Monopolizing Fortunes (232)
Monopolizing Fortunes (232)
―There I met a man named Baek Mu-in. He was young, in his mid-twenties, but from the way the Wonheung Merchant Company's hall master could not even raise his head, I could tell he was high up in the Baekjong Sepyeong Sect.
Baek Mu-in told me a dreamlike story: that the Revenge Society would become the head of the unorthodox factions in the martial world.
I wanted revenge now, not some hollow promise for the future, but the Baekjong Sepyeong Sect moved only according to their own plans and cared nothing for my hopes.
They only wanted to use the Revenge Society to weaken the martial world; my revenge was outside their interest. So how could I trust them?
Even so, I resolved to become their faithful dog. Only by wagging my tail in front of them would I ever get a chance to bite their heels.
The diary was not written in every day. He filled its pages once every three or four days, and for a long while nothing important appeared.
Still, Do Tong-dal chewed over every single character in the diary. A record of one man: on the outside a killer mad with vengeance, but within, the aching heart of a father endlessly tormented and worried for his son carried on.
Then, at a date that skipped ahead a full two months, the name Baek Mu-in appeared again.
―At last I have learned Baek Mu-in's identity. The trust I earned by becoming their dog and doing everything they ordered has finally borne fruit.
Of course, learning Baek Mu-in's identity did not mean I had seized the Baekjong Sepyeong Sect's leash.
Baek Mu-in, too, was only one of the Baekjong Sepyeong Sect's many parts.
Still, the first step had meaning. Now that I knew Baek Mu-in was the Moyong Clan's Young Head, if I dug into that place, something was bound to come out.
"The Moyong Clan?"
Do Tong-dal was familiar with the name Moyong Clan as well. Though they were not counted among the Five Great Clans now, they were a prestigious clan that had once contended with the Namgung Clan for first place among the Five Great Clans.
"If it's the Moyong Clan, their stronghold is in Liaoning Province......"
Liaoning Province was where Prince Yeongun had been based and where the Mongol army's invasion route had run. It could be coincidence, but it was well worth investigating.
In recent years, the Moyong Clan had shut themselves away in the border region of Liaoning Province and had almost no involvement in affairs of the martial world.
"Could the Moyong Clan be the hidden faction?"
If their Young Head was an important figure in the hidden faction, the possibility was more than enough, but Won Jung-bang's diary alone was not enough to judge.
Do Tong-dal turned to the next page. The gaps between dates grew longer with each page, and some skipped as much as two months.
The pages were filled only with Won Jung-bang's daily life and state of mind, and the information Do Tong-dal wanted to know did not readily appear. And so the diary's final page opened before him.
But on that last page, only four characters were written.
―Imperial Palace Secret Archive.
It was an abrupt ending. The Imperial Palace Secret Archive? Won Jung-bang was a eunuch who had come and gone from the Imperial Palace Secret Archive as if it were his own house. Since that had been true for a long time, the Imperial Palace Secret Archive alone could hardly be called important information.
"What is this? Is there something else in the Imperial Palace Secret Archive that I don't know about?"
However sharp Do Tong-dal's mind was, he could not deduce anything from the mere four characters written on the last page.
Do Tong-dal stared at the last page for a long while, then gently closed the diary.
There was no more information to be gained from it. Won Jung-bang might have failed to uncover anything more about the Baekjong Sepyeong Sect, or he might simply not have written it down.
Even so, Do Tong-dal was not disappointed. Merely obtaining the names of the Moyong Clan and the Wonheung Merchant Company from Won Jung-bang's diary was a major achievement.
Won Jung-bang had paid little attention to the Wonheung Merchant Company, but Do Tong-dal thought differently.
Whether running a country or scheming over the martial world, the one thing that mattered in common was money. Without money, one could neither run a country nor scheme over the martial world.
In that sense, the clue of the Wonheung Merchant Company was no less important than the Moyong Clan.
For now, he simply kept the four characters written on the last page—Imperial Palace Secret Archive—in his mind.
Do Tong-dal burned the diary with the Sammae True Fire. By now he had grown adept at raising heat to burn things. Unlike other martial artists, he consumed almost no Internal Energy doing it.
