Ordinary Days (2)
There's a banquet today. Nobles, I suppose you'd call them? An event where the well-to-do families gather to talk and strengthen their bonds.
It takes place in a separate hall built alongside the building that houses the Grand Assembly Chamber. Nothing overly lavish — just a few potted plants scattered around the meeting room, really.
Tap, tap.
I only wear shoes when I go outside, since there's the occasional bit of filth on the roads; everywhere else, I walk barefoot. My skin never gets dirty, after all.
Today, too, I draped myself in purple and white cloth as I entered the hall. Purple, for whatever reason, is a color permitted to me alone.
The golden embroidery stitched along the hem of the purple fabric is truly lovely. It looks like tree vines, or maybe geometric patterns — hard to say.
As the celebrity of this era, the moment I step into a gathering like this, I need to greet everyone first.
"Hello, everyone! It's been a while."
"Greetings, Haneul-nim!"
Good grief! My ears nearly fell off. Thunderous as ever — some things never change.
The crowd was made up of the four great houses I personally appointed at the top, followed by some thirty clans great and small. People who govern regions or run massive trading operations, gathered here from every corner of the land.
"My, quite a turnout today. I made the sikhaek to bite today! Everyone make sure to try it with the fried chicken!"
As a sort of host, I figured I ought to contribute something too, you know?
"Ooooh!!!"
A roar that could lift the roof off. These people didn't gather with any special purpose in mind. They're simply my fan club. They show up hoping to catch one more glimpse of me.
That's why they lose their minds over trivial little appetizers like this.
"And this was only possible thanks to our sailors who went and brought back sugarcane! Thank you!"
We can't refine it yet, so it's just squeezed juice at this point — but hey, where else would you find this?
"Woooaaah!!!"
Oh, so you were all over there, were you? I invited you thinking your achievement was impressive, and there you were crouching in that corner.
What remarkable friends they are — they wandered the coastline for years without even knowing exactly where they were going, and found it anyway. Of course, Ji-won did support them from the Temple.
Once clocks are invented, we'll be able to sail the open ocean freely, won't we? The Age of Exploration — I'll be running that one myself!
"Really? I hear they get a lot of pepper in the West these days?"
"Yes. Apparently if you bring pepper, they'll trade it for gold?"
"However far it may be, it's still just pepper, though?"
They seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around it? Of course — they don't know what it was like when pepper first arrived in this country.
It looks like they're exporting pepper, but apparently they have no idea that pepper can't actually be grown here. Maybe the kids are living a little too comfortably?
What would they do if I disappeared, or if the Tree withered...
Hm? Come to think of it, what would happen if the Tree withered? What if a missile falls on us someday? Good heavens. Everyone would starve to death. This is something I need to be careful about.
Now, where did my sailor friends wander off to this time? Over in that corner, huh? Standing there boldly, at least.
"Hello, sailor friends."
"Gah! Haneul-nim!"
Oh dear? The liquor just went up his nose. That friend has quite a talent, doesn't he? He could go pro in circus acts.
"I came over to tell you not to stand around looking awkward. Go on, get some good food in you."
"It's just... everyone here is so famous."
A man of the sea shouldn't be like this!
"Come now! The way I see it, you're all the same to me. Compared to having your sail snap in the middle of the ocean, this is nothing, isn't it?"
"W-well, this is the bigger deal, actually? With an oar, we could just row back."
Ah, wrong comparison, was it? Right, these are the sort of men who'd row their way around the world. Entirely possible, honestly.
"It's like falling into the water and then a shark shows up!"
"Oh! Dinner's shark grill!"
What is wrong with these guys? You run into a shark in the water and your first thought is eating it?
And judging by the way they swallow their saliva, this clearly isn't their first rodeo.
"Hmm..."
"Hahaha. Don't worry, Haneul-nim. We're having a fine time."
"So the sea holds no dangers for you at all, then?"
Ugh. I'm getting tired just listening. The sons of Daehan, solving everything with their bodies.
