The Bribe at the Gate
Cha Gyeong-yeon grabbed Hong-wi and Ho-in by the arms and pulled them along.
"Let's go. This is no place for the likes of us to make a scene. It's probably a tax dispute."
"What, they have taxes here too?"
"How could taxes not exist anywhere?"
At Ho-in's protest, Cha Gyeong-yeon gave a wry smile.
"Hwangseongpyeong sits close to Joseon land, and the official market opens regularly across the river at Manpo, so precious rice, cloth, and farm tools keep flowing in for the Jurchens. There's plenty to skim, but no officials to keep order — so flies like those come buzzing around."
"Do the Dudus of the Jianzhou Three Guards just let this go on?" Hong-wi asked.
"They're all in it together. As I told you, the Jurchens aren't yet in any state to appoint officials systematically and govern like a nation. Even Lee Man-ju is no exception. So they content themselves with these rabble keeping just enough order to collect their tribute."
"Then only the powerless suffer for it, caught in between," Hong-wi murmured.
Thinking on it, the grievances of the people he had met in Yeongwol were not so very different. If anything, Joseon at least had a functioning state apparatus — it had the means to punish corrupt officials. And even there, the people's burdens ran deep. So how much worse must it be here?
"Indeed. Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad thing, in the end, if someone truly great were to rise among the Jurchens living on this land and bring them order."
Cha Gyeong-yeon's words carried an oddly meaningful weight.
"But if the Jurchens ever banded together and founded a nation of their own, they'd become a threat to our Joseon as well. A thorny problem," Hong-wi murmured.
"That much is true."
Cha Gyeong-yeon smiled brightly.
"For now, we'd best mind our own business. Come this way, if you please. I hear they've built a warehouse over there where Hwang Ga stores the goods he smuggles across."
Hwang Ga's warehouse was enclosed by a wooden palisade.
According to Cha Gyeong-yeon, the Jurchens originally kept no warehouses at all. Strange as it sounded, it made perfect sense — the Jurchens simply had no surplus worth storing.
Two burly men armed with cudgels stood guard at the entrance.
"There are the gatekeepers. They look like Jurchens, don't they?"
"Hired hands Hwang Ga took on here, most likely."
Cha Gyeong-yeon answered Hong-wi's question, glanced around, and then straightened up. He started toward the gatekeepers — then hesitated.
"Your Highness — consider it practice in the Jurchen tongue. Why not handle this one yourself from here? If anything goes wrong, I'll step in."
"His Highness? What — Cha, surely not…."
Ho-in nearly jumped out of his skin at the suggestion.
But before he could say another word, Hong-wi nodded.
"Very well. That should be no trouble."
Ho-in shut his mouth. Hong-wi had, on occasion, exchanged a few words with Jurchens passing through, so he had some confidence in conversation.
Hong-wi took the lead, with Cha Gyeong-yeon and Ho-in following behind.
The moment the gatekeepers spotted the party, they planted themselves squarely in the way. One of them shouted in the Jurchen tongue.
"Who are you? What business brings you here?"
Fortunately, unlike the old man from earlier, their dialect was comprehensible enough. They were asking who he was, and what business he had here.
Hong-wi answered in the Jurchen tongue as well.
"We have come to see Master Hwang."
"Master Hwang…"
The men exchanged glances. Apparently they understood, at least.
Hong-wi waited, doing his best to hide his impatience.
"Master Hwang not here now."
"I see."
That was no surprise. Hwang Ga hardly lurked about this place day and night.
"Then is his deputy here?"
"Deputy?"
The gatekeepers cocked their heads. Whether Hong-wi's Jurchen was still too clumsy, whether it was a difference in dialect, or whether the men were simply dim, they clearly could not follow.
Hong-wi explained slowly and carefully.
"The one who acts in his place. When Master Hwang is away, the one who stays in his stead."
"There is."
The gatekeeper grinned.
"That man busy."
"Then could you pass him a message?"
"Hmm…"
The gatekeepers traded sly smiles among themselves.
For a moment Hong-wi had no idea what was going on and stood there, bewildered. What were these fellows playing at?
Cha Gyeong-yeon, who had been watching the exchange, tugged at Hong-wi's sleeve and whispered.
"They want a bribe."
"Ah…"
So that's what it was.
Hong-wi let out a small sigh. A bribe, is it. And what exactly do I have on hand to offer?
The gatekeepers kept smiling their round, oily smiles up at him. And at that very moment—
"Oi!"
