The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs
“Nobody touches my stuff!”
After the war with the Sui dynasty in the year 3073, the Daehan Sea had become, for all practical purposes, Daehan's private inland sea.
China, having lost everything up to the Central Plains, found its remaining coastline walled off by mountains and nearly impossible to approach from the water. Japan, meanwhile, was blocked in the west by the Joseon Territory, and bound by treaty never to launch ships toward Daehan — leaving the island nation with little way out to sea at all.
“Haneul-nim, it looks like the neighboring states put out ships now and then to trade. What should we do about it?”
“Eh, let them be. Exchange is how people grow, right? Besides, that's how they end up with more for us to nibble on later.”
blissfully unaware of any of this, whoever managed to risk their life crossing the open sea once or twice and trade successfully could make a fortune. So China, Joseon, and Japan built up their own web of connections among themselves and threw themselves into commerce.
Japanese merchants called on Ming far more often than on Daehan.
“Ming sells a lot of silk over there. What if we brought some back to sell?”
Silk was produced and sold the world over, but in both quality and sheer output, two names stood above the rest: Daehan and Ming.
“What about Daehan's?”
“It's great, sure — but way too expensive. Ming's silk is much cheaper.”
“Oh? Shall we take a look?”
Crossing the sea, the Japanese merchants began importing silk from Ming, and soon they were pouring their treasured cargo out into the ports.
“Hmm? Is this really the same silk?”
“Of course it is~ guaranteed!”
“Something about it feels a little off, though.”
Naturally it did. On one side, Daehan silkworms raised year-round on fresh green leaves; on the other, Ming silkworms fed on stored, withered ones. Thread spun from those two could never be the same.
Anyone with a sharp eye or sensitive fingers could tell the difference at a glance.
“Whoa….”
“So that's why it was cheap….”
“To think there'd be such a gap between silks.”
Only then understanding the price gap, the merchants simply lowered their selling prices to match what they had paid — and still the silk flew off the shelves. The market swelled, and commerce began to flourish.
Then, in the year 3930, civil war broke out in Japan.
“War's broken out! What do we do?”
“What do you mean, what? We make money, obviously.”
“Huh?”
“Weapons and food are about to get expensive, no?”
Now they began importing weapons and provisions instead, and commerce boomed all the harder. There were plunderings and robberies galore, but the gap between what they bought and what they sold was so vast that the profits remained enormous.
And when the civil war ended, the age of warring states descended.
“That's it. It's far too dangerous. I need to hire samurai, or attach myself to a daimyo!”
“Same here. Somewhere on the coast, probably?”
It wasn't only the merchants thinking this way — farmers felt it too. Everyone began flocking to whichever daimyo had seized control of the surrounding lands. An age of chaos arrived that would have made China's own Spring and Autumn warring period look tame.
“My lord, what shall we do about the Daehan Company?”
“Do they not pay their taxes dutifully?”
“Far too dutifully, my lord. Shouldn't we raise them? They seem to be earning quite handsomely.”
“Hmm….”
After long deliberation, the daimyo decided to raise the taxes on the Daehan Company, and a tax collector was duly dispatched to the branch office.
“The tax collector, is it? What brings you here?”
Taxes were collected just once a year, and the collector had already come and gone at the start of the year — so the head of the Naniwa branch could only blink in confusion at this second visit.
“Taxes have gone up. From now on, you'll pay twice a year.”
“Why?”
The Japanese had no way of knowing, but measured against what Daehan actually earned, the taxes were laughably small. Even so, a sudden doubling was a strange thing.
“Is there a reason for the increase?”
“Er… kindly inform us in advance from now on.”
“Very well.”
It wasn't a ruinous sum, and as the branch head went to fetch the money from the vault, the tax collector watched him with a thin, fishy smile. On the way back with the payment, he simply could not get the mountains of gold and silver he had glimpsed in that vault out of his head.
And so, reporting back to his daimyo:
“While collecting the taxes I happened to glance inside — the vault was overflowing with gold and silver!”