When he stepped outside, the deep darkness of the mountains wrapped around him. Do Tong-dal pushed the cold air deep into his lungs.
He had finally caught the tail of the hidden faction that had kept tapping at the back of his head in the darkness. Now he had to shake that caught tail well.
One wrong move and the hidden faction might cut off its tail and vanish again. Then catching them would grow harder, and the danger would grow greater.
"I should leave the Moyong Clan as a hidden card and poke at the Wonheung Merchant Company and the Sichuan Tang Clan first, shouldn't I?"
It was time to return to Beijing. Attending the victory banquet or not made little difference, but he could not give the hidden faction any grounds for suspicion.
Do Tong-dal stepped through the night dew and unfolded his Lightness Art. The road north passed through Henan Province and Hebei Province, so it was no short distance.
He kept up his Lightness Art through the entire night and ran on through the morning without eating. Around sunrise, he did energy-circulation breathing for about half a shichen, and that was the whole of his rest.
He arrived in Beijing when the sun had moved about two handspans toward the west. By now, the congratulatory banquet was probably in full swing in the imperial palace.
He could tell the atmosphere of victory before he even reached the palace. The first thing he heard upon setting foot in Beijing was the sound of firecrackers.
Scrolls celebrating the victory over the Mongols hung everywhere, and with firecrackers bursting without pause, the streets were thick with gunpowder smoke.
He did not show it, but inwardly he felt proud that he had protected those people's peace.
Forgetting his fatigue, Do Tong-dal passed through the streets of Beijing and headed for the imperial palace. Everywhere along the streets, banners inscribed with phrases praising the emperor's wisdom and benevolence fluttered even in the slightest breeze.
By now the palace, too, would be steeped in the banquet. With such thoughts, Do Tong-dal arrived at the palace and sensed something strange.
The streets were as boisterous as if the victory celebration had brought in the new year, yet inside the palace was relatively quiet.
The palace attendants passing by were cautious about something, and the officials' faces were not bright either.
Do Tong-dal summoned a eunuch and asked where Yang Su-pan was. Because he carried the identity token of Prince Consort, ordering a eunuch about was not difficult.
A moment later, a eunuch informed him that Yang Su-pan was in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The Hall of Supreme Harmony was where the nation's most important ceremonies were held, so it was not a strange place for a victory celebration banquet.
But judging by the surrounding atmosphere, it was clear that the palace was not covered in the spirit of victory celebration.
Do Tong-dal asked the young eunuch who had told him Yang Su-pan's location.
"Is something the matter?"
"Well, that is......"
The eunuch only watched Do Tong-dal's expression and could not easily open his mouth. It was clearly something related to Do Tong-dal. He had no desire to make things difficult for the eunuch here.
Do Tong-dal hurried his steps toward the Hall of Supreme Harmony. As if to announce the banquet, colored lanterns and firecrackers hung throughout the palace, but they only swayed in the wind like objects that had become useless.
Tension was plain on the faces of the Embroidered Uniform Guard warriors standing watch throughout the palace. When Do Tong-dal reached the gate leading into the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Tae Jun-seo came running over from the other side, out of breath.
"Lord Do!"
He had apparently come running after hearing that Do Tong-dal had arrived. When Tae Jun-seo stopped in front of him, Do Tong-dal asked.
"Why does the palace, which should be holding a banquet, feel like a house of mourning?"
A long sigh burst from Tae Jun-seo's lips.
"Several officials and local gentry have come up and are presenting petitions to His Majesty while kneeling in repentance."
"What crime did they commit to be kneeling in repentance?"
"That they failed to properly assist His Imperial Majesty. But the kneeling in repentance is only in words."
"Then what is it they want?"
When Tae Jun-seo scratched his head with a troubled expression, Do Tong-dal pressed for an answer.
"I've already gathered that it concerns me, so just say it."
"Well, that is...... they are demanding that the marriage between Her Highness the Second Imperial Princess and Lord Do be annulled......"
He asked the mumbling Tae Jun-seo again.
"That doesn't seem to be all, does it?"
