Man vs Wild (1)
Ships of this age usually came equipped with gear for Jury Rigging, emergency repairs done with whatever happened to be on hand.
By the time the Royalists’ crew had raised a rather pitiful makeshift main mast, the survival king Ogul had a brilliant idea.
“First, send the captured Joseon warship back to the nearest port. Give them my letter.”
The Joseon rowers had been stowed belowdecks, so they hadn’t been able to fly off earlier. If they were sent, they could go.
The petty officers stared at him in confusion.
“Pardon? You mean we should just let them go?”
“Of course. We’re going to protect the Joseon fleet commander.”
He meant something like protecting New Zealand, or some such nonsense. Even the petty officers could make sense of it without much trouble.
The value of Yi Hichang as a prisoner was simple.
If Joseon’s bellicosity was truly beyond imagination, then perhaps Colonel Belcher and his men on the grounded Samarang would be killed. They should try to secure their safety through a prisoner exchange.
No one pointed out that Captain Ogul’s somewhat violent Irish beggar-song had anything to do with it.
If the “prisoner exchange” came off as the captain planned, the Royalists and their crew could escape any blame for abandoning the Samarang.
The collision they had just survived had, after all, happened solely because the Joseon men were a martial race. In truth, the British hadn’t fired a single cannon.
Having secured his own survival after returning home, Ogul next began searching for a way to survive in Joseon.
He called in the Royalist’s Chinese interpreter and had him write a message to Yi Hichang.
Which was the nearest place from here that could feed all these sailors?
Yi Hichang, who had been about to claim he was illiterate, fell into thought.
Come to think of it, he had to eat too. If he messed this up, he might end up chewing worms and drinking horse piss alongside this so-called king of survival.
Even so, he absolutely could not let them head north.
There was a king in the north. If things went wrong, the bloodline of the great Yodong General Yi Yeosong might die out.
These barbarians seemed as if they’d been planning to go south anyway, and driving them as far south as possible would also make it easier to send them packing.
As for the southern regions—exclude Gunsan through Haenam, which fell under his own domain, Usuyeong. Mokpo, the nearest port, belonged to that area too.
He needed to rope in as many military camps as possible. Only if other garrisons were dragged into it would everyone testify that those English bastards had been supernovas who could even crush the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
Then again, sending them to Suncheon, where the Jeolla Left Naval Headquarters stood, would point in the eastward direction, if anything.
In the end, there was only one answer.
Yi Hichang picked up his brush.
From here, if you go south and slip between the islands, you will reach a place called Gangjin. It is the wealthiest military district in this country, so it should be able to support you.
It was not a lie in the slightest.
* * *
At that same time, Taesu and the fleet he had brought over from Geokpo had just moored in Gangjin.
Gangjin was famous for its military station, but those men mainly operated inland.
As for the sea, this was still Song-sang territory, where they received goods from Jeju.
Cha Un-hong of Song-sang said, “Leave this to me.”
“You sure? Even if you’re Song-sang, not every Song office in the country listens to you.”
The relationship between Song-sang and Song offices was not like headquarters and branch offices in a modern conglomerate.
Strictly speaking, a Song office was closer to a generic term for the nationwide branches each Song-sang merchant had set up.
Merchants from the same Song-sang would not turn hostile, but asking them to take orders was another matter entirely.
However, Cha Un-hong, whose proxy system under Manager Gong had reached its limits, did not really have a Song office of her own. Her influence was concentrated mainly around Kaesong.
Unlike Taesu, the Bobusang Dobansu, she held no position that could be said to represent Song-sang itself, and even her recent expansion of power had only been within the Song-sang board of directors in Kaesong.
If she could extend that as far as the Gihho region, fine.
But to reach a place as far away as Honam, she needed another method.
Cha Un-hong, like Taesu, wanted to use this journey to overcome her own weaknesses.
“Let us build our Song office from here.”
The reason Cha Un-hong did not say “my Song office” became clear at once.
She took out a certificate.
Taesu could read it so long as he had the axe at his side, but he did not say so. He wanted to hear Cha Un-hong explain it herself.
“This says that you are Cha Un-hong of Song-sang, that is, my brother’s sa-in. And you shall keep this as well.”
What she placed in his hands was the single object Song-sang valued more than life itself: a Hwangcheop, the official ginseng trade license.
There were plenty of people with Hwangcheop in their possession. But among Song-sang merchants, very few truly held a genuine one issued by the Ministry of Finance, still within its validity period, in their own name.
“Even people like me do not usually travel about on their own, you know. Most of the time, they send out their sa-in carrying their Hwangcheop and do the trading that way.”
“I understand that, but are you really fine with putting everything in my hands? Isn’t this something you should be doing as Cha Un-hong’s sa-in?”
Cha Un-hong smiled faintly.
“If my brother, who even now suffers from chronic illness, should die, then someone trustworthy ought to succeed him. But if that person had no prior ties to our house, wouldn’t people find it strange? Let’s start with you as a sa-in.”
