The Daehan Company
The Daehan Company posted a single recruitment notice with the Daehan Intelligence Bureau.
We are seeking employees.
Develop and manage resources in foreign lands, sell goods… (abbreviated)…
You could think of it as something a bit like the East India Company.
「Rustle rustle」
The applicants came in droves. Honestly, most of the Intelligence Bureau was slated to transfer over here anyway.
"Intelligence Bureau" was a fine name and all, but these kids spent their time trading — and, whenever they got bored, playing bandit. If they were going to operate this openly, calling themselves an intelligence bureau would just be weird.
"The young lady is arriving. Quiet, everyone!"
"…"
This organization was truly strange. Not an army, not a secret society, not a guild of merchants.
So I gathered the kids together, gave them a new name, and restructured the organization so they could do whatever they wanted.
"Did everyone rest well?"
"Yes!"
With so many people, it took a very long time just to gather the squad leaders in one place. Which meant the seas would be quiet for a while. There was so much to study.
"Alright, let's get started right away!"
Over the course of no less than three months, I taught the children about the company's main line of work — trade, ports, and maintaining public order.
Within the broad category of "trade," I explained a bit of diplomacy, the logic of power, and even a little about outright plunder.
"Young lady! I have a question! What if we spot a passing ship that appears to be carrying something very valuable?"
"Excellent question!"
You lot are basically a privateer fleet!
"Now! The important thing is this — without witnesses or evidence, no one can blame us! So do as you please!"
"OHHH!!!"
Well, obviously they were asking so they could strip it bare, so of course I told them to have at it. That much is fair game, isn't it?
The Europeans did it all the time, didn't they?
"Now! For our first stage, we're heading to Japan!"
Let's use it as practice and go shake that country down to its bones! This kind of work requires know-how, so we'd need to get some practice in before venturing farther afield.
"And you'll try setting prices, choosing goods, and selling them! You can work in your squads, or group up into bigger teams!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
They'd mostly be sailing out on Black Whales or Horned Whales, right? Anyone with half a brain would bring Dolphins along for landings, so forming teams across multiple squads would give them the advantage.
"Think long and hard about how to maximize your profits — and earn lots of money!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"And who are you lot!?"
"Employees of the Daehan Company!"
That's right — these kids were the world's first state-owned enterprise. We had plenty of manpower, so unlike the East India Company, there was no need for a bunch of nations to band together.
"Let's go! Move out!"
"Let's go!"
"Let's smash everything to pieces!"
"Euhaha! Time to rob and pillage!"
Hm? I said trade, didn't I? Hold off on the stealing for now, okay?
For just a moment, I wondered whether I might have unleashed a poison upon the world. Yes. Just a tiny bit.
"Eh, whatever. They'll figure it out."
During the training period, I singled out the ten smartest kids I'd been keeping an eye on. I had a special job for them.
"Um, young lady? Why me?"
"A company needs a president, doesn't it?"
"What's that?"
"The boss!"
"Ohh!"
Yes, yes, your eyes are all sparkly now — but give it a week and they'll turn into the dead, rotten eyes of a mackerel left out in the sun.
It's a desk job, after all. …Sorry.
And so, just as I'd done with the Prime Minister, I had the kids sign the honorable, hereditary lifetime employment contract and hauled them off to their new workplace.
"Um, young lady? What is this place?"
"Yep. This is where you'll work."
"Not on a ship?"
"Hm? You want to work on a ship?"
"Of course!"
Fine, fine. Give the people what they want — that much, I can do.
I had a specially converted office ship built for them. It floated in the lake right beside the government office, though — anchored out in the middle of the water, positioned so that fleeing would be rather difficult.
"YOUNG LADYYYY!!!"
Someone seems to be calling for me? Aaaah~ can't hear you~
Their job was to compile everything into manuals ahead of time, since it seemed best if we avoided running into each other as much as possible. Sorry for the trouble, everyone. Somebody has to do it, after all.
"It's not like I can do it myself, right?"
Things would've been a bit easier with a computer, but no such luck.
And so the Daehan Company employees and I crossed over to Japan. For the first three years, we were hopelessly green — scammed out of our money, cheated left and right, swimming in red ink.
