The Iron Trade and the Coming Storm
A few days later, Hong-wi received an unexpected guest.
Hwang Ga had come to see him, accompanied by his trusted steward Mak-gae and the chief boatman Jang Hui-sun.
"What brings you to my door today, my lord?"
Hong-wi was a little surprised. He had anticipated that Pushan Hadaru might come calling again, but he had never imagined that Hwang Ga himself would pay him a visit.
"What brings me here? I've come to offer my congratulations. Your business sense has proven quite impressive."
Hwang Ga unfolded his fan and smiled. Hong-wi smiled back.
"Is that all you've come all this way to do—congratulate me?"
"Hmph, you do like to get straight to the point. It's a fine virtue, saving time between two busy people who already know everything worth knowing."
"It hardly deserved to be called business acumen. I was simply lucky."
"As if luck had anything to do with it!"
Hwang Ga snorted.
"I don't believe in luck. Of course, you need fortune on your side to survive in this trade—but look around. The riverbed of the Amnok is littered with poor souls who trusted nothing but luck and ended up face down in its depths or hanging from a gibbet. And Jurchen chieftains fawning over a Joseon man like this, throwing open their doors for him? In all my years, I have never once heard of such a thing."
As he said this, Hwang Ga looked at Hong-wi with something astonishing in his eyes—something close to envy.
For a man who had once belonged to neither the Jurchens nor Joseon, forced to wander between two worlds, the reaction was perhaps only natural.
"You have truly astonished me."
"I hadn't expected it myself."
Hwang Ga laughed, a short bark of amusement.
"To be honest, I've half a mind to make you my business partner, Temusi'i. If I can't recognize a man of your caliber, then I might as well fold up this trade altogether."
"You flatter me. Though as it happens, Pushan Hadaru said something rather similar."
"Hmm. Pushan Hadaru, you say."
Hong-wi recounted the whole affair from beginning to end. Hwang Ga studied him intently over the edge of his fan.
"So. What do you intend to do?"
"That's precisely what I wished to consult you about."
"Hm. Me?"
Hwang Ga flashed a wry smile.
"I'm flattered you think so highly of me."
"It's thanks to you that I stand in this room at all today."
Hong-wi replied with modest grace. The answer seemed to please Hwang Ga greatly, for he roared with laughter, glancing back and forth between Mak-gae and Jang Hui-sun.
"Just listen to this fellow talk! No wonder the chieftains of the frontier have opened their hearts to him. Clever—quite clever! The world is full of men who score one small success and swagger about as if every bit of it were won by their own strength alone. Mind you, that takes ability—but where in this life does anything ever come of ability alone? Lose your humility, and ruin and disgrace are the inevitable end. Yes, Temusi'i. You will go far. I'm certain of it."
Hong-wi answered only with a smile.
"Good. Since I'm here anyway—what do you mean to do?"
"As things stand, there's no pressing reason to accept Pushan Hadaru's proposal."
"Hm. Why not?"
"From what I hear, Pushan Hadaru's trading company is on very shaky ground."
Hong-wi spoke, recalling what Wumubin had told him some time ago. According to him, the Pushan company had been burning through its capital to stay afloat for years.
"And it appears he's recently spent an enormous sum on Lee Go-nap-hap. That must weigh heavily on him. In such a state, why should I bow my head to Pushan Hadaru?"
"Ho! Bold—I like that. So you mean to wait until Pushan Hadaru collapses, then swallow up his whole network for yourself?"
Hwang Ga said this as he folded his fan. Hong-wi nodded.
"Isn't that the same secret behind how you came to swallow the waterways of the Amnok, my lord?"
"Hahaha!"
Hwang Ga threw back his head and laughed.
"That's right, that's right. You really are a quick study! Give it a little time and you'll surpass even me. But I'll tell you what—I have a favor to ask."
"And that is?"
"For now, let Pushan Hadaru live."
Hong-wi fell silent for a moment.
"May I ask why?"
"Does a man need a reason to ask that someone's life be spared? I hear you've quite a reputation for going about saving people wherever you roam."
Hwang Ga made a show of dodging the question. Hong-wi shook his head.
"I don't care to judge others rashly, but... your eye for reading men is surely sharper than mine. Still, as I see it, this Pushan fellow is—"
"A fool. Yes, he is."
Hwang Ga admitted it without hesitation. Hong-wi arched an eyebrow.
"I know full well the man is a fool. And frankly, having to come all the way out here yet again to save the idiot's neck is thoroughly irritating. But his connections are worth something. Word has it he's close to Lee Go-nap-hap."