Taesu cut off the Mountain Spirit’s nagging—You can’t even grab the rice cake someone’s offering you! and whatever else he had been going on about—and said, “You want me to inherit it? Then Manager Gong would know the household business much better than I would, and his years of service would surely be greater than mine.”
“That is true. But Manager Gong is a mun-sang, a kind of disciple-merchant, so according to Song-sang custom, we’ll divide off a portion of the ginseng fields and send him out separately.”
In Joseon, the usual way to pay servants was not with a wage. If they served for many years, you split off a foundation for them and let them become independent.
Besides, Cha Un-hong was also concerned about the weakness that came with relying too heavily on proxies.
So it would be difficult for Manager Gong to make the household obey her formally. Starting a new business of his own would be easier for him too.
“Manager Gong has already agreed to serve me under that arrangement. Until I find the right person.”
That was why Manager Gong had not stopped Cha Un-hong until now.
Taesu laughed. “Am I that ‘right person’?”
Cha Un-hong looked around.
The Geokpo fishermen who had come with them were busy unloading cargo at the harbor. No one was looking this way.
She drew Taesu’s face toward her.
“The very best person.”
Her lips met his and then parted.
* * *
Cha Un-hong pulled out the greatest weapon Song-sang possessed.
The red ginseng Manager Gong had sent her.
With that, she rented a warehouse belonging to the Song office. Since they were trading with Jeju, even a portion of the red ginseng was enough to secure a good deal.
Then she stacked the leftover yellow croaker and seafood neatly inside the warehouse.
They had sold all the gulbi to the Samarang, but without refrigeration, the yellow croaker simply could not all be handled there.
Besides, seaweed like miyeok and tolt was the sort of thing only the Irish would eat. It was a pity Ogul the captain hadn’t been there to learn the lesson of the Potato Famine early.
The fishermen worked with practiced hands.
While one group carried seafood to the market at the harbor and exchanged it for barley rice, the rest brought in jars and organized the warehouse.
And so the “Gangjin Song Office warehouse,” which by any reasonable measure looked like nothing more than a giant aging depot for barley-gulbi, was completed.
And buried among it were some “English goods” that really should not have been kept anywhere near the food.
They were the guns, swords, and ammunition brought from the Samarang. Taesu thought it was a bit like loading fish boxes onto a refrigerated truck and then stashing firearms underneath them.
No matter how openly weapons changed hands in Joseon, the public face of things still had to be preserved. If you broke that rule, from that moment on people would start applying the petty-crime principle of “he deserves it.”
But Cha Un-hong’s work was not only about hiding the weapons.
“Most of the Geokpo fishermen followed us here, and with the foreign ship incident, soon no fishing boats will be able to sail carelessly from Mokpo all the way to Geokpo. By the time this matter is settled, the yellow croaker season will be over, and the market price will naturally soar.”
“That’s true. It’ll probably rise even more in Seoul than it does here.”
“Indeed. Fish and dried seafood are usually hauled to Seoul for the last time around the winter solstice, and that is when they’re most valuable.”
After thinking it over, Taesu looked back at the fishermen.
“Then how about making these people the sa-in of our new Song office? If we’re going to ship this stuff out by boat and sell it later anyway, it seems better to use them.”
And that would also give them a natural way to return to Geokpo later.
As a bonus, they would gain the protection of the Park Axe merchant band, which would someday rule the Joseon coast.
Cha Un-hong gave a quiet smile.
It was the smile of a woman looking at a man who might become the most successful merchant in the shortest time in all Joseon, while using absolutely none of a merchant’s usual methods.
“That is exactly the sort of thing you would say.”
The fishermen, too, agreed.
“Without Park Axe, we would’ve had to throw all these gulbi away anyway. No, we might even have lost our lives to the foreign ship or the government troops.”
“And didn’t you also strip away all the foreigner’s weapons before they could even think about raiding our families back home?”
That was what the Mountain Spirit’s first words had meant when Taesu had gone out to trade weapons with the English.
The fishermen had not cooperated because Taesu ordered them to load the guns, swords, and ammunition onto the ship so they could split the profits from weapon sales.
They cooperated because those foreign guns and swords would obviously be turned on them if left alone.
Besides, as Cha Un-hong had said, the yellow croaker season would soon be over anyway. Finding a new side business from autumn onward seemed worthwhile.
A few of them went a step further and put forward an even bolder plan.
“They say Gangjin is a large town, but in any case, you can’t even reach Gangjin without passing through Geokpo on the way from Ganghwa. Wasn’t that why His Majesty Injo had a temporary palace there? Let’s set up a Cha Un-hong Song Office in Geokpo too!”
After all, they had already beaten the local clerks and constables senseless in Geokpo, so naturally they needed a sturdy backer.
Taesu met their expectations.
“Very well. If anyone causes trouble in Geokpo, say it’s the righteous militia under Park Axe’s command.”