At the familiar voice, Hong-wi's party all turned at once.
It was Jang Hui-sun. He had recognized them, and came striding over with a wave of his hand. Cha Gyeong-yeon waved back with a grin.
"Well, well. To think I'd meet you here, Elder."
"Aye, I only just got in with a cargo load. Hah — you come to the Jurchen lands and then go months without a word? I'd been wondering how you were getting on these past few months, truth be told."
Jang Hui-sun looked Hong-wi up and down.
"So it's the young master himself. You weren't starving through the winter, I see? No — if anything you've gotten remarkably hale. I'd scarce have known you."
Saying this, he cast a sidelong glance at Ho-in too, but said nothing to him directly.
"So what wind blew you here?"
"We need work."
"Work?"
Jang Hui-sun nodded, showing little surprise.
"Figured as much. I'd been wondering when you'd turn up. There's precious little honest living to be had in Jurchen territory… All right, that's easily arranged. Come on in, first thing."
Meanwhile the gatekeepers had been hovering about with uneasy, resentful looks. When Jang Hui-sun barked something at them, they slunk back with sheepish faces.
Jang Hui-sun glanced at them and asked, "Those lads didn't give you any trouble, did they?"
"Well — they didn't seem to understand a word I said…"
Jang Hui-sun grinned.
"They're playing dumb on purpose. Too many folk come sniffing around this place, so we make a point of hiring the sharpest ones for gate duty. Shaking down a little pocket money is their prerogative, mind."
Hong-wi's party passed between the warehouses. They were gweiteuljip — frontier cabins built of interlocking logs sealed with mud — and the walls looked a good full foot thick. They would stand up to a siege ram, no question. There were several of these warehouses, one after another.
"Solidly built, these are… and more than one of them, at that. Looks like quite a mountain of goods in there."
"Doesn't it? We spent all winter putting them up. Master Hwang means to expand the business a fair bit from here on."
"So the river route has opened up at last, has it?"
"Hardly. All this was hauled over through the winter, and it's still only this much."
Jang Hui-sun wrinkled his nose and went on.
"Song Yu-bin at Manpo has been leaning on us that hard. Without that man on our backs, these warehouses would be bursting full by now."
"Hm. But with this much stock piled up, it's high time to release it onto the market. Why keep sitting on it? Holding out for higher prices?"
"Not that. We're still looking for buyers."
"What — how can that be?" Cha Gyeong-yeon asked, genuinely puzzled. "From the look of it, that's nothing but goods to make the Jurchens drool. Rice, salt, cloth, even farm tools… aren't these the very things the Jurchens can't get for themselves?"
Rice was a vital import for the Jurchens, whose farmland was barren and whose tools and farming techniques were so poor they lived in perpetual want of food. Salt mattered just as much — not only as a seasoning, but because livestock needed a steady supply of minerals too. In the inland regions salt was hard to come by, and it was prized not only among the Jurchens but clear out on the Mongolian steppe. Beyond that, the Jurchens were so preoccupied with mere survival that their handicraft production was hopelessly thin — cloth, farm tools, and other necessities simply had to be imported.
And every one of these goods had to come from Joseon or Ming. The quantities permitted through official trade fell far short of demand. That shortfall had always been made up by, to put it charitably, private traders — and less charitably, smugglers. So while there might be some excuse if there were no goods to sell, sitting on a stockpile with no buyers made no sense at all.
"That's just it. We haven't secured a proper trading partner yet."
"How could that possibly be!"
"It's a long story. Let's talk inside."
Jang Hui-sun led them into a small dormitory attached to the row of warehouses, and offered them something to drink.
"Care for some rice wine?"
"Oh, do I ever. I'd just been thinking I missed the taste of home," Cha Gyeong-yeon replied.
At that, Ho-in silently agreed. He had long since grown used to mayuju, that fermented mare's milk — but makgeolli was always a thing of longing.
Jang Hui-sun poured the cups around. Warmth spread through their bellies in a pleasant rush.
"But truly — no buyers? That doesn't add up. It's one thing if there's nothing to sell, but you can't tell me there's no one willing to buy."
"Ah, that! It comes down to pride."
"Pride?"
Ho-in cocked his head and cut in.
"Aye, pride. You see, Master Hwang just drove out the Solgo gang and brought the entire smuggling trade on this side of the Amnok River under his thumb. That's the trouble."
"Who is this Solgo?"
At Hong-wi's question, Jang Hui-sun laughed.