"Close... to Lee Go-nap-hap."
Hong-wi nearly burst out laughing.
"If we're calling that friendship, then we must call the chickens and pigs fattened for the feast table great friends of the household."
"Sharp-tongued, aren't you? I take it Pushan Hadaru has wronged you somehow?"
Hwang Ga laughed at Hong-wi's acerbity.
"I know it's best not to carry grudges in one's heart, but... yes, that's right. I can see the man throwing money at Lee Go-nap-hap and being cast aside the moment it runs out."
"Even so, a door is a door. If I want to stretch my trade into Jianzhou, I have to knock at the door of its most powerful man."
Hong-wi thought for a moment.
"Rather than that—why not leave Lee Go-nap-hap to me?"
"No. You?"
Hwang Ga narrowed his eyes.
"I can't imagine you and Lee Go-nap-hap share any fond history. Didn't you clash with him over the women he tried to sell off at the Hwangseongpyeong slave market?"
"It never quite came to a clash. We were hardly on good terms, that's true... and honestly, I had no desire to become entangled with him at all."
Hong-wi continued in a measured tone.
"At Anchuunbugu, I met Lee Go-nap-hap again recently. We settled old grievances and... spent time building a friendship for the future."
It was not entirely a lie.
Though how Lee Go-nap-hap had received it was another matter entirely.
"Then you're saying you can move Lee Go-nap-hap through yourself?"
"I can't promise I can move him. But if you wish to meet Lee Go-nap-hap in person, my lord, I can lay a bridge between you."
That much, at least, he could say with certainty.
"Hm."
That was all the answer Hwang Ga gave. He fanned himself slowly.
"Whatever happened between you two, I wonder."
"Something happened worth the story. Please don't ask."
"I won't. But listen—spare Pushan Hadaru all the same."
"Why, may I ask?"
"Because no one makes a better lightning rod."
"A lightning rod?"
"That's right. Think about it. No matter how successful the likes of us become, to the Jurchens we will always be outsiders. We carry centuries of deep-rooted distrust and hatred on our backs wherever we go. Right now you're just one merchant among many, so it doesn't matter much—but the day you come to stand tall over Hwangseongpyeong... well, you know what they say. The stone that sticks out gets hammered."
Hong-wi turned the words over in his mind.
There was sense in them.
"Consider it a matter of sparing one fool's life—and put him in your debt while you're at it. When the time comes, you can simply call it in."
"...I'll do as you say."
Hong-wi nodded slowly. Hwang Ga wore a look of satisfaction.
"Good."
He paused, thinking, then spoke again.
"Well then, since that's settled—and since I've come all this way, after all—there's one more thing I'd like to discuss."
"And what would that be?"
In answer, Hwang Ga snapped his fan shut and pointed, one by one, at the people in the room.
"Rather a lot of listening ears in here."
"They're people I trust."
"Of course they are. I know that well enough."
Hong-wi regarded him for a long moment, then gave Ho-in and Cha Gyeong-yeon a slight glance, signaling them to step outside. They looked at the two men, and before long nodded readily. As if they had received instructions from Hwang Ga beforehand, Mak-gae and Jang Hui-sun also withdrew.
Hwang Ga waited patiently until every last one of them had gone.
Hong-wi spoke first.
"What is this about?"
Even with only the two of them left in the room, Hwang Ga lowered his voice another register.
"Would you care to go into business with me? One particular venture?"
"A venture. Forgive me—but what sort of venture, exactly?"
Hwang Ga let the silence stretch a long while. At last, his voice pitched low and deliberate, he spoke.
"Have you ever considered laying hands on the iron smuggling trade?"
"Just like that?"
Hong-wi furrowed his brow. What sudden whim had possessed the usually meticulous Hwang Ga?
"That's far too dangerous. Surely you know the rules as well as anyone, my lord—"
"Of course I know them. Who do you think helped write them?"
Hwang Ga gave a thin smile.
"The code was clear: no matter what else we touched, iron smuggling and human trafficking were never to be part of it. Not ever."
"That's right."
"And it isn't simply a matter of the Joseon authorities catching wind. Iron flowing into Jurchen hands is something the Ming watches with the same nervous vigilance as Joseon. If we're discovered, they won't rest until they've torn the whole enterprise out by the roots."
"Yes, that's all true."
Hwang Ga drifted into thought, waving his fan in slow, idle strokes.
