The Country of Won Gyun (1)
Samdo Naval Command was a rich military headquarters, on par with the Jeolla Army Garrison.
Since the Jeolla Garrison had more or less gone to ruin, you could even say this was now the richest military post in Joseon.
That wealth hadn’t accumulated by itself.
The soldiers rigorously followed the standard tax protocol that even Jeong Yak-yong had recorded in The Book of Governing the People.
To take fishing as an example, the fishing tax in Gyeongsang—said to be the harshest in all eight provinces—was 20 percent.
Not 2 percent. A full fifth.
If you had a complaint, you could only go tell Yeongjo, who had half the state coffers “on sale” under the military service law and shoved most of the burden onto the sea. Honestly, that king must have had some kind of grudge against seafood.
Of course, even that 20 percent tax was applied in much the same way as the grain-loan system.
The petty clerks took 20 percent, the officers took 20 percent, the rank-and-file soldiers took 20 percent, the errand boys took 20 percent, and even the government slaves who were supposedly freed by Sunjo somehow respawned and rushed in to grab their share.
No one could stand against that overwhelming, wave-like assault.
“What? You already paid? Stop talking nonsense and hand it over—our Commander’s mother has a birthday, and we need more! You think this is just for us to eat?”
“What? The military officer who came this morning took it too, saying it was for the Commander’s mother’s birthday...”
“Our Commander has two mothers!”
“Then are both their birthdays on the same day? Agh! Ouch! Why are you hitting me?”
“A beating is the only medicine! You lowborn bastards only have half the filial piety, since you’ve got only one mother!”
Well, even the king usually had more than one mother, so it wasn’t an entirely absurd excuse. In a Confucian country, the more filial you were, the nobler you became.
If fishing alone was like this, there was no need to mention the income they could extort under other pretexts here in Tongyeong, where all the goods of the southern seas of Gyeongsang gathered and scattered again.
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That was exactly why the sagujin were needed.
The existing order was not always something to be overthrown; more often than not, the reason it survived outweighed the reason it should be changed.
The sagujin had enough power that they couldn’t be stripped clean at random.
For example, when military officers kept inventing new mothers for Commander Yi, the sagujin would rigorously ask whether that mother was a wife, a concubine, a wet nurse, or one of the Eight Mothers recognized by law.
That was why the filial piety of the sagujin could not be doubted the way the piety of fishermen or petty merchants could.
It wasn’t worth colliding with the gang a sagujin controlled.
If the Joseon army had been able to jump into any fight where it felt it might get hit back, the Silla navy and Erigon would already be sitting at the bottom of the sea. Objectively speaking, neither side could beat the Joseon military.
On top of that, if the sagujin came carrying money and carried out “a conversation with the Commander,” the Commander would learn that his soldiers had said he had two mothers. In Joseon, if you touched someone’s mother, murder was basically legal.
So the soldiers would come to a great understanding of propriety and back down.
The reason they controlled cargo whenever a ship came in was the same.
If cargo were left to the free market, the army would march straight in and strip everything clean. The sagujin would be ruined, and so would the people of Tongyeong.
And Masan, Gimhae, Dongnae, and all the other places connected through the Tongyeong hub would be ruined as well.
The sagujin’s role was to protect goods from the military first, then buy them from fishermen and small merchants and distribute them afterward.
Their extortionate profiteering was, in a sense, the commission for that process.
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Bak Seol-chae briefly explained the situation.
“So even if I had to risk my life, I couldn’t let you in. Once that line was broken, every damned riffraff would come swarming in like flies around a granary full of rice, and nobody would respect us in Tongyeong anymore. It’s pointless to say now, but I didn’t hurl fire at your ships because I had some personal grudge, either.”
Unfortunately, Kim Sangro and Cha Un-hong weren’t listening.
That was because the man they had tied up after apparently snapping his Achilles tendon had somehow slipped free and stood up as though nothing had happened.
“Good heavens, is that some kind of performer’s trick?”
“I’ve heard that since childhood they train their flesh and bones to be soft so they can fit easily into a small rice chest...”
