Monopolizing Fortunes (204)
Monopolizing Fortunes (204)
Jeon Su-bang had rated Do Tong-dal highly, but even so, there were things a person could do and things they could not.
Unless Sun Wukong came riding a cloud, even a month would be a miracle, let alone ten days.
"If Tong-dal said ten days, then it's ten days. You still don't know Tong-dal, Minister."
"No matter how remarkable his abilities are, a ten-day round trip to the Southern Barbarians is simply absurd."
The moment those words ended, a eunuch's voice came from outside.
"An urgent message from the main gate guards! They say a man named Do Tong-dal has arrived!"
Yang Su-pan smiled, and Jeon Su-bang shot to his feet in astonishment.
"What? Is that true?"
"Yes! The message said to inform Minister Yang immediately by urgent dispatch!"
"When Tong-dal says he'll do something, he does it."
Jeon Su-bang said as he followed Yang Su-pan out.
"We don't know for certain that he actually went to the Southern Barbarians and back."
"It's medicine to save His Majesty the Emperor. If he hadn't obtained it, he wouldn't have come back at all."
Despite Yang Su-pan's confidence, Jeon Su-bang still could not believe it. The Do Tong-dal he saw after so long looked exactly like a beggar.
His clothes were all torn, and from his appearance he seemed not to have washed in days. Do Tong-dal saw Jeon Su-bang and bowed his head.
"It has been a long time."
"Everyone was very worried, so it's good to see you back. So, how did the trip go?"
Just then, the physician in black, who had heard the news from over there, came running breathlessly.
"Did you get them? Huff, huff!"
"You ran a few steps and you're already panting?"
"The palace is too big. How many?"
Do Tong-dal held out the bundle.
"Two died on the way here......"
The physician in black untied the bundle, counted the boxes, and gave a sly grin.
"Ten of them. Two more than last time, eh? No, you said two died, so that's four more. Well now, at this rate it's twelve-shot......"
"Finish that sentence. I'll make sure you never hold a needle again for the rest of your life."
"Hmph! I'm busy, so I'll be off. Anyway, good work."
The physician in black patted Do Tong-dal on the shoulder a couple of times and ran back the way he had come. Do Tong-dal slumped down onto the steps of some hall whose name he did not know and let out the long sigh of a weary journey.
"Good work. But twelve...... no, fourteen of them. I'm envious. Truly envious."
"Did you really go to the Southern Barbarians and back in ten days? Even a carrier pigeon couldn't get there that fast."
"I can't be slower than a bird."
Jeon Su-bang looked up at the sky and settled his thoughts: Yes, Do Tong-dal was simply someone to be trusted. Yang Su-pan did not keep Do Tong-dal's name on his lips for nothing.
Ju Hyeong-seon had been poisoned and the whole palace had been thrown into chaos, and the moment Do Tong-dal appeared, he had resolved it in ten days.
Do Tong-dal asked Yang Su-pan.
"Have you caught the culprit who poisoned His Majesty?"
Yang Su-pan and Jeon Su-bang could only sigh.
"We rounded up all the suspects and interrogated them, but we couldn't uncover anything."
If the emperor had been poisoned, the suspects were obvious. It would be the cooks, the palace maids who attended him, the imperial physicians, and the eunuchs.
"We even seized the imperial physicians and questioned them. Of course, we made an exception for the physician in black since they are one of your people."
"The physician in black would never do such a thing. May I meet with them once more?"
"That's not difficult. Ah! Three of them died during questioning."
"Tsk, tsk...... Torturing them to death. You need to change your technicians."
"We already did. Though we failed to make them talk."
"They might genuinely not know. If someone poisoned His Majesty, would they have used an obvious person?"
Do Tong-dal met the suspects one by one. They were all battered and bruised, so even their answers were faint.
Of course, most of the fifty-two surviving suspects were innocent. For them, it could only have been a bolt from the blue.
The three who had died were probably no different. Among them was a palace maid who had been seized merely because she had been near Ju Hyeong-seon for one ke.
'The emperor was poisoned, so raising this kind of ruckus is understandable, but this is too much.'
As soon as Do Tong-dal judged someone innocent, he had them taken away for treatment.
"These people are still suspects! You cannot do that!"
