God’s Emissaries (2)
Mountain Spirit flew into a rage, like a pastor hearing that a mosque was about to move into the building across the street.
[I know of those detestable wretches. The authorities were in an uproar trying to capture them. They are surely the gang of that fellow Kim Dae-geon, who’s been roaming across boundaries as he pleases these days.]
You were just telling me to make money by sticking with a cross-border smuggling ring. Why is it only illegal immigration that offends you now?
Still, Kim Dae-geon… that name sounded familiar somehow.
[Both heresy and border trespass are grave offenses. If only we seize those two twice-damned scoundrels, then ginseng will be worth nothing at all! No, if things go well, we might even get ourselves a magistrate’s post without wearing official robes!]
The demon’s temptation had little effect on me.
My own identity was even more suspicious than theirs. They’d crossed a border in secret; I’d crossed dimensions in secret.
Besides, whether it’s smuggling or illegal immigration, whatever the cargo may be, collusion with local criminals is essential. From a peddler’s jujubes sent overseas to a secret operation run by the National Intelligence Service, it’s all the same in the end.
In other words, that group had to have both a broker and a knife man with them. I didn’t much feel like picking a fight. Especially not at four-to-one.
I let out a sigh.
“Let’s just go back. Ginseng isn’t only found here.”
[Other ginseng requires permission from the mountain spirit on that side!]
“You don’t have much of a reputation in the spirit world, do you—ah, don’t shout. My head’s ringing. If I die, you’re in trouble too, remember?”
[And after witnessing divine power, you still do not believe me? If those vermin pollute the vital energy of this land, I, too, will lose my strength and vanish! A god whom people do not revere is no god at all!]
The words “what do I care?” rose all the way to my throat.
But Mountain Spirit’s next words made it impossible to stay that cold-hearted.
[This is my home. Is a home merely an object like money or clothes? Why did you slaughter six men in a single night and set fire to the place? Because your home was taken from you, was it not?]
Hisss. I hadn’t expected to feel sympathy for this demon bastard.
“...Fine. Let’s watch a little longer.”
One by one, the men spread out their bedding and lay down.
Like proper criminals, it seemed they meant to sleep through the day and head out at night. Great. Was I going to have to sit here for hours?
But the concern was pointless.
From behind us, a sudden shout rang out.
“Hey, brother! What’s happened to you, lying there like that?”
I nearly sprang out of my prone position.
Whether he had eaten rehmannia or not, the force behind that roar was thunderous. The whole mountain shook.
The men below jerked to their feet as though they’d been jolted with electricity.
Why the hell are you already here? Premature, maybe?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
First, for the sake of royal honor, let me make one thing clear: Yi Won-beom didn’t even get to meet Bong-i.
He had gone to the agreed meeting place at the spring, only for their paths to cross and the whole thing to come to nothing. In an age without watches or phones, that was hardly unusual.
With nothing else to do, Yi Won-beom came back to look for Taesu again.
Contrary to Taesu’s assumption, Bong-i had only been second on Yi Won-beom’s list of priorities that day. The meeting itself wasn’t something that absolutely required Taesu’s company.
Unknown to Taesu himself, the events of the previous day at the market had already had a profound effect on Yi Won-beom.
Fortunately, the mountains of this era weren’t exactly lush enough to make tracking difficult. Yi Won-beom had no trouble following Taesu’s trail, and soon spotted him “collapsed” on the slope, then ran over in a hurry.
“Were you bitten by a rattlesnake that had just woken up? Wait just a moment. I’ll be there right away! Good heavens, I told you not to go wandering around the mountains by yourself in spring—”
“Shut up!”
Taesu sprang up and kicked with the speed of a striking snake. The military boot slammed into the royal backside with a sound like a cannon blast.
While Yi Won-beom hopped around on one leg, Taesu looked down with the expression of someone chewing raw mugwort.
He still had the axe in his hand, just as Mountain Spirit had urged.
The insane god’s laughter kept ringing inside Taesu’s head.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The quick-witted Kim Dae-geon understood the situation from Yi Won-beom’s shout alone.