Taesu’s foundation was Muay Thai, so joint locks weren’t really his specialty.
Even so, that was still an absurd level of flexibility. Prince Sado should have abandoned useless techniques like the One-Hundred-Slash Sword Method and joined a troupe of traveling performers to practice box-escape magic instead.
Taesu stroked his chin.
For now, the damage to his merchant guild was almost nonexistent.
Bak Seol-chae’s only crime was the attempted offense of hurting Cha Un-hong’s feelings by making it look as though she might be injured.
So Taesu had no intention of killing him or anything of the sort.
What he was trying to do was unite the nation’s peddler guilds and connect the regional markets, not engage in destruction and plunder like the Joseon army.
Bak Seol-chae deliberately made a sound from another joint and rubbed at his heel, which had been hidden to make it seem as if it had been dislocated, loosening it back into place.
“You thought the sagujin were just greedy, blocking the harbor and skimming cargo, didn’t you? But a crooked tree still guards the ancestral graves. Without the sagujin, what would the inland peddlers like you fellows be hauling around to sell?”
Taesu considered Bak Seol-chae’s words.
Inland bobusang.
That was starting to make some sense.
The main goods carried by the bobusang—salt, fish, and other merchandise—mostly traveled along the Nakdong River.
Their point of origin was here in Tongyeong.
Dongnae was more important for connections with Japan than for domestic trade.
The dried-fish shop on the boat, and the Naesang they’d originally been after, were tied to Japan rather than to the country inside the peninsula.
If you looked only at the project of unifying the domestic bobusang, the Nakdong River trade network connected to this Tongyeong hub might actually matter more.
And the core force of that Nakdong trade network was precisely the Cheongju Han clan represented by the very Bak Seol-chae standing before him.
“When the sun rises tomorrow, the soldiers will come from Suyeong. It’s not too late yet. If it’s now, I can talk them down, so let’s just make this simple—you go pay your respects to the Han family and sell your goods cheap. I won’t overcharge your fellows traveling up and down the Nakdong this time, either.”
That way, the dignity of the sagujin network would be preserved.
And they would also gain a connection to the Han family, who held considerable influence inland.
That was what Bak Seol-chae thought, at least. The truth was different.
His territorialism was a little excessive, but Taesu liked his willingness to compromise—and the fact that even in defeat, he still wanted to stand tall.
So Taesu decided to wake him up to reality.
“You’ve traded for years, and you still don’t know the soldiers?”
“What? What would you know—”
“All the commotion just now will already have been reported to the military headquarters. And the side that won is us, while the side that lost is you. So where do you think the army will aim first?”
Despite the summer heat, Bak Seol-chae froze solid.
And once again, in Taesu’s ear, he heard the voice of the goat idol.
You make a good point. Another scheme just came to me. Want to hear it?
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Much later, Taesu suddenly turned to look to his side.
“Your Excellency will have to help us.”
Your Excellency?
Even the Commander here, who was practically a god, was addressed as merely “Sir.” Bak Seol-chae was startled by that lofty title.
Yi Ha-eung, the impossible-to-refute daegam, straightened his robes.
“We cannot let the predation of corrupt officials and predatory opportunists continue. I’ll see it ended before this night is over.”
Taesu wasn’t trying to use power to pull some scam at this point. Yi Ha-eung had no real power anyway.
Like Bak Seol-chae wearing the Malttugi mask, Taesu was wearing the mask of a yangban.
For Taesu, the value of a yangban or a king was only ever that of a tool.
Yi Ha-eung knew that too. He already knew exactly what kind of man Park Axe was.
And for the same reason, Yi Ha-eung was certain that if he said this to Bak Seol-chae, Bak Seol-chae would simply obey.
“Summer nights are short. Quickly gather the local brothel owners, boat owners, innkeepers, and the big middlemen here.”
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Hong Huirok, the Tongyeong Tonguho, was no minor officer, since he stood in a position directly assisting the Commander.
To put it in terms a modern person could understand, Hong Huirok was a power player who could manipulate all the law in Tongyeong as he pleased and had already extorted at least 3,000 nyang in legal consultation fees from matters that had come to light.