I watched from the sidelines and let it happen. The kids were just so naive. It wasn't a catastrophic loss, and honestly, it was kind of cute, so I just enjoyed the show.
So, the first scam — I'd say it was around spring of the company's first year? Some Japanese man showed up carrying what looked like a piece of silver ore.
"Honored elder, I found this in the mountain over there. Isn't it silver?"
"Oh! It is silver!"
"Would you care to see the site?"
He led the way in a burst of excitement, and I tagged along, wondering if it really was a silver vein.
When we got there, the Japanese man was diligently digging up dirt that, to anyone's eye, had clearly been dug up once before and hastily covered back over.
「Scrape, scrape」
As he dug, stones came tumbling out — genuine chunks of silver ore. Since when does silver ore come out of loose soil? Good grief…
"Oh! It's silver! Excellent! I'll buy this mountain from you!"
"It's a silver mine, though, so it'll cost you a fair price, elder."
And then, just like that, he pulled money out of his coin purse, pressed it into the man's hands, and walked away with the deed to the land.
There hadn't even been time to stop him.
Then he rounded up a workforce and immediately started setting explosives.
"Young lady! We're rich!"
"Sigh…"
That blissful, innocent face — I almost felt too guilty to scold him.
"Everyone stand back! I'm setting the charge!"
"Run!"
「Fssssss… KABOOM Kukukung, RUMMMBLE」
The process of digging, packing in the explosives, sealing it up, and lighting the fuse went off without a single hitch — flawlessly, efficiently executed.
Then the dirt collapsed. Clear it away. Blast again. Clear it away. And more dirt. Just dirt, forever and ever.
"Good grief…"
"Ah— no! Where's the silver? Where is it!"
Only then did he fly into a rage — but the swindler was long gone, and there was no finding him now.
"Well, this one's a bust?"
"Just a little more! Hnnngh…"
Unable to give up, he kept blasting away. But you know what they say — where there's a will, there's a way?
"Huh? What's this?"
"Eh? Isn't that copper?"
"Well, would you look at that! Something DID come out! For real?"
It was a copper mine… So yes, he'd been scammed, but a genuine mine had come bursting out of the ground anyway.
And then the second year? That time they went to what was supposedly a gold mine, and there were actual gold nuggets rolling around everywhere? What luck! They bought it in a fever of excitement — and it turned out to be gold-plated.
My, my. Those con artists had real skill, didn't they?
Falling for scams one after another like that, the early years were nothing but losses.
But then experience accumulated, and they turned into proper professionals — compiling books of techniques and distributing them. Three years on, they were no longer getting swindled, and were developing mines for real.
The kids said the animals here were docile, so they combed through the mountains without a shred of fear, unearthing mountains of iron ore, gold, silver, tin, coal — you name it, they found it.
And our Japan headquarters was the seven-story building in Naniwa — the Japan Branch of the Daehan Company.
Since we'd shipped all the materials in from Daehan, construction took a full three years, and today we finally held the opening ceremony.
「BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!」
"Good call doing it at night."
A fireworks display, launched from the ships far off toward the heavens.
If we'd launched them from the building, the smoke would have blocked our own view, so I'd asked for the ships to handle it instead.
"Nnnghhh…"
Beside me sat the branch manager, looking like a man about to die.
"What? It's the highest seat there is. You don't want it?"
"No! I don't want it! I want to sail!"
Hm? Another one who'd rather be on a ship? Sailing must really be that great, huh!
"Eh? Shall I treat you like they do at headquarters?"
"No! Not that!"
"Then how about I build you a temple, and you can sit in its prayer room all day?"
"Gahk…"
You'd have no room to complain, so quit your whining.
"Just manage the kids well and quickly recruit someone to sit under you. Problem solved, no?"
"Who would DO that!?"
"You'll just have to look hard. Don't ask me?"
That one hit home, didn't it? Maybe a knock on the head is what it takes for some sense to sink in?
"Waaahhh…"
A full-grown adult, crying? He looked so utterly miserable that I decided to give him some time alone and stepped outside.
「Murmur murmur」
"So this is the Daehan Company — the ones giving out jobs?"
"Yep. Looks like it."
"Wow, how do they even build a building that tall?"
