A Man's Name
"You really are a reckless friend. But I'd have to say you're a lucky one, too. After all, I'm at least a man who means you no harm."
"You still won't tell me outright that your eye for people can be trusted."
"Well, that will take more time to see... and honestly, can you blame me? You haven't yet bared every truth to me yourself, have you?"
"Is that so?"
"It is. The day you can give me your true name — that will be the day we can truly open our hearts to each other."
Tung Jugang slowly turned away.
"Time you headed back."
"Wait."
Hong-wi called him back.
Tung Jugang turned to him with a puzzled look.
"My true name is Lee Hong-wi."
Tung Jugang blinked at him for a long moment, dumbfounded.
Then he let out an awkward laugh.
"Well, well... you leap too far in a single bound, my friend. Far, far too far. Do you trust me that much?"
"This is a man speaking to a man."
"A man!"
At those words, Tung Jugang threw his head back toward the sky and roared with laughter.
"A man, he says! Good heavens, friend... you truly are reckless. Leaping too far in a single bound. You follow a stranger you've barely met a handful of times, you throw yourself before a savage wild stallion, and now you give up your name without a fight — all because you're a man? Ha! Unbelievable!"
Tung Jugang studied Hong-wi for a long moment, then broke into a wide grin.
"But I can't say I dislike it. It's been far too long since I met a real man."
"Do you see me as a man, then?"
"Of course I do."
The two of them shared a firm handshake.
On the way back out of the wetlands and toward the village, neither man said a word.
And yet somehow they felt far closer for it.
At least, that was how it seemed to Hong-wi.
At the entrance to the village, Tung Jugang spoke.
"One of these days, I'll introduce you to my friends."
"Your friends?"
Tung Jugang nodded.
"I have a few companions who share life and death with me. They wander the land with me, making it their trade to help the helpless and chastise the wicked. In times as lean as these, they even guard this Anchunbugu of ours from bandits and brutes."
Hong-wi nodded. He had heard the same from the elder Kushinu.
"When might I have the chance?"
"Sooner than you think."
Tung Jugang smiled slyly.
"You do know there's to be a great hunt at Chuseok before long?"
"Mm, Elder Onyan Isiha mentioned it as well."
"A grand hunt it is. For us, it's the greatest festival of the year. A fine hunter earns no small measure of honor in the village, too."
"Is that so?"
Hong-wi laughed.
"I find myself looking forward to it."
"So do I. Until then, then."
The two men waved their farewells.
Yu Jagwang finished his night watch and prepared to leave the post.
His fellow Gapsa recognized him and greeted him as he passed.
"Oi, Jagwang. Heading off duty, are you?"
"Yes, sir. Hard work to you all."
Yu Jagwang answered absently, barely mustering the words.
Lately, he had been quietly growing weary of his hamster-wheel of a routine.
A Gapsa's stipend could hardly be called comfortable, even as a figure of speech. In theory, each man received a parcel of farmland as his kwajeon, and with his salary he was meant to maintain his armor and weapons and keep himself fed.
It was a system that had endured for nearly half a century since the founding of the dynasty.
But of late, even this had begun to strain at the seams.
With the country settled and at peace, there was only so much land left to grant the newly recruited Gapsa, and when the Jungnan merit officials were showered with vast estates a few years back, the shortage only grew worse.
Yu Jagwang had at least managed to receive a modest plot, but among the Gapsa, whispers were already circulating: in ten years' time, would anyone still be granted farmland at all?
Well, that's a problem for whoever's supporting Gapsa ten years from now...
Yu Jagwang yawned and stretched out his stiffened body.
He was twenty — the very prime of his youth.
Yet lately, he could not shake the feeling that his life had already been decided, settled once and for all.
Yu Jagwang was the son of a concubine. And not even the son of a commoner-born concubine — he was an eolja, born of a slave.
Which meant that, by any normal measure, the path of official advancement was closed to him outright. It was only thanks to his martial skill that he could scrape by as a Gapsa at all, and at twenty years old, Yu Jagwang felt as though his fate had been castrated before it ever had a chance to live.
He was crossing into the main barracks to hand over his watch when Hong Gil-dong called out to him.
"Oi, Jagwang. Heading off duty, are you?"
"Yes, that's right."