A young Embroidered Uniform Guard who had come along protested Do Tong-dal's order. Tae Jun-seo, who had accompanied them, flustered and tried to say something, but Do Tong-dal's fist was faster.
With a thwack, the young Embroidered Uniform Guard went tumbling across the floor of the torture chamber. Do Tong-dal said to Tae Jun-seo.
"Commissioner Tae."
There seemed to be a thin layer of ice beneath Do Tong-dal's low call. A chill ran down Tae Jun-seo's spine, and he straightened up without realizing it.
"Yes! Lord Do!"
"That Embroidered Uniform Guard is suspicious."
"What?"
The young Embroidered Uniform Guard scrambled to his feet and shouted.
"Wh...... what about me is suspicious? That's absurd......!"
"The only person who wants to turn an innocent person into the culprit is the real culprit. So you can't help but be suspicious. Tie that man up here right now."
Do Tong-dal flicked the chain hanging from the ceiling, and a faint metallic sound rang out. Dried flakes of blood pattered onto the floor.
Tae Jun-seo ordered the two Embroidered Uniform Guards who had come with them.
"Hang that bastard up immediately!"
He had not dealt with Do Tong-dal many times, but if there was one thing he absolutely had to remember, it was that whatever Do Tong-dal ordered had to be done without question.
Do Tong-dal was someone whom not only Yang Su-pan but even Ju Hyeong-seon cherished like his own flesh and blood. If the reason they cherished him was his ability to make the Third Prince emperor, then there was no longer any reason to doubt.
"C-Commissioner! I'm truly wronged! Why would I ever harm His Majesty the Emperor? P-please call my father! Please, Commissioner!"
Do Tong-dal knew who the father of the young Embroidered Uniform Guard Wang Jong-jik was. He was a Vice Minister of the Right of the senior third rank, and it was thanks to that background that the son had been able to enter the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
It had long been the case that the Embroidered Uniform Guard was a place one could enter thanks to family background rather than ability in martial arts or investigation.
But Do Tong-dal's background was the emperor. And even without any background, Do Tong-dal was someone who must never be opposed as Do Tong-dal.
A senior third-rank office might be a high post within the imperial palace, but to Do Tong-dal it was worth less than the grime under a fingernail.
To Wang Jong-jik, who was calling for his father, Do Tong-dal said.
"Is your father His Majesty?"
"......."
"Then is he Yang Su-pan? If one of those two is your father, I'll let you go."
"My father is the Vice Minister of the Right!"
What hung at the corner of Do Tong-dal's mouth was unmistakably a sneer.
"Not even the Vice Minister of the Right, but the son of a mere official like that throwing his weight around. Yang Su-pan and Jeon Su-bang are doing a poor job."
Do Tong-dal crooked his finger at the torture technician standing blankly to one side. When the man hurried over, Do Tong-dal said.
"Make this bastard open his mouth. If he doesn't talk, you're the next one hanging."
The torture technician bowed.
"I will make him talk without fail!"
The torture technician, wearing an apron soaked in blood, first brought over the instrument for pulling out fingernails and toenails.
Wang Jong-jik, hanging from the chains, thrashed.
"P...... please spare me! I...... I truly don't know anything. Sob, sob......!"
The torture had not even begun, but Wang Jong-jik, thrashing about, wet his pants in terror.
The torture technician paid no mind to whether Wang Jong-jik cried or pissed himself and pulled off his shoes. Do Tong-dal only stepped in when the technician was about to slide the pincers under a toenail.
"Stop."
The torture technician, who had been casting puzzled glances, quickly sidestepped away.
Smack!
Do Tong-dal slapped him across the cheek, and Wang Jong-jik, who had been half out of his mind, came to his senses.
"Look closely at that palace maid over there."
The palace maid whom Do Tong-dal had ordered released was huddled against the wall, sitting with her arms wrapped around herself.
"What that woman felt is exactly what you just felt. The difference from you is that she was actually tortured. Do you feel wronged? You were merely hung up, but that palace maid was tortured for days. Without any crime at all. But you actually do have crimes. As an Embroidered Uniform Guard, you failed to catch the culprit, so incompetence is one. Seizing an innocent person and calling them a criminal is another. And failing to realize your own fault even so is yet another. If anyone deserves to be tortured, it's not that palace maid but you."