“What?”
The collector had exaggerated a little, but Daehan truly did have money to burn. The funds sitting in a single branch office outnumbered the entire national treasury of Japan — enough said.
“Hmm…. We could take more, couldn't we?”
“You think so?”
With countless independent states springing up all over, raising and maintaining an army to hold one's land took a mountain of money. The daimyos who had caught wind of Daehan's wealth began squeezing harder and harder.
Where once the regional branches' taxes had all been paid in a lump through Naniwa, now each local daimyo began collecting from the branches in his own territory directly. That much, Daehan was willing to tolerate….
Lightning struck Haneul mid-report.
“What? Seized?”
Wait… did I hear that right? Seizure's when they forcibly take something over debts or unpaid taxes, isn't it?
“Yes….”
“Why? Did they not have enough for the taxes?”
“No, my lord. They kept collecting more and more, so the branch managers held out — and then the daimyos sent in their armies and took it all by force.”
Mining minerals was strictly a side venture; the real income came from running the shops. And the shops across the country were staffed by local Japanese.
“Hold on. The taxes are being paid in a lump through the Naniwa branch, aren't they? Why on earth seize the shops?”
“The situation in Japan right now is that whoever's strongest founds a state and rules as he pleases.”
Oh! I get it. It's like a Spring and Autumn warring period, isn't it?
“Even after the taxes were raised, they kept paying — so now the daimyos are demanding half of everything the shops sell?”
“What is this? Are they street thugs?”
No ambition in these punks at all.
“Tell everyone to pull out and gather at Naniwa.”
“My lord? What are you planning to do?”
“They say the strongest man's building himself a kingdom, don't they?”
“You don't mean—?”
What, like I couldn't build one myself? What's below Kyoto again — Osaka? Let's see if that place still goes by a Japanese name five hundred years from now.
“Heh heh heh. Guess I'll have to go myself.”
“Don't tell me this is a war!?”
“No? I have something else in mind.”
“….”
What a shame…. A steamship would be perfect for an occasion like this! There's one in the waters off Sinsi, but it's the experimental model. Could it manage twenty ri or so, maybe?
Crossing all the way to Japan would be out of the question — not enough horsepower for the range.
“Haah…. Such a waste. If only we had a steamship that could reach Japan.”
“Shall I have one built?”
“Isn't that still a ways off?”
Do you have any idea how expensive even that experimental ship was, and you talk about building another like you're commenting on the neighbor's mutt?
Goodness only knew how much money the Temple had been pouring into it…. Well, it wasn't as if the coffers were running dry — the inflow to the treasury had just slowed a touch, that was all….
“It's not so far a country, my lord. You could ride along and use the trip as a trial run.”
“And if it sinks halfway there, I'd rather not end up sightseeing underwater. Tell them to build it properly, slowly, and carefully.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Ride it halfway across, lose my temper when something breaks — and end up gifting the sea one fabulously expensive fish house.
“Actually, I can go alone, can't I? There are plenty of our kids over there.”
“That's true. Though rounding up all the scattered ones will take a little time.”
Oh, right. That's not Daehan over there. No telephones, no telegraph.
“Tell them to close up the shops as they see fit — hand everything out for free if they like. I'll be collecting tenfold once I get there.”
“Are you planning a conquest, my lord?”
“How many times do I have to say no?”
What do you take me for? I've got something far classier in mind.
“Wahaha! I had no idea there was this much money!”
“Isn't it incredible, my lord!”
The daimyos who had plundered the Daehan shops were absolutely giddy. By their reckoning, it was a genuinely staggering sum.
But even as they laughed and reveled, a rumor reached their ears.
“What? The shops are being wound down?”
“Yes! They say they're withdrawing entirely!”
“On whose authority!”
Wasn't it only obvious? The goods they sold and traded were being carried away — what kind of lunatic sits there calmly doing business with nothing to sell?