Yu Jagwang treated Hong Gil-dong with punctilious deference, despite the man being nearly ten years his senior. In truth, it had been Hong Gil-dong who had gotten him his post as a Geunchunmun Gapsa back when he was a penniless vagrant, struggling even to fill his belly.
"Taking it easy today, are you? Those Kkeok-chi bastards keep interfering with our collections — it's a real headache. That Kkeok-chi pup has grown far too insolent. I ought to let him smell incense smoke before long, heh heh heh..."
Hong Gil-dong grinned wickedly.
He was the Vice Directing Guard in charge of the Geunchunmun Gapsa — and at the same time, the notorious leader of one of Hanseong's most feared street gangs.
Not a single constable had the gall to rein him in.
"I thought I'd rest a bit today."
"...Oh? Come now, loosen up those bones and come tip a few jars of raw brew at Won'gol's place, unwind a little."
Hong Gil-dong's face fell with unmistakable disappointment.
Yu Jagwang managed a limp smile.
"I'm feeling a bit under the weather. The weather's been so changeable lately — morning, noon, and evening all at odds — I think I've caught a chill."
"Bah! What's a cold to a man of the blade? One jar of raw brew and you'll be right as rain. Are you really going to make a nobody of your big brother here? Never mind the Kkeok-chi lot — we can deal with them later. Tonight, you drink with me."
Hong Gil-dong flared his nostrils.
"I've got news you'll want to hear, that's what. I went asking around for your sake, you ungrateful wretch..."
"Oh dear, forgive your foolish little brother — I didn't realize..."
Once Hong Gil-dong dug in like this, there was no wriggling out of it. Only then did he break into a delighted, gap-toothed grin.
"That's the spirit. Let's go right now."
"Right now? But hyung-nim, what about your own business...?"
"What business could be so important? Don't fret. Who in this city would dare lay a hand on Hong Gil-dong? Do you know who your hyung is?"
Hong Gil-dong boomed with laughter, beating his chest.
Yu Jagwang felt a sigh rising in spite of himself.
Is this really what I'm becoming...?
It was all well and good that his half-brother Hong Il-dong had made something of himself, but Hong Gil-dong was, at the end of the day, nothing more than a Vice Directing Guard. He had no choice but to swagger about, shake down merchants for coin, and drain jar after jar of wine.
Yu Jagwang had no desire to end up like that.
Damn it all. I need to earn a military merit of my own. That's the only way I'll ever rise...
For an eolja-born Gapsa to change his stars, a battlefield merit was all but mandatory. Yu Jagwang's great regret was missing his chance when the Gyeyu Coup erupted a few years back.
Granted, he'd been far too young then — but if only he had seized that moment, how far might he have climbed by now?
Half-shoved along by Hong Gil-dong, Yu Jagwang found himself stepping into the tavern.
"Come, come — first drink's on me."
"Thank you, hyung-nim."
The two men tipped their cups.
Hong Gil-dong's appetite was every bit the match of his famously gluttonous half-brother Hong Il-dong. Before Yu Jagwang could so much as finish his first cup of raw rice wine, the man had already downed three and was still smacking his lips as if it weren't enough.
"Hyung-nim, that news you mentioned — the news I'd want to hear. What is it?"
"Hm? Ah, right, that!"
Despite having downed three cups in one go, Hong Gil-dong showed not the slightest trace of drink.
"Yes, good news indeed. You know the government's picking a new breed of soldier — the Byeolchogapsa. Heard of it?"
"Byeolchogapsa? Hmm, can't say I have. First I've heard of it. What is it?"
It was entirely news to Yu Jagwang.
Byeolcho, on its own, carried no particular meaning. It was simply the term for a unit formed of specially handpicked soldiers — nothing more.
Hong Gil-dong bellowed as he poured a fourth cup.
"Damned if I know the details myself!"
He tipped the cup straight down his throat.
Watching him, Yu Jagwang clicked his tongue. This man's capacity for drink was already enough to make one gawk — so how monstrous, then, was the elder brother Hong Il-dong who supposedly surpassed him?
"Anyway — someone came looking for me."
"Someone...?"
"That's right. The government's building some kind of new unit, but nothing's come down through the Ministry of War. Truth is, it doesn't even have a proper name. What is a 'byeolcho' anyway? Handpicked men, thrown together — that's all it amounts to, no?"
"I suppose so."
"But they say they're selecting from everywhere — from us Gapsa, naturally, from the vagrant swordsmen prepping for the military examination, even from the Inner Royal Guard itself."