The sound he had heard a moment ago had indeed not been a wild beast. Someone had been watching them.
Kim Dae-geon reasoned swiftly.
If there were more of them, they would have rushed us instead of spying. There are probably only those two. If so...
Then they couldn’t be allowed to escape.
Yi Ui-chang, the faithful errand-man, immediately grasped the priest’s intent.
“Up there! Grab them!”
With the last shred of a priest’s conscience, Kim Dae-geon shouted hurriedly,
“I’m not saying kill them!”
“Don’t worry. I’m a believer too. We’ll gag them, tie them to a tree, and then run.”
Even Kim Dae-geon couldn’t bring himself to say that gagging and tying them in the depths of these mountains was no different from killing them.
Two butchers from the Ban Village among the group leapt upward with remarkable agility.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Ban Village in Hanyang, now the area around Myeongnyun-dong, was a feudal estate owned by Sungkyunkwan.
The students of Sungkyunkwan were free to enjoy their excesses thanks to the serfs of that estate: the butchers and courtesans of Ban Village.
In return, they enjoyed extraterritorial privileges stronger than those of any modern university.
It was absurd for Sungkyunkwan, a sacred ground of Confucianism, but the village’s closed-off nature—the reason it was called Hanyang’s ghetto—also made Ban Village an ideal hideout and training ground for the early Catholics. There were many believers there.
That said, even Heaven’s teaching couldn’t fully reform the barbarity of those Ban Village butchers, for whom the blade always flew before the sermon. Then again, Sungkyunkwan couldn’t do it either, so naturally it was hopeless.
For Kim Dae-geon, therefore, these men were prized talent. The two butchers, combining violence with faith, made excellent escorts for a dangerous clandestine boat.
Taesu’s guess had been right.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
As Kim Dae-geon and Yi Ui-chang followed behind, bolstered by holy power, the two butchers charged up the low slope with great vigor.
Ho, ho, ho—hoo! The wailing language unique to Ban Village skipped and leaped between them like the cry of foxes.
While one man bent low to draw the dagger tied around his calf, the other expertly covered his front and hurled the stone he had already palmed.
It was smooth teamwork, with feinting, defense, and attack preparation all handled like flowing water. In fact, Yi Won-beom even cried out and crouched down when the rock missed him entirely.
But Taesu did not.
The slinger, his arm cocked back for a second throw, suddenly widened his eyes.
Something much heavier and larger than a stone was flying toward him.
Mountain Spirit’s admiration was audible only to Taesu.
[That looks like it hurts rather a lot.]
The axe spun through the air and struck the slinger square in the chest.
Unlike when it had dealt with Mountain Spirit, the blade did not embed itself—but whether it sank in or not, the blow was fatal either way.
“Guh!”
The stone-age warrior, who had just gotten a taste of iron-age civilization, let out a single scream before being hurled backward.
The knife man behind him was crushed beneath his comrade and rolled down the slope as well. Bad luck had him slam his head into a tree stump, and he promptly passed out.
Taesu had waited for the moment when the two men who looked like the actual fighters lined up in a single straight path.
The tank and the ranged attacker went flying in an instant. Kim Dae-geon and Yi Ui-chang froze where they stood.
Taesu had been waiting for precisely that opening. He flung off the bag that weighed about as much as a man.
Then he tossed it to Yi Won-beom. Yi Won-beom, catching it by reflex before being crushed and knocked unconscious, never saw that part.
By then Taesu was already sprinting downhill as if he were falling.
Before Kim Dae-geon and Yi Ui-chang could even steady their breathing, Taesu picked up the axe and stood before them.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Yi Ui-chang was Kim Dae-geon’s indispensable lieutenant in his activities in Joseon.
It was Yi Ui-chang who introduced influential local figures as believers and built the underground network, and he was also the one who arranged the smuggling boats to and from China.
Indeed, Yi Ui-chang displayed the resourcefulness of a shrewd deacon.