"Ah, of course — the young master wouldn't know. He's the Jurchen smuggler who had this side of the Amnok all to himself."
"I see. I'd assumed Master Hwang had long since brought the river routes around Manpo to heel."
"Well, you wouldn't be wrong, exactly. But the area around Hwangseongpyeong was the exception… You see, the Jurchens recoil from us Joseon folk to the last man. So until now, whenever cargo had to be brought into Hwangseongpyeong, we had no choice but to put Jurchen middlemen between us — and that middleman was the Solgo gang. And what a vile pack they were. Pilfering the cargo was routine, and of course they'd skim an obscene margin on top."
"Ah, I can well imagine."
Hong-wi nodded.
"So that's it — this time, you finally drove the Solgo gang out."
"That we did. There was a proper fight, too. Giving that meddlesome crew their comeuppance washed away ten years of bitter phlegm in one go."
Jang Hui-sun grinned.
"But here's the thing — the moment we kicked out Solgo's lot, the Jurchen merchants in Hwangseongpyeong started raising holy hell out of nowhere."
"Why ever would they? Solgo might hold a grudge against Master Hwang, sure, but the Hwangseongpyeong merchants only care that the goods arrive, whoever carries them. If anything, with Solgo gone, they should be getting their stock cheaper and better off for it."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you — but it doesn't work that way. There's no people on earth who weigh blood ties and hometown bonds like the Jurchens do. That Solgo fellow who just got pushed out and the Jurchen merchants of Hwangseongpyeong have traded with each other for ages. 'We can't stand by and watch our kinsman done in by the Joseon dogs' — that's their line."
The irony, of course, was that Hwang Ga received no true treatment as a fellow Joseon man even in Joseon itself. Such was the sorrow of living in the gray zones.
"So a merchant values loyalty over profit…"
"The Jurchens are a peculiar breed, they are. But you see it rightly. Frankly, between you and me — now that Master Hwang has the whole smuggling board in his fist, those fellows are finally falling in line. If it's anything else, I'll eat my hat."
Jang Hui-sun drained his cup and set it down with a clack.
"Still, that Pushan Hadaru fellow made the mistake of underestimating Master Hwang too."
"And who might Pushan Hadaru be?"
At Hong-wi's question, Jang Hui-sun laughed heartily once more.
"Ah, forgive me — of course you wouldn't know. He's something like the head honcho of the Jurchen merchants settled in Hwangseongpyeong. The Pushan clan — that is, the Puseon clan — is a family with real roots in this trade."
"The Puseon clan. So among the Jurchens, a house of standing?"
"Yes and no."
Jang Hui-sun smiled slyly. Seeing the bewildered look on Hong-wi's face, he went on to explain.
"Here's the thing about the Jurchens — they hold merchants in utter contempt. What they revere above all is the stout warrior, the great hunter. Farmers and craftsmen are merely the ones who feed and clothe the warriors and hunters. Merchants? To them, merchants are just the creatures who wander from place to place hawking goods, groveling and bowing for every last coin. A nothing — the sort you smack on the back and it coughs up its purse."
Ho-in found the custom strangely familiar — not so different from Joseon, really. In the order of scholar, farmer, artisan, merchant, had they simply swapped the scholar for the warrior? Though to him, this preference of martial over civil virtue also stood as one more proof of Jurchen barbarism.
"So however grand the Pushan clan may be, they're grand only among merchants. Ask whether they're a noble house held in honor among the Jurchen people proper, and the answer is no."
"I see it clearly."
"Even so, in this trade they're a formidable house without question. Back in the days of Hadaru's great-grandfather, they were something truly monstrous — the story goes they built their fortune brokering trade between the Yuan dynasty and Goryeo out of Shenyang. When Nahachu rose against the Ming, his host of two hundred thousand was provisioned by the Pushan. That should give you some measure of it."
"Indeed."
Hong-wi was genuinely taken aback.
"But once the Yuan collapsed outright and Nahachu surrendered to the Ming, the house fell on harder times. Pushan Hadaru's father, and Hadaru himself, have no gift whatsoever for trade — everything they touch, they lose. The Pushan of today is but a shadow of its glory days. Still, they say a rich family takes three generations to go broke — and all those decades of connections don't simply vanish, so no one can afford to dismiss them."
"I understand. So Pushan Hadaru is throwing his weight around as the old establishment."
"Precisely. And there's a personal grudge involved, too."
"A personal grudge?"