"There is one thing, actually."
"Oh? There is?"
A whole one thing, ladies and gentlemen. Then again, these are the men who'd push their ships across Arctic ice if they sailed into it, aren't they?
"We're in real trouble if we run out of Holy Water."
"Hm? That's all?"
"What do you mean, 'that's all'? We can't drink just any water we please. There was a time we ran out of Holy Water, scooped up random water to drink, and couldn't sail for a solid week because of it."
Ah, right — they use it as water purification. If your drinking water runs out, that really is a problem.
If I recall correctly, you can survive quite a long while without food, but only a few days without water.
"So how do you make your sea charts?"
"Honestly, we can't tell exactly where we are, so we just sail roughly along coastlines or near islands."
Wow. So they traveled all the way to Southeast Asia just following the coastline? That's genuinely impressive. Real grit, too.
Still, they must have a sailing log or something, right? The "sail this direction for so many days and you find such-and-such" kind of thing.
"It'd be wonderful to have a way to know where we are even out on open water. Don't you think?"
"That would be the scholars' job, I suppose. Haha."
We need clocks for that, and clocks are really hard... that's the starting point of modern mechanical engineering — one of the things they'll have to figure out on their own.
"There's one thing I've been curious about."
"What is it?"
"Other places build log boats too, but everyone makes their ships with pointed bows. Why are ours flat?"
The flat-bottomed ship has enormous advantages, you know!
"You can beach them anywhere, can't you?"
"Oh!"
And the flat-bottomed ship's drawbacks mean nothing to you people. If you're rowing, you'll probably be faster than a typical pointed-bow ship anyway.
Since your ships aren't slow, you never felt the need. I wonder how fast you'd go if you ever took a pointed-bow ship and rowed it too?
"If the bow is pointed, the bigger the ship gets, the harder it becomes to beach on a sandy shore, right? You'd flip right over?"
"So there was a reason after all. I just assumed fast was better. Haha."
Right, this only works because it's our country. Nobody else could manage it. I remember watching once as one of them ran straight up onto a sandbar, and then they just pushed it back down and sailed off.
I honestly couldn't tell if they were men or beasts.
"The Temple will handle your support, so get out there and bring back lots of strange animals and plants. The scholars will figure out what to do with them."
"Yes, Haneul-nim!"
Well, they're immune to mosquitoes, so no need to worry about malaria or the like, I suppose? I wonder what strange tropical diseases are out there? Our kids didn't even blink at smallpox.
Holy Water has left medicine with absolutely no room to advance. Honestly, at the extreme, you just smear some saliva on it and it's cured.
I'll have to resign myself to it. Import the medicine, focus on farming and engineering, that's just how it is...
"Our daughter is coming of age this year, you see..."
"Our son is..."
Marriage matchmaking happening,
"We just discovered a new mine, and..."
"We're building a road, so..."
"...then we could send people to..."
business deals happening,
"Oppa!"
"Let's run away together!"
"I'll take you far away, to Seolju!"
and even elopements of love. Hm? Now what's this?
Clunk!
"Catch that boy!"
A bunch of youngsters grabbed each other's hands and bolted, with a pack of middle-aged men hot on their heels. They'll probably raise hell about wanting to get married, make a mess of things, and come crawling back.
Making the baby first and figuring out the marriage after is apparently pretty common around here.
They'll sort out the institution of marriage on their own, surely. Either way, there's not a quiet day to be had, and honestly? That's a good thing. Keeps me from getting bored.
Thwack!
"Hmm, you've improved a lot."
Our horn-bow boy has, at some point, grown into a tall, handsome young man. He brought an even more refined horn bow today, and it's now beyond my ability to draw. He really is getting good at this.
"But you need to keep improving the regular bows and the crossbows too — each has its own purpose, so keep that in mind as you work."
Just because the horn bow is good doesn't mean it's the only one worth making and using.
"Of course! Naturally! And Haneul-nim, I made a separate bow with a weaker draw, just for you."
Clever rascal. It stings a little, but what can you do.