"Taller than the imperial palace, isn't it?"
Outside, the Japanese locals were crowding around, gawking. Everyone had come flocking in hopes of becoming miners.
In regions we didn't visit ourselves, people came to us like this directly, and we ferried them out on our ships.
"Mmm, what is this? It's delicious!"
"This must be everyday fare in Daehan!"
We'd laid out a open-air feast — food spread across the grounds for anyone to take — and the response was tremendous.
We were distributing portions by headcount, but whole families came out, grandmothers carrying infants on their backs to collect the children's shares as well. Food was clearly precious here.
They say they even practice double-cropping in the rice paddies — so why were commoners still going hungry? I couldn't understand it.
"These fools are going to need a revolution before they come to their senses."
Keep this up, and it would only be a matter of time before the streets ran red.
The feast wound down, and from the next day onward, things got busy.
We recruited miners on the ground floor, but it was the food brought in from Daehan that began selling like hotcakes. Compared to local Japanese prices, it was genuinely cheap.
"I just can't stand seeing people starve. Even the ones I can't stand — I'd rather they ate well."
There was a performance-based bonus system, so wages varied, but a miner who worked hard for about six months earned enough to buy food for a family of six to eat for an entire year.
"I heard you're hiring workers here!"
"Yes! Workers, please line up in the back!"
"Hey! No cutting in line!"
They formed lines on their own, policed the cutters themselves — utter pandemonium.
"Now, lift this!"
"HUUUUAAP!"
Mining was heavy work, so there was a practical test: walking a set distance while carrying a sack of rice. We were screening applicants in our own way.
"Anyone who knows the Daehan language, come this way! We'll make you an overseer!"
"OHHH!!!"
Bringing employees all the way from Daehan for every bit of minor paperwork at the mines was impractical, so we hired locals like this — the only requirement was a working knowledge of the Daehan language.
So we built an open-air schoolhouse on one side of the building, and a classroom teaching Daehan sprang up. Everyone studied there, then took the company's entrance exam.
Frankly, three months of work here earned you as much as a full year of farming — who in their right mind would keep farming?
"Wow… the young lady of Daehan is truly beautiful…"
"Yeah… I'm just waiting for the moment she walks past me…"
Hm. A fan club had formed. People came in as if attending job interviews, then just sat there glued to their seats all day long.
「Smile~ wave~」
"KHAK—!"
"Hrk—!"
As a bit of fan service, I'd give them a little smile and a small wave, and they'd be so overcome with joy they nearly died on the spot.
I have a feeling those guys might become the world's first otaku.
The interview hall on the ground floor mattered, but it was the shops right there that truly mattered. All those countless goods people had only been able to glimpse at the port when picking up cargo!
When the shops opened, all hell broke loose. Food and cotton cloth sold out so fast that ships were lining up at the harbor just waiting to restock them.
And the nobles and rich merchants — they'd haul in gold and silver by the armful, convert it to cash, and buy silk by the cartload.
"Cotton is softer and more comfortable to wear, so why are they so obsessed with silk? I'll never understand."
My own wardrobe was almost entirely cotton — it's just that my dye jobs happened to turn out especially pretty.
The fabric caused quite a stir among the commoners, too. A miner's monthly wage came out to roughly 30 to 60 won.
That meant they could buy about 13 to 26 ja of cotton cloth a month — enough to make two sets of men's clothing or one set of women's.
Doing it by hand — picking out the seeds, spinning thread, weaving it into cloth — took an absurd, mind-numbing amount of time.
"We make ours so easily. Hehe!"
Back in Daehan, nearly everything was mechanized; only the weaving itself was semi-automatic, and even that alone had multiplied cloth production beyond all imagination.
Honestly, that 30 won was already a steep markup — people here simply couldn't buy it anywhere else. And that is precisely what makes a country that industrializes early so terrifying.
"Soon enough, they won't be able to live without Daehan's goods."
Frankly, buying cheap beats scraping together your own clothes at the edge of starvation — who's going to bother making their own? Better to earn money doing something else and buy it instead.
"Your Majesty, this cannot continue. It is dangerous. We must make a move."
"I know…"
There were those in Japan who felt a chill of crisis at Daehan's advance.