"Is that so..."
A quiet curiosity stirred in Yu Jagwang's chest.
"What could it possibly be for?"
"How should I know? But it's no slapdash outfit, that much is certain. It's just rumor, but — you know Minister Han Myeong-hoe, don't you?"
"Is there a single soul in Hanyang ladling rice who doesn't know the name Han Myeong-hoe?"
Han Myeong-hoe was, after all, the elder who had already traveled the very road Yu Jagwang dreamed of walking — a lowborn son who had clawed his way to the summit of power. Yu Jagwang wished nothing more than to become another Han Myeong-hoe, but well — things were never that easy.
"Exactly! Well, this unit — brace yourself — was built by that very Minister Han with a direct line to His Majesty himself. Even the Minister of War has no hand in it, so they say."
"Is that so?"
Yu Jagwang's eyes went round.
Hong Gil-dong grinned and nodded.
"Well? Getting a feel for it now? A nameless unit cobbled together by Minister Han and His Majesty in cahoots... something about that stinks, doesn't it?"
"Hard to say."
Yu Jagwang answered lamely.
"What do you mean, hard to say?"
"It's just — if the high and mighty are building a unit in secret, who's to say what kind of affair we'd be dragged into?"
"Oh, come off it. What's gotten into the great Yu Jagwang of Geunchunmun? Hey — you remember Lim Eoul-un? Did exactly as his master ordered, and look at him now. A menial servant turned merit official overnight, granted royal rice cakes for the whole household of his lord's residence, bowing and scraping with the best of them. If you want to rise, you've got to become the hands and feet of the powerful. That's simply the law of the world."
"...And yet you don't, hyung-nim?"
"Me? I've got a houseful of mouths to feed, haven't I? Goddamn it all — if it weren't for my boys, I'd chuck the whole lot and join this byeolcho outfit myself and change my stars."
The "household" Hong Gil-dong spoke of was not a family at all, but the gang of bravos under his command. In his heart, no doubt, the ambition to rise still smoldered — but past thirty, he had grown content, in his own small way, to play the boss of his own little domain.
"Well? Got nothing to say?"
Yu Jagwang held his silence.
It wasn't that he had no thoughts on the matter. If he went on living as he was, it was obvious he would end his days as a nameless Geunchunmun Gapsa.
"Oh, and I spoke with Jeong-geun about it yesterday."
"Kim Jeong-geun?"
Kim Jeong-geun was the junior warrior under Yu Jagwang's wing. He had come up to the capital from a fishing village in Jeolla Province on nothing but faith in his own strength, hoping to remake his fortune, where he and Yu Jagwang had hit it off and he'd followed him all the way into the Geunchunmun Gapsa.
And he never said a word to me about it...
Yu Jagwang couldn't help feeling stung.
Hong Gil-dong roared with laughter.
"Don't sulk, man. Jeong-geun said he meant to talk it over with you first."
"Did he?"
Yu Jagwang's face brightened.
"There you go. The two of you together could bend even that byeolcho outfit to your will. Just don't shame the name of our Geunchunmun boys out there... and if any crumbs fall from the table, you come pay back today's debt. If it goes well, it's all thanks to me, no? Eh?"
Hong Gil-dong guffawed.
"You needn't even ask... Though where exactly is this Byeolchogapsa one must go?"
"Ah — nearly forgot that part. Their commander is... let's see. Ah, right. The elder Min Bal."
"Elder Min Bal?"
Yu Jagwang had heard the name before. In truth, any Hanyang Gapsa with a decent measure of strength knew of Min Bal — he was that famous. The story went that when the current king, Suyang, had traveled to Ming China as an envoy and fallen into peril at the hands of bandits, Min Bal had charged in alone, swinging an iron mace, and single-handedly turned the tide.
His character was as bold as his strength, and men flocked to follow him.
"If it's Elder Min Bal... then he's a man worth trusting. Where do we go?"
"Iljangsanseong — the Iljang Mountain Fortress. It's... where was it now? Somewhere in Gwangju-mok, Gyeonggi Province, they said."
Yu Jagwang nodded.
Hong Gil-dong flared his nostrils and laughed.
"So! Once your fortunes turn, you'd best come pay your respects to your hyung here, quick and proper. Plant your jaw on my table at least once. Eh? Understood? Yahahaha!"