“I’ll give you half the ginseng!”
Taesu’s hand, just as he was lifting the axe, stopped dead.
Seizing the opening, Yi Ui-chang hurried on.
“From the looks of you, you seem like some young woodcutter from a local household. With this much, you’ll be set for life.”
As he spoke, he quietly gripped the cane he had been using to climb the slope.
In a game it might have low damage for balance, but in reality it was a weapon more frightening than most blades. And at this distance, the cane would reach him while the axe would not.
What Yi Ui-chang had overlooked, however, was one thing.
Taesu had a frame tall enough to seem strange even to Joseon men, which meant his arms and legs were far longer as well.
With a sound like a drum bursting, a Muay Thai low kick smashed into Yi Ui-chang’s thigh.
“Ugh!”
It was on a completely different level from the kick Taesu had used on Yi Won-beom’s backside a moment earlier. The strike flew in like a steel club on a whip, numbing the muscles at a stroke and setting the femoral artery quivering.
Yi Ui-chang dropped his cane and, against his will, collapsed to the ground.
Taesu raised the axe and looked down at him with the same eyes he had used when staring down the emperor who had offered him a hundred times the deposit.
“You’re the ones who came at me with blades first. Who the hell do you think you are, trying to bargain before anything else? Hm? You think you’re in any position to do that?”
[Well said! Half the ginseng? Half, you say? Those insolent vermin. I granted this mountain ginseng, and yet these heretics dare to strut about as though it were theirs! Bring that axe down at once and execute them according to proper law!]
Even to Yi Ui-chang, who could not hear the ancient god’s ranting, death seemed imminent.
He had stumbled into the hands of a complete madman. The fastest-possible last rites were staring him in the face.
But Taesu was the champion of the Namsan mountain spirit, and Kim Dae-geon was the champion of Jesus Christ.
Though to a priest’s common sense, that did not mean crossing bayonets in a cross pattern to carve up vampires or hurling energy bolts through prayer.
What Kim Dae-geon possessed was something far more useful.
Just before Taesu’s axe was about to take Yi Ui-chang’s head, Kim Dae-geon shouted with quicksilver agility,
“We’ll give you everything! Just spare our lives!”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
As history proves, Kim Dae-geon was by no means a coward.
If it were a glorious martyrdom in defiance of political oppression, he would accept it without hesitation.
But in this situation, wouldn’t he be left without even a decent excuse when he got to the other side?
Having surrendered all the ginseng, Kim Dae-geon did what he should have done before Yi Ui-chang even opened his mouth about half of it.
He apologized to Taesu with proper courtesy.
“We often have to face bandits on the road, and someone had been watching us, so we only meant to seize you because we were startled. We are not profiteers, and much less murderers. I would be grateful if you could put aside your anger.”
If not for those words, Taesu would have cut down the entire group, just as Mountain Spirit wished.
But precisely because he was that sort of man, Taesu lowered the axe despite the spirit’s urging.
[You’re not seriously planning to let these wretches go, are you?]
Beating them half to death and driving them off should be enough.
With the mysterious efficacy of Korean ginseng added to the divine power of a future saint, reason finally returned to Taesu as well.
He remembered that, despite knowing nothing at all about history, he had still recognized Kim Dae-geon’s name before.
Putting together the fact that he was a Christian with the fact that the wave of modernization was about to crash over Joseon, Taesu judged Kim Dae-geon to be something like a figure of the Enlightenment faction.
Taesu himself was not so different from the average Korean. If someone might later become an independence fighter or a standard-bearer of modernization, he didn’t especially want to kill them on purpose.
Maybe, like in a novel, they’d end up helping future Koreans. Taesu felt oddly proud of himself.
The fact that Kim Dae-geon would be executed this year without even seeing the first snowfall, to be honest, wasn’t something every history professor would have memorized either, so there was nothing to be done.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
While Taesu collected the ginseng, Kim Dae-geon treated his companions.
