The Recovery Team for the Sacred Relic (1)
At the pass of Sagilchi, a modest fair had been set up.
Under the threat of Taesu’s “link arms, smile, damn it, smile” brand of intimidation, the scholars and their entourage had hastily fled under the steward’s guidance once they’d broken formation.
That left almost nothing but merchants behind.
And the work to be done was obvious.
Taesu laid out the dried fish and salt.
The peddlers were delighted. After all, the reason they held their rites in the first place was to ensure the prosperity of trade.
“I could tell from the rough shape of you, but to think it was Park Axe, of Ganghwa, in the flesh! I wasn’t sure of it at first—I never imagined the Dobansu would travel with such a small party.”
“Mm. Is this really enough of a bargain? Even I think I sold it a bit too cheap.”
Cha Un-hong, who had handled the bargaining, answered easily.
“Our Dobansu isn’t here for money, sir. He only wants the rest of the fellows to prosper.”
“Much obliged. At this rate I’ll still make a profit as far as Bongpyeong. Sea cucumber, of all things—do you think I’ve ever even seen that in some flea-bitten inn?”
“You’re still hung up on that Bongsae from Bongpyeong, that Chungju woman? Come off it. They say she’s already struck up dealings with a merchant house in Chungcheong’s Baekimbang through hometown connections. She’s hardly short of money enough to bother with you.”
The sight of two peddlers tangling and bickering did not inspire anyone.
They had all just seen Taesu and Itkyu’s display of skill.
So when the man who had fainted earlier, Yi Jin-hong, staggered up to Taesu and started talking, it didn’t seem all that strange either.
“For the hero Park Axe to appear at a time like this—there can be no doubt that it is the miraculous power of Lord Taebaek Mountain!”
[Correct him quickly. Say it’s the miracles of this Ganghwa Namsan Mountain Spirit.]
Taesu wanted to beat the Mountain Spirit senseless. Since he couldn’t, he settled for hitting Yi Jin-hong once more.
A little later, after Yi Jin-hong came to again, he still didn’t give up.
He came over once more.
Cha Un-hong, recalling the crimes the scholars had denounced against Yi Jin-hong, hid behind Taesu.
Taesu kicked Yi Jin-hong away.
“You’re not even a stockpeddler, so why are you acting friendly? You’re some crook who cheats people and then preys on the village girls—”
“N-no, that’s a misunderstanding!”
“Yeah. Back in my hometown, every last one of them said the same thing. Go wait around and get hauled off when the constables come later.”
“That’s not it. The woman is actually my daughter-in-law.”
Unfortunately, that explanation did nothing to clear things up.
Taesu and Cha Un-hong stared at Yi Jin-hong with the kind of look that said, Are you one of those people or something?
Taesu already knew the Bible, and Cha Un-hong learned it later. In the knowledge base of the two of them, the only people who came to mind were the kind who coupled with their daughters-in-law and fathers-in-law.
Yi Jin-hong, who was not nearly so disgusting as the Joseon people imagined, added an explanation.
“My son died young, so I’ve been teaching the family trade myself. The old customs are all scattered in this world, but the Ogyumjam rite is something that should be handled by a shaman. About the hairpin I mentioned earlier, I sent someone to look into it; since it was a secret matter, he came by at night.”
[Oh? It wasn’t a lie?]
Taesu was about to ask how he knew that, when he suddenly remembered Yi Seong-nyeo.
‘Is this bastard actually gifted with real spiritual intuition?’
[Your nature is so rotten that Heaven didn’t bestow the talent for beating people on you? Spiritual intuition is the same. Compared to Yi Seong-nyeo, it’s practically nothing at all, but in any case, he isn’t lying.]
Taesu only took in the last part.
In any case, Taesu himself had been after the Ogyumjam as well. He asked Yi Jin-hong, “What exactly are you trying to find out? Where the hairpin is? Planning to steal it?”
“Good heavens, no, sir. Everyone knows it’s at Gyeonghaeng Seowon. But if it disappears and we perform the Ogyumjam rite again here, anyone could see at once that it was stolen. From that point on, you’d just be giving those fellows we saw earlier the perfect excuse to come smashing everything here apart.”
“Then?”
After hesitating, Yi Jin-hong lowered his voice as though confiding a secret.
“We were planning to make a new Ogyumjam.”
[This little bastard’s got a brain after all. True enough, if you make a new one and insist that the spirit sealed in the Ogyumjam has moved here, that’s the end of it.]
Taesu, who had spent a long time among pastors, found it hard to believe that such shameless reasoning wouldn’t work.
It worked on people. Human beings believe what they want to believe, not what is most credible. It’s just like Europe, where if you gather all the discovered Holy Crosses, you can apparently build an Amazon rainforest out of them.
“So I consulted in secret so no one else would hear. We planned to convert the treasure we’d set aside into cash and make arrangements for various things.”
The source of the “set-aside treasure” was obvious enough.
Taesu decided to think of it as ordinary religious-corporation business, the sort where a pastor collects donations from the faithful and builds a church with them. If he wanted more information, he couldn’t knock the man unconscious.