Considering that Joseon military officers usually had very short tenures, that was an astonishing rate of return.
So it was only natural that Hong Huirok would also be well informed about the military changes taking place in Joseon recently.
The Gyeonggi navy has practically been abolished. The Chungcheong naval command has become little more than a den of merchants. The Jeolla Left Naval Command was annihilated by the foreign ships...
Samdo Naval Command was the naval headquarters overseeing the three great naval commands of Chungcheong, Jeolla, and Gyeongsang. There was no way he wouldn’t know.
Even the Jeolla Left Naval Command, which had somehow remained intact, was now busy scrambling to respond to emergency requests for cash transfers coming from the devastated Right Naval Command and the Jeolla Army Garrison.
What did that mean?
It meant Tongyeong was next.
He didn’t know what on earth had produced this era’s upheaval. He could only guess at things like foreign ships.
But a wise otherworld hero would not waste time wondering what caused the Industrial Revolution; he would simply copy the results quickly and trigger industrialization in Joseon.
The wave of upheaval would come to Tongyeong as well. If he spent his time debating the cause, he’d be too late.
If he was lucky, he’d just end up a beggar like the military officers at the other branches; if he was unlucky, he’d die miserably like Jeolla soldier O Chi-hyeon.
And if he was even less lucky, he’d hear nothing but that he resembled some ancestor, like Jeolla Right Admiral Yi Hui-jang.
There was only one thing to do.
One last score, then get out.
Go to Seoul and spend some time in an honorary post—something like Upper Protector General or Generalissimo—and wait for this storm to pass.
That was what Tonguho Hong Huirok was thinking when news of the tiny crack in the sagujin network reached him, and it was an opportunity he could not ignore.
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Bak Seol-chae was dumbfounded.
The Tonguho’s order was exactly as Park Axe had predicted, down to the last detail.
“We’ve already received all the reports. Merchants shooting guns, throwing fire, and swinging blades in the dead of night—have you lost your minds? I strongly suspect you’ve been taking your cue from those Westerners who are said to be stirring up trouble these days!”
He really did know everything.
He was even pinning the crimes Park Axe had committed onto him as well.
Well, if it were him, he’d probably do the same.
Bak Seol-chae’s ships numbered only a few at most. They were lean and efficient for their size, but they couldn’t compare with Seol-chae’s team or with the entire Tongyeong sagujin network.
And at this point, Park Axe’s identity had probably already been exposed.
What fool would go after a poisonous fish that had more spines than meat?
Proof of that could be seen in the officers Hong Huirok had brought with him.
Hyeon Seok, the Gadeok Commissioner.
No Gyeong-ha, the Jinju Horse Inspector.
Yeom Hui-am, the Hanseon Special Commander.
Tak Mun-jin, the Namchon Special Commander.
They were all elite members of the Tongyeong command who had fully awakened the fruit of plunder—at least up to Gear Second.
Just the fact that they spent their days loafing at headquarters instead of showing up at their remote posts made that obvious.
Their arrival meant a citywide consensus of plunder had been formed within the Tongyeong command.
Hong Huirok had come intending to strip the sagujin—no, the sagujin of Tongyeong—down to the roots.
To think he’d completed a full-blown “buster call” in a single night. If he’d done this during the Japanese invasions, Konishi wouldn’t even have set foot on this land.
But this side had prepared in a single night as well.
Bak Seol-chae first tried to pry more of the Tonguho’s intentions out of him.
“Oh, swords and guns? It’s just the usual street brawling at the harbor, sir. As always, we’ll handle it ourselves. Hey, what are you standing around for? The Tonguho has come all the way here. Clear the room out, and bring in the prettiest girls you’ve got! And make sure the drinks are well stocked!”
“You bastard! How dare you try to sway a court official of the Third Rank with women and booze! Did a scholar strike you as the sort to fall for such petty desires?”
Hong Huirok’s rebuke was sharp, though he had come with far larger desires than a mere pittance.
