Ragnarok (1)
Seeing Un-hong packing up to leave, a man I’d completely failed to think about until then suddenly came to mind.
“Ah, come to think of it, what’s Won-beom up to?”
[…If it were anyone else, you’d have asked about him first.]
Fair enough. That did make me feel a little guilty.
But only the kind of guilt you feel for forgetting to ask after a friend. I’d been busy; it happened.
[So Cha Un-hong said she’d raise Yi Won-beom to the throne, did she not? That’s why you only thought of the next king after seeing a woman. You detestable wretch.]
Ignoring the slander that came after, it still had to be Won-beom’s own wish.
If he didn’t want it, I had no intention of forcing him. After living in Joseon awhile, the value of the king’s seat had honestly started to look pretty ridiculous.
[That is not quite so. You may lecture a stubborn ox until the words run dry, but if I speak plainly, even you relied on the yangban families to settle your affairs with the Bedside and the Inner Wound, did you not? And yet without a king, those yangban families cannot be moved.]
“The yangban families all look down on the king, though.”
[There are many who neglect the very thing they most need. That is why the country has come to this. Whether for good or ill, the yangban cannot do without a king.]
“Why?”
[Because the king is proof that they are allowed to stand above the common people.]
Ah.
I thought I understood what he meant.
If the king cracked down on scholars who exploited the people under the pretext of serving them, then those scholars could not refuse to acknowledge the king’s rule over them. That was the situation now.
And conversely, if the scholars did not recognize the king, then the people would not recognize the scholars either.
Still, that didn’t mean I agreed with the mountain spirit’s logic.
I was just starting to think of a way to use it.
[What vile scheme are you hatching now?]
Not as vile as yours.
Right.
Then, once again, from the other side.
Wouldn’t it be enough to make a king the scholars didn’t respect, and build a world where the common people didn’t respect the scholars?
I didn’t exactly know history in any great detail.
But there probably had never been a king with less baggage than Won-beom.
Some rough shape was starting to form in my head. I asked the mountain spirit,
“So what is Won-beom doing? Oh—wait, did he maybe get married? To that girl Bong?”
[No. He is on Gyodong Island now.]
“What? Why the hell is he there?”
[It seems he is learning military matters.]
Why the hell would he go learn soldiering from a militia? He couldn’t have joined the regular army, I supposed.
Right. He was an exile. I kept forgetting that all the Joseon exiles were way too free for me to remember their status properly. Kim Jeong-hui was the same.
But even so, Gyodong Island? I didn’t want to say it out loud, but right now Christianity had about the same public image as the Taliban.
[There are already many who go there to sell their labor. Choe Je-u has hidden Catholicism well enough inside Donghak that it does not show so plainly. Yi Won-beom is not a fool compared to you.]
What are you talking about? You saw him too. He’s a fool.
[He can read. You cannot.]
“...Soldiers need strong bodies.”
[It seems that may not even be necessary. He’s gone in under your name as something like an aide-de-camp. Sounds like he’s been looking at Western weapons and whatnot. He did fight the French at Choji Fort, after all.]
...Well, whatever. If he was doing fine, that was a relief.
Then some day Choe Je-u or someone would probably send word that Won-beom was with them. I’d have to tell Un-hong then too.
* * *
The two of us set off again.
We stopped in Daegu with the Gyeongsang peddler band heading north on their return trip, confirmed Yeongbansu Bak Seol-chae’s authority, and quickly finished the work of setting up another Songbang called Cha Un-hong Songbang in the herbal medicine market.
That branch was taken care of mainly by people from the Chilgok Han clan, part of Seol-chae’s own network.
It would become an indispensable waypoint later for the ginseng trade bound for Waegwan. Separate from Taesu’s peddler corps, the Song merchants were growing too.
After that, we headed north through Uiseong and Andong.
Andong was not a place a market could ignore.
Sure enough, we met people from the Yedeok Commercial Association there, who had come from Chungcheong Province in the west.
It was a separate organization, distinct from Im In-son’s Wonhongju Six Army Commercial Association, and it competed in a region not all that far away.
With four branches under its belt in Yesan, Deoksan, Dangjin, and Taean, it was no small force. When the Yedeok Commercial Association was first formed, it even sent circular letters to branches across the country despite not even being a proper affiliated branch itself.
Of course, now it cooperated with the Wonhongju Six Army Commercial Association, which had raked in a tremendous profit through exchanges with the Imjin River trade routes and its southern sea expeditions.
Under the banner of the Chungcheong-baekimbang, the Yedeok Commercial Association expanded inland interests instead of following Im In-son’s association, which focused on the sea.
It was mutually beneficial.
Kim Sang-ryeol, the vice-leader here, chuckled and made light conversation.
“To meet the dobansu in a place like this without so much as a prior arrangement—it must be fate. I’ve heard all about how you’ve pacified the seas, dobansu, but the sea is only roads and gates in the end. Goods are ultimately sold to people on land, are they not? Don’t neglect us either.”
