjo had created the Haebyeon Special Unit to stop their plundering, but the only thing he could truly prevent was the lid of the rice chest closing on him. With magistrates and military officers openly leading the way in trading firearms with Chinese pirates, there was no chance of real defense.
So Kim Dae-geon’s choice was a sound one.
After coming from Chungcheong Province to Seoul for evangelization work, Kim Dae-geon moved to the Gyeonggi coast in order to take the Eunsanjin sea route.
He avoided Jemulpo, which he had used on his previous departure, because if you left too long a tail, someone would step on it.
That was why they were on Ganghwado now.
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Kim Dae-geon withdrew his gaze from Taesu’s direction.
Then he said to Yi Ui-chang, the acolyte who had calmed him, “Well, it is spring. It wouldn’t be strange for wild beasts to wake and wander about. Perhaps I’m just not at ease of late.”
“That’s understandable. But the Lord is with us.”
That wasn’t a statement of hope; it was a practical assessment.
“Look at this ginseng. How many roots must there be? Ginseng suddenly growing here, in the shadow of the mountain where we came to avoid human eyes—if this isn’t the work of the Lord, then what is it?”
Yi Ui-chang could barely suppress the voice threatening to burst out of him in emotion.
You can do espionage without a gun if you have to, but you can never do espionage without money.
Not even if Kim Dae-geon’s sainthood were accelerated by two centuries would this miracle fail to be a tremendous help in opening their route.
Kim Dae-geon nodded.
“Deo, gratias… yes, that’s right. The Lord has helped us this much, so I mustn’t speak weakly.”
Kim Dae-geon reflected on himself. Then he began to pray.
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The misfortune for Kim Dae-geon was that another god heard that prayer first.
That pagan god whispered to his Champion.
Destroy them.
Author’s Note
1. The talk of the auspicious energy appears in Jeong Won-yong’s Gyeongsan Ilrok and in the Queen Dowager Sunwon Kim’s Dangjeo Deung-guk Si Yeonseol (the Grand Queen Dowager in the story).