The Embroidered Uniform Guards, including Tae Jun-seo, who were under Do Tong-dal's gaze, lowered their heads.
"You probably think all you have to do is catch the culprit. If you've never once stayed up all night agonizing over whether the person you seized is really the culprit, then you are nothing but trash in golden clothes."
Do Tong-dal said to Tae Jun-seo.
"Release that bastard and take the palace maid away for treatment."
"Understood."
Most of the people who had been tortured were released and received treatment. Yang Su-pan promised Do Tong-dal that appropriate compensation would be granted to them.
Only one person was not released: a single eunuch. In truth, he was a eunuch with almost no contact with the emperor.
If Do Tong-dal had selected the suspects, he would not even have been included. The Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot had simply cast their net so wide that he had been unlucky enough to get caught at the edge.
To the question Do Tong-dal had thrown out without much expectation—"Are you connected to His Majesty the Emperor's poisoning?"—the eunuch Jeon Jin-gu had lied.
It was hard to read any expression on his torn and swollen face, but his voice and gestures were enough to catch the lie.
"I truly...... don't know...... anything. Ughhh......."
With that second statement, it became certain. Jeon Jin-gu knew something. But no further interrogation was possible. Because after giving that second answer, he had lost consciousness.
"The physician in black! Summon the physician in black immediately!"
But the physician in black was treating Ju Hyeong-seon, so another imperial physician was brought in instead.
"You must save him. That bastard knows something about His Majesty's poisoning."
An imperial physician would be the most skilled doctor in the Central Plains, but even to Do Tong-dal's eyes, Jeon Jin-gu's vital signs were precarious.
While Jeon Jin-gu received treatment, Do Tong-dal went to find Yang Su-pan and Jeon Su-bang. Since Jeon Su-bang was the Minister of War, he had to be present.
"Is it true that the eunuch named Jeon Jin-gu is the culprit who poisoned His Majesty the Emperor?"
Yang Su-pan asked that first. Given that it had already reached Yang Su-pan's ears after so little time, news in the imperial palace seemed to travel faster than the wind.
"It seems so, but he lost consciousness before I could interrogate him, so I haven't learned anything."
Jeon Su-bang said.
"Then we'll have to round up the people around him and squeeze them."
"If you seize people like that, the two of you will end up getting seized later too."
"W...... would it come to that?"
"For now, the best option is for the imperial physician to keep Jeon Jin-gu alive."
Yang Su-pan asked.
"By the way, what was it you wanted to see us about?"
"You know I have divine powers, right?"
Yang Su-pan and Jeon Su-bang looked at each other and nodded at the same time. They no longer doubted Do Tong-dal's words.
"It seems there will be a war soon."
"A...... war?"
"The energy in the north is ominous."
"The northern barbarians? I knew it!"
"What do you mean, 'I knew it'?"
Yang Su-pan told him the story of how the Mongol khan had proposed to Ju Seo-in and been rejected.
"He was quite angry about that, but I never imagined he would go so far as to start a war. Usually, whenever anything happened, he'd bark loudly and then quietly back off once you tossed him a scrap."
"This time is different. The energy in the north is too menacing."
Jeon Su-bang said.
"On top of that, the movements of Prince Yeongun, His Majesty's uncle, are also unusual. Not only is he actively exchanging with the Mongol khan, but I've heard they've even sworn brotherhood. And this is the man who used to foam at the mouth saying the barbarians must be subjugated."
Yang Su-pan chimed in after Jeon Su-bang.
"There's also a fair amount of regional and military power backing Prince Yeongun. Now that His Highness the Third Prince has become emperor, he's harboring vile intentions. A good number of them are forces that had backed the First and Second Princes and couldn't attach themselves to His Majesty, so they colluded with Prince Yeongun."
"How shameless. Even thugs know how to accept defeat cleanly."
"Politics has always been the filthiest game. Ugh—! It's not once or twice that I've wanted to throw it all away and go be the magistrate of Hangzhou."
"You think I don't feel the same? Ugh...... I thought I could finally live comfortably as a thug, so why do incidents keep breaking out? I swear, I'll catch whoever started this with my own hands and snap their neck."
"Whoever it is, they've made an enemy of you, so I'll say a prayer for their soul."
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