“Of course. From Gangwon on, I’ll be traveling on foot again too.”
Up through the Gihu region, Taesu still didn’t have all that much wealth, so a porter was enough.
And from Jeolla onward, we’d been traveling by boat, so it didn’t matter even if the luggage was heavy.
But from here on, it was land travel again.
Yeongdong was mostly a fishing region, and the markets a peddler would want were in Yeongseo, linked to Gyeonggi through the Han River.
So we had to go overland, but Gangwon wasn’t exactly flat country.
Kim Sang-ryeol helped us with that.
He exchanged Taesu’s filthy, heavy stack of copper coins for his own promissory note.
When it came from the Yedeok Commercial Association, even traveling peddlers who were treated like paupers couldn’t ignore it.
Kim Sang-ryeol laughed heartily.
“That donkey looked to be having a very hard time. Since I’m the one selling you the note, just pay nine-tenths of the amount written on it.”
Taesu had never once thought to pay attention to the burden on the porter’s back. That was why he hadn’t even considered a promissory note.
Still, with that beast easing up on its temper for once, life became more comfortable for everyone. Taesu thanked Kim Sang-ryeol.
* * *
“Should I try using promissory notes too? It’s not like I can’t, is it?”
Promissory notes were also a thing that linked Taesu and Cha Un-hong.
And Un-hong herself had come from Kaesong, the very cradle of such notes.
At this point in midsummer, when summer was attempting one final counterattack in a battle already decided in defeat, even the cicadas winding around the sunlight sounded languid rather than fierce.
So Un-hong spoke in a somewhat sleepy voice.
“Mm. True enough. You could issue notes too. But wouldn’t it be better if I wrote them for you? I’m not saying your credit is no good, but the people of Gangwon probably don’t know you well.”
“Do you know anyone in Gangwon?”
“No. I mean the Gangwon Songbang would buy them.”
After a moment’s thought, Taesu shook his head.
“No. If I issue the notes, people will either come to me to cash them in, or go to a different province’s baekimbang.”
This trip wasn’t so much about profit as it was about solidifying peddler movement itself. Roots that don’t let water through rot.
“I hadn’t considered that. Then again, if the dobansu who subdued the Three Southern Provinces in half a year appears in Gangwon, no one will have the nerve to question his credit.”
Un-hong stretched languidly atop the now-lighter porter’s back.
“Then on difficult roads, I can ride like this too. Though if I’m being honest, I’d rather have you carry me on your back….”
She glanced back over her shoulder.
They had an extra burden tagging along with them.
It wasn’t Yi Ha-eung or Ha Jeong-il.
Those two had neatly wrapped up the Dongnae business and were heading back to Seoul with Kang Gi, the grand censor, after his triumphant return.
Kang Gi had insisted on repaying the debt he owed them, and Yi Ha-eung also could not afford, for his own political purposes, to cling only to Taesu.
So the one following after them was not Yi Ha-eung or Ha Jeong-il.
He wasn’t even Joseon-born.
It was the former high templar of the Imjok Sect, Itkyu.
* * *
After the Waegwan battle, Itkyu had become a problem no one knew what to do with.
He had become an important witness, yes, but his testimony could only be used behind the scenes. Dongnae-bu had to deny his very existence.
Sending him back to Waegwan was even more troublesome.
Though, as Tsushima had always done, there were supposedly no people actually punished in Waegwan, that was exactly the problem.
Since they had decided not to punish the chief interpreter or the magistrate’s office, there could be no mistake on their part.
But someone still had to be at fault.
That was the only way the great men above could remain safely innocent.
And naturally, the number one candidate was Itkyu.
All of Waegwan’s plans had been ruined when Itkyu lost to Taesu.
If he went back, he’d be dealt with.
True, he had been dragged into it by Taesu, but Itkyu had already set foot on Joseon soil privately. No need for Tsushima’s usual talent for fabrication—he was as good as dead.
The erased Itkyu had nowhere to go. The exiled high templar had become a dark templar.
So Itkyu, who had ended up with Taesu’s group, just came north to Daegu along with them.
Nobody said it outright, but everyone was thinking he’d be dead in a few days.
Everyone except one person.
On the road to Daegu, Taesu glanced at the Itkyu bound up and dying by the roadside and said,
“If I were killing him in a fight, I wouldn’t hesitate. But dragging him along like a dog on a leash and then killing him this way is hard to stomach.”
Bak Seol-chae, who had been a little startled, grinned.
“As I thought, that’s what the dobansu would say.”
Taesu took an antibiotic out of his pack.
It was something he had only ever used once, when Un-hong had tripped and scraped her knee.
Fortunately, the painkiller was unnecessary, thanks to the sheer toughness of the man’s mental fortitude.