“Hurry and send word — we'll return the taxes! Tell them to keep trading!”
Only then realizing he had slit the belly of the goose that laid golden eggs, the daimyo rushed men out to the shops.
“Is the shop manager not here?”
“Er… he isn't, sir.”
The clerks had watched their goods confiscated as taxes not long ago, only to hear the shops would be closing besides — to them, the daimyo's men might as well have been mortal enemies. Precious as their lives were, they answered politely enough, but their hearts were black as soot.
“When will he return?”
“I really couldn't say. We don't know ourselves….”
They could have found him if they truly tried — but why would anyone go to such lengths out of affection?
“Then go and find him!”
“We've no idea where he might be, sir….”
“Insolence!”
“…We'll do our best to look.”
“Quickly, now!”
There was hardly anything left worth packing up anyway, so with a shrug of let them steal it if they want, the clerk simply abandoned the shop and slipped away.
Meanwhile, the manager he went looking for:
“Manager, the daimyo has sent men again!”
“Vile wretches! Barbarians who know nothing but swinging swords — and they dare!”
The manager's heart was rotting black right along with his clerk's. Daehan's goods truly were magnificent. Even the hoes and shovels, the humble farm tools, had become things no household could live without.
“Haah…. It's all ruined…. What am I supposed to do now?”
He had neither the strength nor the will to think of anything. It was then that his clerk spoke up, hesitantly, carefully.
“Um… the last time a Daehan Company man came by, he mentioned something. The Naniwa head office is staying open as-is. Perhaps… we could go there?”
He was remembering a remark the departing staff had let slip — that though the branches were withdrawing, they were taking only a share of the sales proceeds, and leaving the rest behind as their final wages.
“So they're not leaving for good?”
“No.”
“There'll be work of some kind there, won't there?”
And so, quietly, people began gathering those they trusted and stealing away in the dead of night. Their destination never varied: Naniwa. The quicker-witted ones simply walked out with the Daehan Company staff the moment they came through.
“We… could not find the shop managers, my lord.”
“What did you say? Then what of the shops?”
“There is nothing left in any of them.”
It was a rout. The taxes those shops had yielded were no small sum — just how much had they been earning, to hand taxes over so effortlessly?
In a moment of greed, the daimyos had gambled and taken goods outright. Yes, the profits had been extraordinary — but who could have imagined it would blow up quite like this?
“Seize those people — now!”
By threats or by sweet words, somehow, they had to force the trade to resume.
“That is… their families have vanished along with them.”
“What!”
“A great many people are disappearing.”
“Don't let the villagers flee! Anyone who runs pays a fine levied on the whole neighboring village!”
The shops were trouble enough, but the vanishing people were a crisis of their own. Fewer people meant fewer taxes, and fewer men to press into service as soldiers.
And all of this was playing out across the entire country, everywhere the Daehan Company kept a shop.
And so, after arduous journeys, the refugees reached Naniwa at last.
“Is this the place?”
“That's what they said — just over the pass. Come on, let's go see.”
Disguised as merchants, families hidden in their carts, they had made it this far against every odds. From every corner of the country, people were pouring toward Naniwa.
Because the merchants had gathered their own trusted circles along the way, the arrivals came from every walk of life — farmers, miners, and everything between.
“There'll be some kind of work once we get there, won't there?”
“I heard it a while back — if you say you want to work, they'll find you something, anything. Even a porter's job, they said.”
For as long as anyone could remember, life for Japan's common folk had been brutally hard. One meal a day — two was a luxury.
When word spread that the merchants were leaving, an extraordinary number of people had drifted after them, chasing a new hope almost before they knew they were doing it.
“If I could just eat two meals a day, I'd ask for nothing more. Or one meal, but until I'm full….”
“They say Daehan has more food than it knows what to do with. If you work there, they feed you — so that much we don't have to worry about.”
“I hope you're right.”
Even as the people streamed toward Naniwa, the ship carrying Haneul was gliding into its harbor.