"Yes. Thaaank you very much."
I find myself gritting my teeth without meaning to. Sob...
"As for the humidity problem, I've been experimenting with the sap from several trees, but it still needs more work."
I wonder if there's lacquer around here? That stuff can give you a nasty rash — he must be going through quite an ordeal.
"Whenever you handle something new, never touch it bare-handed — wear gloves. You'll regret it otherwise."
"Huh? Actually, several people already suffered rashes from it."
"Always keep Holy Water stocked in the workshop."
"Yes. If we hadn't, it would've been a disaster."
How fortunate — Holy Water works on allergies too. Come to think of it, isn't it a cure-all? If I ever travel abroad and run out of money, I could set up as a traveling medicine peddler.
"The method for making this bow is important, so keep it secret — only among family, understood?"
"Yes, of course."
It's good that the knowledge has come out into the open, but if it ever leaks, there'd be nothing more exhausting than dealing with the fallout.
Brrr...
Ugh, chills. Just imagining the Chinese hoarding these bows by the thousands and invading sends shivers down my spine all on its own.
But then again, I suppose they've suffered plenty because of me — and their country has fallen before.
And now, news from China.
"Houses keep collapsing, so they've taken to burying people alive in the foundations, apparently."
"Have they lost their minds?"
Isn't that bone-chilling? Ghosts would come wailing out of there, and no one would sleep a peaceful night. Their construction techniques are simply too crude — that's why the houses keep collapsing...
No way I'm ever taking a vacation to the Shang Dynasty. Every house would have its own earth-bound spirit. I hate ghosts...
Oh? Could that be why they have all those Taoist priests running around exorcising things?
"By the way, apparently those people are constantly fighting each other. Wars and chaos everywhere?"
Is it just because their land is so vast? And they don't seem interested in the north? Wasn't the Yellow River basin the cradle of civilization in the first place?
Ah, right. We chased them out. Those damned slave hunters.
"They're rounding up the natives wholesale, and the tribes in the mountains are mostly used as sacrificial offerings, they say."
Human sacrifice. Surely they don't eat them like the Aztecs? Wait — the mountains? I have a vague feeling people used to talk about having come from the mountains, way back when...
Was that me too? Eh... no, surely not.
"Can't you all just get along? Why all the fighting?"
"Hard to say? They do send envoys now and then. It seems they'd like to stay on good terms with us."
Right. Smart move. There's no profit in fighting a war over headcount. Peace is better for everyone.
"They bring bronze pots and such as gifts, but they're so crude we just melted them down. When we handed them glass beads instead, they went home delighted."
Just how primitive are they? Melting down gifts? Normally you'd at least stick those in a warehouse somewhere.
Well, when I visited back in the day they were pretty much cavemen, so? Looks like nothing's changed.
"Hmm... there's clothing among the gifts. Shall we present it to Haneul-nim?"
"Is it any good?"
"Honestly... not really."
"Well, let's have a look anyway."
Oh... the clothes are exactly as I remember. Men in shorts, women in knee-length skirts, with a single bolt of cloth wrapped and shared among everyone.
Are these even the same country? Or did just the king change?
"Ugh, no good. Throw some of this down for the weasels to sleep on."
"This stuff should be reserved for scrubbing floors."
Huh? Still, it's perfectly good fabric, isn't it?
"But isn't that silk?"
"The clothes are just so strange-looking?"
"F-fine, do as you like."
Are our people really living that comfortably? We have trousers, and skirts, and jackets, and...
Hm? Looking at the big picture, what's actually all that different about those clothes?
"Still, how is it any different from ours?"
"The patterns. Too busy, too cluttered. It's dizzying just to look at."
Ah! Now that they mention it? When you think about it, the only decoration on my own clothes is the embroidery along the hem, isn't it?
Hm. They're right. A single clean accent really is far prettier.
"All right. That stuff goes in the trash."
"So we end up tossing out all their gifts."
"Well, it's not like they'll come asking where their presents went, right?"