Still unaware of how close he was to danger, Yi Jin-hong lowered his voice further.
“Only, the real problem was where to get enough pure gold to make a hairpin like that. I asked the stockpeddlers who were involved in the mutual aid guild first, but when has a road merchant ever laid eyes on a gold ingot?”
“So?”
“Well, since the Dobansu appears to be no ordinary trader even at your young age, I thought perhaps you might know a merchant capable of supplying high-quality gold in quantity. If you could introduce me, I’d pay you handsomely for the favor.”
Of course, Taesu knew.
He knew very well who, in present-day Joseon, was likely to possess the largest single gold ingot.
And just then, the voice of a trickster god—some Loki of delayed Ragnarok—came floating in.
[I have thought of a scheme.]
* * *
In any case, the moment Taesu heard the word “scheme,” a reflexive surge of revulsion rose in his spine.
When people say human beings believe only what they want to believe, the reverse is also true: they will absolutely not believe what they don’t want to.
After sending Yi Jin-hong off for the moment, Taesu flatly rejected the Mountain Spirit’s plan.
‘Why would I do some filthy thing like that? I can just sell my gold to Yi Jin-hong at a decent price and let him revive the Ogyumjam rite. Then the market will prosper.’
The Mountain Spirit was shocked.
[You would help a man deceive others for profit?]
‘If he runs the business with a real Ogyumjam, how is that any less of a deception? The important thing is that the peddlers gather here.’
The Mountain Spirit stamped around in agitation.
[You fool. Then people will have no reason to revere you!]
‘That’s the sort of thing kings want. Once they’re in our camp, I don’t care whether they respect me or curse me. When I was trading goods earlier, I could tell even the peddlers here wanted to come under us. Didn’t you hear them talking about Chungcheong’s Baekimbang?’
Taesu had already used his impressive display of force to stop a fight that could have caused the peddlers serious losses.
And he had also moved goods that the Gangwon peddlers would love.
Taesu felt that was enough to win over the Taebaek peddlers’ goodwill.
But the Mountain Spirit insisted, with great vehemence, that it was nowhere near enough.
[This isn’t about whether you receive respect. That little priest bastard must not be the one they revere.]
‘You said the girl-predation thing was a misunderstanding, didn’t you? Then what does it matter if he makes some money? Yi Seong-nyeo is making money in Ganghwa too.’
[Aha! That is only natural because she serves a true god, whereas the jade-sword dog is powerless now. It is like Qin Shi Huang dying and then having his corpse hauled around behind a fish cart while they stamp an imperial seal on it.]
‘Who the hell is Qin Shi Huang? Fish? Is he some sea god too?’
Qin Shi Huang does have a sea god’s worth of mercury in his tomb, sure enough. The Mountain Spirit grimaced.
[I was mistaken. In any case, so long as that priest connects the peddlers who pass through here by means of whatever mutual-aid network he’s using, the peddlers south of Gangwon will listen to his words before yours when things get urgent. Do you know why the court keeps trying to wipe out this Ogyumjam rite?]
Because once private power rises above the government, the government becomes meaningless.
Taesu fell silent for a moment.
Just then, Cha Un-hong came up beside him.
“You seem to have a lot on your mind.”
In her hand was a chunk of beef, a keepsake handed out to people taking part in the Mountain Spirit Shrine rite.
Taesu, deploying the skills of a modern man—or perhaps the skills of someone who had drifted from bartending part-time job to bartending part-time job—grilled the meat for her.
Cooking outdoors calls for outdoor food. Cut into generous chunks and threaded together with scallions, wild chives, and strips of pickled fish, it became a skewer worthy of the holiday tables.
“You worked hard too. Eat.”
“Heh. Our country has always forbidden meat. How could a monk possibly eat flesh—”
“If you don’t want it, don’t eat it.”
“And yet the monk Itkyu, whose Dharma name I respect enough to inherit, did not shy away from meat or drink.”
Perhaps still trying to preserve appearances, Itkyu took several skewers and disappeared somewhere. Kurama Yoshin-ryu even has ninja arts.
While he was gone, Taesu slowly explained Yi Jin-hong’s business proposal to Cha Un-hong.
“As for gold, there’s no need to introduce anyone. It might be better just to cut up the axe and sell it, then help the peddlers breathe a little easier. What do you think?”
The beef, cut into large pieces for better chewing, was a bit much for Cha Un-hong. Gnawing at it like a hamster, she shook her head.
“I don’t think that would be wise. At the very least, you mustn’t just sell gold and leave. If you do, this Yi Jin-hong shaman will have Taebaek Mountain’s whole region bowing to a single word of his, and that would interfere with the Gangwon Baekimbang we plan to build later.”
“Really?”
[When I said the exact same thing, you treated it like a dog barking...]
Ignoring even that, Taesu said, “Then Yi Jin-hong is the one who’ll be a nuisance to me. He’s bound to try to fool me someday. Should I deal with him now, while I’m looking at him?”