"It is embarrassing to put into words."
"They mean to have me killed, it seems."
"So you already knew."
Do Tong-dal flared up.
"Is that true?! Who do these bastards think saved their lives! They say if you save someone from drowning, they hand you their bundle and demand more! What in the world is their reason?"
Tae Jun-seo answered, flustered.
"They say that Lord Do clouds His Majesty's wise judgment and privately wields power to embezzle his own gains...... O-of course I know it is all nonsense. It is thanks to Lord Do that this country escaped the flames of war."
"There's no way they don't know all that......"
After thinking for a moment, Do Tong-dal asked.
"How many are kneeling in repentance?"
"They have come up even from the provinces, so it seems to be roughly two thousand."
"That many? If they came from the provinces too, doesn't that mean this was prepared at least half a month ago?"
"That is right. It seems it was schemed even before the war broke out. Please do not let it trouble you too much, Lord Do. This is the sort of power struggle that can happen in the palace at any time."
Do Tong-dal could see that much himself. If, by tradition, the eldest son had become crown prince and inherited the imperial throne, the ministers and local gentry would have no cause to rise up.
Power that is already prepared only needs to turn like gears that have long been fitted together, click by click.
But because the Third Imperial Prince, Ju Hyeong-seon, had become emperor, the gears that should have turned in perfect fit had slipped out of alignment.
Naturally, those who should have served as great gears in important positions fell away, and under the name of meritorious vassal, someone like Yang Su-pan came to stand at the pinnacle of power.
The high officials and local gentry had been forced to watch as the powerful men they had cultivated ties with for decades fell away overnight.
If power hardened as it was, the established powers could only decline before the new faction.
So they were moving before it was too late. And the prey that happened to catch their eye as easiest to shake was Do Tong-dal.
First, there was Do Tong-dal's background. A gangster, of all things! How a gangster had come to be connected to Ju Hyeong-seon was easy enough to imagine.
Anyone could readily guess that Ju Hyeong-seon had befriended him back when he was the Third Imperial Prince, living as an obscure member of the imperial family.
They had formed that bond, and then when Ju Hyeong-seon became emperor, Do Tong-dal had shot up in the world overnight.
It was the hasty presumption of people who knew nothing of the bond between Do Tong-dal and Ju Hyeong-seon.
Their intent was plain to Do Tong-dal's eyes. They meant to use Do Tong-dal as a lever to shake the current supreme powers, Yang Su-pan and Jeon Su-bang.
"There must be a ringleader."
"On the surface, it is a man named Wang Cheol-hyeon of Henan Province. His father served as Minister of Rites, and he himself held a senior fifth-rank post before retiring to the countryside; a distinguished family."
"On the surface, yes, but someone is behind Wang Cheol-hyeon, is that it?"
"That is not yet certain."
"Just tell me what the Embroidered Uniform Guard knows."
"The father-in-law of the late First Imperial Prince......"
"You mean Grand Academician Jang Chun-man. But does Grand Academician Jang still have that much influence? As the First Imperial Prince's father-in-law, he should have been cast out long ago."
"It seems that after the First Imperial Prince passed away, he quickly attached himself to His Majesty, who was then the Third Imperial Prince. In truth, Grand Academician Jang clearly played a certain role in His Majesty consolidating the throne."
"So that's how he avoided the purge. He did his utmost to survive, and if he achieved that aim, he ought to have stayed quiet."
"If the First Imperial Prince had become emperor, he might have sat in the place second only to the throne, so it seems he felt wronged to be forgotten as an old man in the back room."
Do Tong-dal tilted his head.
"But two thousand is a large number to be moving on Jang Chun-man alone. It seems safe to say that nearly all the local gentry of the six surrounding provinces have united."
"That is how it must be seen. I understand there are also quite a few who could not attend because of time."
"In the end, the gentry of the Central Plains have all risen up demanding my death."
Tae Jun-seo lowered his head as if it were his own fault.
"The Embroidered Uniform Guard should have noticed sooner. I apologize."
"His Majesty must be in a difficult spot too. No matter how much of an emperor he is, he cannot simply ignore the local gentry."
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