“Do you know where you are? This is Tongyeong! The spirits of the old Commander watch over us, you wretch!”
It seemed to be true. Behind Hong Huirok, the spirit of Won Gyun rose with a strange sound effect, and even the dried-sashimi-and-wasabi apprentices hiding aboard the ship saw it clearly.
“Bring me every man here who fancies himself important! I shall investigate this matter with the utmost severity!”
By now, it was blatant.
Bak Seol-chae and Park Axe had caused the disturbance, so what did the other sagujin have to do with it?
But from this point on, Bak Seol-chae could no longer respond however he pleased. He was not the leader of the sagujin.
So he did as Tonguho Hong Huirok ordered.
That had been his plan from the beginning, anyway.
If only Bak Seol-chae took the hit, the sagujin could simply cut him loose, but if the entire sagujin network in Tongyeong Harbor was attacked, that would no longer be possible.
If we all pull together, we might be able to manage this. Park Axe said he’d help, but if it came to that, we’d lose face too...
Still, Hong Huirok was no pushover.
His attack, powered by the stand of Won Gyun that had never been caught at Chilcheollyang, was too fast even though they had been prepared for it.
The moment the sagujin gathered, he shouted again.
“Seize and bind them all at once!”
Caught off guard, Bak Seol-chae and the sagujin panicked.
After all, investigations and trials are usually little more than ceremonial confirmation.
That’s why the lawyer shouting, “I object!” in the courtroom is the stuff of fantasy.
If you want to make excuses or negotiate, you have to do it before you’re tied up.
The moment they were dragged away, it was over. Tongyeong was a military command, and once they started getting thrashed with the giant military cudgel used only in army posts, anyone would confess that they had in fact been conspiring with Martians to prepare a rebellion. There are actually quite a lot of confessions like that in records.
“N-no, sir Tonguho. What is the meaning of this thunderbolt out of a clear sky?”
“Even if you had your doubts, sir, these sagujin have been paying respects at the command headquarters for years. Why this sudden treatment?”
Hong Huirok, brimming with the energy of Tongyeong, unleashed Won Gyun’s full ability.
Kim Sangro only changed his own nationality, but Won Gyun changed other people’s nationality.
It was the same power he used when he tricked Joseon people into being taken for Japanese pirates and had them beheaded.
“A righteous official does not concern himself with private feelings. You bastards have clearly colluded with the Western barbarians and Japanese pirates who are now stirring up the coast of the country, so why should I leave even one of you alive? You will all be beheaded before the military gate, and your property seized!”
Bak Seol-chae forgot all about the plan for Park Axe to help and burned with rage.
“So while the country is in chaos, you mean to pin crimes on us and fill your own pockets!”
Truth be told, all over the nation’s naval commands, all manner of unprecedented accidents and scandals were now erupting.
From the central government’s perspective, it would look as though some nameless disaster had swept counterclockwise from Gyeonggi all the way down through Jeolla, only to be stopped in Tongyeong by an “agile response.”
Indeed, Hong Huirok was a talent with enough vision to hold the office of Tonguho.
The other elite members displayed their own specialties as well.
Tak Mun-jin, Namchon Special Commander and self-proclaimed “creative loan shark” who usually arrested anyone he liked and beat them until they remembered they had once borrowed money from him, took the lead.
“Agh!”
“Oh God, I’m going to die!”
When state violence decides to cross the line, civilian “strength” doesn’t amount to much.
That’s because it is sustained by the trust created through agreement. Once you decide to ignore that trust, it becomes meaningless.
That trust—that the people believe in the state.
In the face of that trust shattering into pieces, this last ambitious scion of a doomed royal house stepped forward at last.
Author’s Note
1. The legal system of the Eight Mothers divided mourning customs for the death of the eight mothers a noble might have, including wet nurses.
2. Modern Busan borders the Nakdong River, but that is due to urban expansion; Dongnae-bu at the time was much smaller. It is similar to how Seoul did not border the Han River back then, either.
3. The crimes committed by Hong Huirok and Tak Mun-jin in this chapter are all real. The rest will appear in the next chapter.