"But I still think it's worth keeping in mind."
"Why is that?"
"Because soon there will be war in Jianzhou."
Hwang Ga's words could not have been more earnest, and his eyes glittered.
Hong-wi said nothing.
"You know the state of the Three Guards of Jianzhou as well as anyone. Don't tell me you don't. A man like you would know—unless I've badly misjudged you, and I don't believe I have."
"I know a little, yes."
Hong-wi admitted it.
"Talk of bloodshed coming to Jianzhou has circulated for some time now... but even if the Three Guards system is shaky, it's held together well enough so far, hasn't it?"
"It has. But will it still hold after one leg of the tripod snaps?"
Hong-wi frowned.
He hadn't known Hwang Ga long, but the man was not one to invent tales from thin air.
"Is there some reason to believe it will?"
"Mm. There is, indeed there is. Pan-chya of the Jianzhou Right Guard will be lucky to see next year out."
A brief silence settled between them.
Hong-wi broke it first.
"How do you know that?"
"Because someone from the Jianzhou Right Guard asked me to recommend a physician, and I did. You yourself asked for one before, remember? For that old man from the slave market, stricken with that wretched lung disease."
"I remember."
Hong-wi nodded. He had indeed asked Hwang Ga for a physician to cure Cheon-noin's lung illness.
"It was your request, so I obliged—but as it happened, the Jianzhou Right Guard had also asked for a famous doctor from Joseon at the same time. Call it killing two birds with one stone. Pan-chya's son Bohato suffers his share of minor ailments and grumbles about them, but he's hardly sick enough to go hunting for a celebrated physician. And yet he went looking for one."
"So that's who Pan-chya is. Is the man truly in such grave condition?"
"Read between the lines of the prescriptions and you get a fair picture. Besides, Pan-chya himself has hardly shown his face before his people lately. By next year, one of the three dudu seats of Jianzhou will be empty. And according to rumor, Tungshan of the Jianzhou Left Guard is already circling the opportunity."
"That would be just like Tungshan. His lifelong ambition has always been to absorb Pan-chya's Right Guard and reunify the Odoli tribe."
Hwang Ga paused briefly at Hong-wi's reply, then went on.
"Well informed. Yes—it's a grudge twenty years in the maturing. Bohato and his son Naranghap will resist, of course... but what choice will they have? Twenty years ago it was Pan-chya himself who lost to Tungshan and fled into Lee Man-ju's arms. Nothing has changed. And neither Bohato nor his grandson Naranghap can hope to hold out against a Tungshan grown canny and gray with experience."
"True. But then Lee Man-ju won't simply stand by, either."
"That's exactly my point. The Jianzhou Right Guard is a slab of meat caught between two wolves—Tungshan and Lee Man-ju."
Hong-wi nodded. He had heard this story told to exhaustion already.
"And so, with war on the horizon, all of Jianzhou throws itself into war preparations—"
"Exactly. You saw it yourself at Sahalcha, didn't you? That village—Bang or Ban, whatever their name—wiped out to the last soul. That's what happens when the levies grow merciless in the run-up to war."
"Merciless doesn't begin to cover it. They erased the entire village."
Hong-wi's teeth clenched.
"Yes, a tragedy. But here's the thing—even if they bleed the people dry to fill their war chests, they can't get their hands on the iron needed to forge weapons. That's the bind they're in. Word is that Lee Man-ju has gone half-mad hunting for it. And this is Lee Man-ju's Jianzhou Guard, mind you—the single greatest consumer of iron in all of Jianzhou. You follow what I'm saying?"
Hwang Ga fixed Hong-wi with a grave look.
"For iron, Lee Man-ju would grovel on his knees. Supply iron to a man like that... and the rewards would be extraordinary."
"And Jianzhou would fall into Lee Man-ju's hands."
"Which might, in the end, be better for the Jurchens themselves."
"I don't think so. And the people of the Ban clan village at Sahalcha wouldn't think so either."
Hwang Ga seemed to register the steel beneath Hong-wi's answer.
"Come now—we're merchants. There's no right or wrong in trade. A merchant's iron rule is simple: does it profit me, or doesn't it? That's all you need to look at."
"A Jianzhou ruled by Lee Man-ju will drown in blood, or turn to ash and gray. One or the other."
"Who can say? Lee Man-ju won't live forever. What things look like ten years from now is anyone's guess."
"And if we supply him with iron, can you even begin to imagine how much blood and tears will flow through Jianzhou in those ten years?"