Officially, these people were those who had “fled by boat in haste from Geokpo after hearing that foreign ships were invading.”
But it was clear that “righteous militia resisting foreign invasion” sounded much more stable.
The Ganghwa militia, which had been half-legitimized as the result of political compromise, had unexpectedly made a huge difference.
In short, Joseon people could now make contact with the West on their own terms. And if Park Axe was with them, all the more so.
“As for the talk of guns and swords, we’re worried you people might get hurt, so let’s just say we took them away and threw them into the sea.”
“Your strategy, General, is truly ingenious!”
Taesu reached up and touched his own head. Luckily, it hadn’t turned into a frizzy perm or a punk crest.
Come to think of it, in Joseon the word “general” was less a military posting than a general term for someone who led many people. Its feel was something like the modern Korean word “boss.”
“We will follow only the General’s orders, down one road and one road only. Is there anything else you’d have us do?”
It was a touching line, but Taesu couldn’t help thinking of Sesame Steps when he heard it.
He needed someone who could quickly carry news to Chungcheong Province.
To dispose of weapons at the military station, he would have to establish relations with them, and for that he needed a product to offer.
If he could not buy weapons from the military station or the garrison, then he would need a ship, if only to carry them to the promised land.
But then he hesitated to send the Mountain Spirit into Seongnyeo Yi’s dreams.
It was not only because a leader should not abuse mysterious means.
Even if he sent Yi Seong-nyeo a call from the Mountain Spirit, the message would travel from Ganghwa to Wonsando and summon Im In-son’s fleet at about the same speed it would take Taesu to send a person from Gangjin to Wonsando.
Geokpo was not far from Chungcheong Province. There was no reason to leave the experts in that sea route idle.
Sure enough, several of them nodded.
“Wonsando? That’s a place we’ve visited now and then. We know the soldiers there too. If that man named Im is just some local military officer, he shouldn’t be hard to find. Give us the letter and we’ll deliver it at once.”
Taesu summoned the Mountain Spirit with a wretched feeling.
Hey. Write this for me...
[...You’re too far from Ganghwa now. Even with the axe’s power, it’s hard to use your body. If you hate learning to read, then use that axe more often, or something.]
Then the only person who knew Taesu’s situation stepped forward.
“If you call me, I’ll write it.”
Cha Un-hong’s handwriting was known to most of the core figures in Park Axe’s merchant band, including Choe Je-u and Choe Yang-eop.
It would be a refined way of accepting Cha Un-hong into Park Axe’s merchant band, just as Taesu had accepted Cha Un-hong into Song-sang.
Like the time when their paths had crossed on the seashore at Hongju. With that memory in her heart, Cha Un-hong picked up the brush.
* * *
Kim Sun-won, who had come after receiving the psychic communication before, was still in Chungcheong Province at this point.
The enormous cargo they had traded for Hansan ramie was in turn being exchanged in Chungcheong Province for various grains and local specialties.
And not only Western goods.
Because this was smuggling, volume was always lacking. At Gimnyangjang or the Wonhongju Army Commerce Association, Western goods were little more than bait items or luxuries. The real circulation happened in Kaesong and along the Imjin River.
But the goods Joseon people actually needed were naturally more numerous among Joseon products.
And as for Joseon-made goods, there was no shortage of them.
In Kaesong and along the Imjin River, a major commercial network had formed thanks to the trade routes of the open-port era.
Accordingly, the concentration of goods in the already bustling Kaesong–Ganghwa market only grew larger.
The Bobusang now carried goods around in groups under the direction of each branch office, rather than on the basis of individual judgment. If they tried to play lone wolf the way they used to, they would end up clawing at each other over pocket change.
Not only the Ganghwa branch, but branch offices all across Gyeonggi had adopted joint purchasing and joint sales. Some quick-witted branches even acquired oxen, horses, or carts like major merchants.
This part was very important.
The Bobusang had begun acting collectively not when they were settling personal grudges or serving as government thugs, but for commerce.
Coordination between branch offices to prevent waste such as duplicate goods or pointless competition was handled by the Gimnyangjang branch office, the Gyeonggi Baekimbang.
Not even branch chief Lee Chun-hwa thought this was because she possessed such remarkable prestige.
Up until now, this sort of chamber of commerce-like flow had not existed in Bobusang society. Bobusang were an ideological group, not an economic one.
In a situation that had never existed before, there was little basis for arguing strongly for or against any decision. After all, how could you provide grounds if you didn’t know anything?
So sometimes a single sentence was enough to settle everything.
“Let’s talk about it in the Gyeonggi Baekimbang that Dobansu Park Axe has set up!”
It was hard to object. Not because they thought it was right, but because they had no alternative to offer.
As Einstein said, speed is mass. In the space of just a couple of months, the rotational force of the Bobusang—unrecognizable compared to what it had been before—had dramatically increased the total volume of circulation.
That enormous mass of goods came surging in from both land and sea.
So a single letter delivered to Kim Sun-won barely stood out at all.
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