There was no need to hand over the modern first-aid supplies from the backpack. Medicine, after all, is one of the essential skills of a missionary, just like cooking. There was a reason healers tended to be clergy.
The three men were strong to begin with, and Taesu had no immediate intention of killing them, so it wasn’t long before they came to.
Yi Won-beom, who hadn’t actually been treated at all, woke up around then too.
“Ow, my back… What a calamity this is. Huh? Brother, why are you down there?”
“Did you sleep well? Let’s go.”
Taesu spoke casually, as though ginseng had never existed in the first place. The dozen or so roots were neatly stowed in his backpack.
All the way back down the mountain, Yi Won-beom kept grumbling that he’d had rotten luck.
But Taesu didn’t agree. For him, it had been the luckiest day of his life.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Of course, the ones having the worst luck were the Christians.
Yi Ui-chang, clutching his horribly swollen thigh, limped over to Kim Dae-geon.
“Was it really all right to let that fellow go?”
“What would we have done if we hadn’t? We should be grateful they let us go at all.”
“That bandit took all the ginseng. What are we supposed to do now?”
“It was never ours in the first place. The Bible says if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the left also, and if anyone wants your outer garment, give him your inner one as well.”
Yi Ui-chang, not quite as pious as a true believer ought to be, harbored a sacrilegious suspicion.
He wondered whether that meant if someone smacked your right cheek especially hard, your left cheek would get comboed next, and then both your outer garment and your underclothes would be taken away, too.
Kim Dae-geon glanced toward the direction Taesu had disappeared.
Kim Dae-geon’s studies abroad had lasted far longer than those of the average modern Korean. As for Taesu, whose fortunes had been miserable, there was no need to mention him.
This wasn’t the sort of overseas study where you waste your parents’ money learning how to roll a pretty joint. Through the courageous discipline of a man of the cloth, Kim Dae-geon had mastered Europe’s latest learning and most of its languages.
Above all, Kim Dae-geon had personally witnessed the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing after the First Opium War. He knew more about the West than Joseon as a nation had managed to collect in information.
To Kim Dae-geon’s eyes, it was plain to see.
The shoes Taesu wore, the bag slung over his shoulder—those were items impossible to explain without some contact with Europe. He was in no position to ask outright and confirm it, but perhaps Taesu was a Christian.
If so, he would be of great help in spreading the new faith and punishing its persecutors.
Because of the Opium War, the French warship Érigone was stationed in the Far East on rotation.
And as far as Kim Dae-geon knew, Joseon had no force capable of opposing a European warship.
Maybe not a war exactly, but with enough pressure and an appropriate show of force, the opening of ports and tolerance for the new faith were entirely possible. That was the lesson Kim Dae-geon had learned from the Opium War.
Unfortunately, the Érigone’s captain, Jean-Baptiste Cécille, was uncooperative when it came to invading Joseon.
He was a European too, so naturally he wouldn’t have disliked invasion itself. What Captain Cécille disliked was the way missionaries were trying to elbow in on the conquest of Asia, which should have been the achievement of the royal government and its army. This wasn’t the age of the House of Bourbon, after all.
So Cécille had refused Kim Dae-geon’s request to enter Joseon aboard a French warship. Kim Dae-geon, in the end, had to drift in on a small boat instead of making a grand landing on a Western vessel.
From this point on, whether or not I can move Captain Cécille will depend on me.
And that “depend on me” even included his willingness to die as the spark that ignited the fuse. French and Joseon sailors might disagree somewhat on the matter, but anyone with a cause worth risking his own life for tends to weigh other people’s lives on that same scale with ease.
Still, even that lofty resolve had faded a little after getting beaten this badly. There was no helping it.
The man was not someone to make an enemy of. After choosing the most rational course for the future, Kim Dae-geon led the group on again.
“We’ll be at the port soon. The boat we arranged to buy should be waiting, so take heart.”
The apostles of God, limping and staggering, hurried once more along the path of illegal entry.
Author’s Note
1. As of 1846, France is under the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe. In the novel, it will collapse two years later in the February Revolution of 1848.