“He might deserve that. But, hmm. This...”
“If you jam it in that far, you’ll hurt yourself. Give it here. I’ll pull it out for you.”
“Thank you. Ah, what I was trying to say earlier was this: I know you dislike schemers, but that Yi Jin-hong fellow hasn’t actually done anything yet. Perhaps he’s trying, in his own way, to look after the peddlers.”
As she said that, Cha Un-hong pointed with her chin toward the meal scene where the other peddlers had gathered in little clusters.
They were chewing the beef received as ritual food in very small bites, swallowing it with modest clumps of steamed rice.
Some were also seen boiling the dried fish Taesu had sold earlier, or adding salt to cook rice with it.
Taesu had seen plenty of peddlers eat like this. It was the means of survival for people who still had to get up and keep walking.
But now, their movements held something besides the fear of death.
“It feels like something’s changing now. I heard from someone that the fellows in Gyeonggi and Chungcheong have seen their households prosper ever since Park Axe came.”
“To put it bluntly, weren’t the road merchants all just people trying to get out of this life as fast as possible by saving enough money to buy land or bring in a tavern woman? But now that this side is making a lot more money, they don’t want to leave.”
“Isn’t that something. Maybe, as that priest Yi Jin-hong says, you’re a man sent by the mountain spirit.”
“All these years, despite having nothing, I’ve faithfully offered up a handful of barley rice. Seems it wasn’t for nothing after all.”
“The priest has suffered too, guarding the shrine through every manner of oppression without even having a body.”
Cha Un-hong could somehow know things Taesu had seen, though even he couldn’t have explained how.
As if waking him up, she said, “But it’s also true that Yi Jin-hong has pocketed plenty of private gain and deceived others all this time. Let’s make sure the hairpin matter is resolved in a way that helps our side. I haven’t thought of a good method yet.”
Taesu slowly turned his head. What he was about to say was the sort of thing that would make the Mountain Spirit slam the ground in grievance and roll around.
“All right. In that case, I’ve got a scheme.”
* * *
First, Taesu secretly separated off a portion of the gold axe.
The method was the same as when he split the silver axe at Goerido.
Then he handed it to Yi Jin-hong and said, “I happen to have a little gold I obtained while going back and forth with the Naesang merchants in Dongnae.”
Yi Jin-hong was overjoyed and nodded knowingly.
“Well, if it came from the Naesang, then it must have come and gone with the Japanese, and Japan is famous for having gold in abundance! That’s saved us a great deal of trouble. I’ll pay not only the full gold price, but a generous fee on top of that!”
Most of the payment Yi Jin-hong produced was silk, the same silk he had used to clothe the wooden image.
Taesu called over a few Samcheok peddlers who wanted to get acquainted with him.
Then he entrusted them with the money and goods Yi Jin-hong had paid.
“I’m planning to make a circuit of the Gwandong markets later, so take this as far north as Chuncheon. If it costs anything to move it, feel free to use it from the load.”
“Now that’s generosity! We’ll definitely leave it with the merchant house in Chuncheon. Ah, I’m Hwang Taebaek, a local man here, and this fellow is Go Bongpyeong. He’s the one who had his eye on that tavern keeper earlier.”
“I’ll remember that.”
After the peddlers left, Taesu handed his axe over to Yi Jin-hong.
“By now you should know why I’m traveling all eight provinces. I’m going to pay a visit to Gyeonghaeng Seowon, so I’d like you to speak well of me to the peddlers passing through here, as if this were payment for gold I obtained easily.”
Yi Jin-hong agreed at once.
“Leave that to me. But why are you going to Gyeonghaeng Seowon? As I said before, if you try to steal it or seize it, the people here will face official trouble, so perhaps—”
“I know. I’m not doing that sort of thing. I’m going there precisely because of that official trouble. Even if it can’t be fixed simply by making the Ogyumjam disappear, once a fight breaks out, do you really think those bastards will just sit still?”
Yi Jin-hong agreed. After suffering such humiliation today, the seowon would not simply sit by and do nothing if the Ogyumjam were not stolen.
“My judgment was too short.”
“They’re obviously going to make trouble, so I’m going early to negotiate before it starts. I know a few people among the gentry.”
“If it’s Park Axe, that’s hardly surprising.”
“Then I leave this axe in your care. From now on, every peddler who passes through Taebaek will obey Park Axe.”
Taesu, who had never had much talent for acting to begin with, had to keep his face rigid the whole time he spoke.
Yi Jin-hong thought Taesu was angry and focused only on appeasing him.
As a result, he never imagined what Taesu was really planning.
And after the night he spent having a “strange dream,” Park Axe scarcely crossed his mind at all.
Author’s Note
1. Strictly speaking, the Ogyumjam rite is a separate ceremony from the Sagilchi Mountain Spirit Shrine rite and is held in a different location. The true site of the Ogyumjam rite was near Gyeonghaeng Seowon, and there is currently a Catholic church there. However, because the divinity of the two gods is treated as the same or confused in folk belief, I combined them into one here for the sake of clarity.