With the strength of a hardened body reinforced by the power of twenty-first-century civilization to prevent infection, Itkyu had come around by the time the party reached Daegu.
The people of the Gyeongsang-baekimbang in Daegu murmured among themselves, feeling that the pride of the herbal medicine market had been trampled.
“Is that the Western miracle drug only Park Axe’s dobansu has?”
“How can we get our hands on some?”
“I hear those strange Western goods can only be found through that Park Axe fellow’s jurisdiction on the Imjin River.”
“I wondered why that Bak family fellow, now appointed Yeongbansu, was acting so full of himself. Turns out there was a reason.”
It was the sort of reaction one could understand.
With no complications in his urinary organs and no rot in his intestines, Itkyu’s condition could only be called the Buddha’s protection. As for the loss of his sexual function, that wasn’t exactly a fatal matter for a monk.
Only the spirit of Namsan, who ruled over the sensual realm, let out a sigh.
[So this is the second one after Kim Seong-hwa, the former vice-leader in Yongin? By the time your journey is done, you won’t have to worry about a shortage of eunuchs.]
“Don’t talk like I’m the one making all the kingdom’s castrates. There’s the king too.”
Yes. The stories behind eunuchs were many.
As even the Bible said, which Taesu knew well enough, some were eunuchs from their mother’s womb, some were made that way by men, and some made themselves that way for the sake of heaven.
It seemed this one, who had once belonged to the second category, had decided to enter the third.
“From my fight with you, I have gained much insight, and I no longer have any attachment to the world of dust. I can be called to nirvana at any time, but if I tour the temples of Mount Geumgang in the Joseon Kingdom, which I have heard so much about since long ago, I believe I may awaken to the Way once more. Most of all, I owe you the debt of saving my life.”
Itkyu thus declared his intention to follow Taesu into Gangwon.
[That Japanese bastard is definitely a spy. Back during the Japanese invasions too, it was exactly those kind of monk bastards who entered the country, stirred up the people, and spied on the situation.]
The mountain spirit’s sharp analysis, having completely forgotten why Itkyu was here, was ignored.
Even if he was a spy, if I wasn’t going to kill him, it was better to keep him under watch.
In the end, Taesu allowed him to come along.
* * *
Itkyu did his best to reassure Un-hong.
“Ride on my back if you wish, or on my lap if you wish. Even if you do something before this humble monk’s very eyes, not even the width of a hair’s worth of delusion will arise.”
“That’s not what I mean! How on earth are you so sharp when it comes to foreign words?”
“This humble monk was originally a cheongseo yeokseung, handling documents and messages back and forth between Joseon and Tsushima….”
“I was telling you to act like you didn’t know!”
‘Did he figure out Un-hong’s a woman too? Because he’s a cleric?’
[No. It sounds more like he just thinks she’s a man.]
After her temper flared, Un-hong turned to Taesu.
“Are you really taking him with us?”
Taesu nodded reluctantly.
“What else can I do? We’re going to Gangwon, and he says he’ll help us.”
“I may not compare to you, but this humble monk can still put some strength to use. I believe I will be of help on the road.”
In Joseon, the deaf and the sexually crippled were treated as “available labor.” That was why the promised land’s welfare only included the blind and the lame.
In truth, that was part of why Un-hong wasn’t strongly opposed to it.
As far as she was concerned, she was always on edge whenever Taesu fought.
No matter how strong he was, one slip, one stab to the belly, and it was all over. The strongest self-defense of all was not fighting in the first place.
And Itkyu seemed able to prevent plenty of minor fights.
His Japanese monk robes were too conspicuous, so he’d disguised them with a Joseon robe and a sedge hat, but he had refused to give up that heavy-looking seokjang, his priest’s staff.
The Buddhist-style staff bore six rings that chimed cleanly whenever he walked.
The purpose of that sound was to drive away small creatures and avoid taking life. In Itkyu’s case, that naturally included human beings too.
Ordinarily the tip of a priest’s staff is blunt, even when conical, but Itkyu’s staff boasted the sharpness of a combat monk.
He gave the staff a shake.
“This humble monk does not mean to excuse himself, but the principles of Kurama Yoshin-ryu extend across every branch of martial skill. Empty-handed combat is only a small part of it. Of course there is grappling and rope technique, but the spear method performed with this staff is the part most worth boasting of.”
It seemed he still hadn’t shaken off all his attachments.
If Mount Geumgang was truly as famous in both China and Japan as they said, then it must be full of sacred temples. I should probably stuff him into one of them as soon as possible and fulfill his wish.
It didn’t matter much, but the mountain spirit seemed to like that line of thought quite a bit as well.
[Did I not once say that the capital of officials is Seoul, and the capital of merchants is Songdo?]
“You did.”
[And the capital of us mountain spirits is Gangwon. With so many sacred peaks there, I shall get to enjoy some fine scenery myself this time. My heart is most pleased.]
I felt a bad premonition crawl up my spine.