The Merchant's Gambit
Only after a long while did Hong-wi murmur, his voice low. "……Thank you. If only I could have kept a loyal retainer like you close to me from the start…… No—no, that's not right……"
Before Hong-wi's eyes, the faces of the retainers who had died for him drifted past one by one. His voice trembled little by little with grief.
"What shame have I, to claim I had no loyal men? There were many of them. It was only that I was lacking—that a king failed to shield them—that those precious lives were cut down, one after another……"
"Your Majesty."
Song Yu-bin interjected with a grave voice. "Forgive my presumption…… but allow me, unworthy as I am, to speak plainly. A sovereign must be magnanimous. Misfortune befell you when your time had not yet come, but all of that is behind us now. Whatever anyone may say, Your Majesty is the rightful king of this realm."
"I am grateful you see me so. But right now I cannot see even a hand's breadth before me…… and whenever I think of each of those worthy scholars who have already died, my chest tightens past all bearing. I am truly living off the sacrifices of others. I cannot suppress the desolation."
Sorrow and anguish were steeped deeply in his voice. "Now my failings have even spread to a man of such unbending integrity as you. I have no face left to show."
"It is an honor beyond deserving. Yet allow me one word more. If Your Majesty truly honors the loyal men who have already died, then—with all respect—steady your heart and speak no weak words. Their sacrifice must not be made hollow. I beg you, preserve your royal person and plan for the day to come. Would that not be the truest way to honor their merit?"
At Song Yu-bin's words, Hong-wi was struck by a great realization, and his face filled with emotion.
After a long pause, his throat tight, Hong-wi nodded again and again as he answered. "Thank you. Why did I forget such a simple truth and speak so feebly? Hearing your words, I am ashamed of myself. I will engrave them upon my heart!"
"The honor is mine."
For a time the two men stood silent, letting the wind wash over them. After a long while, Song Yu-bin spoke again.
"There is one more thing I wish to say."
"Speak."
"Might I ask…… how you came to meet those now traveling with you? Especially that man Cha, the one called Cha-mo."
Hong-wi found it slightly curious, but he could see well enough that Song Yu-bin was not a man to speak idly. Without hiding anything, he recounted how the two men had come to join him.
When he had finished, Song Yu-bin seemed to be pondering something deeply.
"What made you ask?"
A somewhat troubled look crossed Song Yu-bin's face. "It pains me to say. It may be nothing more than my own idle suspicion."
"As if I would let your words pass unheeded. Speak."
"Then I shall. The way I see it, this Jeon Ho-in seems a thoroughly honest soul. One need only look into his eyes to know it. But…… the man called Cha-mo is not. I have never met this Jeong Ho-chan, so I cannot say anything about him."
"Are you saying he cannot be trusted?"
"That is not it. There is no doubt whatsoever that he acts for Your Majesty's sake. But it feels to me as though his actions on Your Majesty's behalf serve some other purpose as well."
Hong-wi studied Song Yu-bin's face intently. Perplexity was written plainly across it.
In a situation like this, the only men still standing at Hong-wi's side, save Ho-in, were Cha Gyeong-yeon and Jeong Ho-chan. In any case, there was no denying that they were working for him. Might an idle remark only throw Hong-wi into confusion? Such were the worries churning in Song Yu-bin's mind.
"This very affair is an example…… Your Majesty building a merchant company in the wild lands will benefit you in the end, I grant. And yet something about it feels as though we are being steered toward it."
"I see."
Hong-wi let out a long sigh. "Suppose your worry proves true—what of it then? In this treacherous world, how many men of principle are there who would devote everything to me with a pure heart, as you do, or as that father and son Jeon? If they aid me with some other end in view, there is not the slightest thing to reproach them for."
"Your Majesty……"
"If I had doubted Cha-mo from the beginning and refused to follow him, that would be one thing. But having already chosen to trust him, what good does it do to question his motives now? It would be worse than never digging at all."
"I beg your forgiveness."
Song Yu-bin bowed his head. Inwardly he marveled at Hong-wi's magnanimity even as his heart ached for him.
Hong-wi was only sixteen years old. For words spoken at such an age, they were steeped through with a lonely wisdom about human nature, and with resignation.
Song Yu-bin felt sheepish, wondering if he had spoken out of turn after all.
"I know well enough that you meant no ill by it. Your concern, at least, I accept with gratitude."
Hong-wi looked up at the sky. "A good deal of time has passed. Let us go in. Take care of yourself as well."
"Yes, Your Majesty. May you likewise preserve your royal person."
Hong-wi's party spent one more night at Manpo. The next day, Hwang Ga arrived with his trusted man Mak-gae and Jang Hui-sun in tow.
Hong-wi asked him, "We cross the river in broad daylight?"
"Song Yu-bin has come over to our side, so there's nothing left to fret over," Hwang Ga replied. "Come along, quick. Even an ox's horn comes loose if you boil it long enough."
On reaching Hwangseongpyeong, they headed straight for Pushan Hadaru's residence. His house, surprisingly, was built in the Joseon style. They would learn later that the wealthy frontiersmen living in Hwangseongpyeong did not dwell in the hide tents of the Jurchens but built themselves thatch-roofed houses in the Joseon fashion. Even so, by Joseon standards it was no more than the home of a well-to-do farmer.
As Hwang Ga's party approached, two gatekeepers rose and barred the entrance. "Who goes there?"
Hwang Ga answered in fluent Jurchen. "I've come to see Pushan Hadaru."
"Master Pushan, you say……"
Hwang Ga had addressed the name outright, honorifics and all, and the gatekeepers eyed his party up and down with some surprise. One of them spoke. "He is entertaining guests at his meal. You will have to wait."
"Meal or no meal, fetch him at once."
Hwang Ga snapped open his paper fan in irritation. The gatekeepers glanced at each other. "If you tell him Hwang Ga has come, he'll understand."
The gatekeepers hesitated. They were unaccustomed to Joseon men turning up like this and making a scene, but instinct told them this was no one to be treated lightly.
"Wait a moment."
With that, one of the gatekeepers disappeared into the house. Hwang Ga paid the remaining man no mind at all, flicking his fan about in visible irritation. Spring had only just arrived—it was hardly warm enough to warrant fanning oneself.
Before long, the gatekeeper returned. "He says you may enter."
Hwang Ga gave only the slightest nod, and they went inside. The smell of food mingled with the sound of boisterous voices. Ho-in's nostrils flared. Pushan Hadaru, it seemed, had a taste for Joseon cuisine.
The moment they stepped into the great hall serving as the banquet room, the chatter that had been flowing a heartbeat before cut off dead, and every eye in the room swung toward Hwang Ga's party. Silence descended.
"Well, if it isn't…… Hwang Ga himself!"
The first to break the silence was a man in his mid-thirties seated at the head of the room, thickly padded with flesh. His plump cheeks were flushed red, and his small eyes gleamed with greed. He swallowed the food in his mouth and gave the wine cup in his hand a light flourish. This was Pushan Hadaru.
"What brings you here? Have you come, at this late hour, to accept my terms?"
"If you mean I should accept that cur Solgo, there's no chance of it. The waterways of the Amnok River have been mine and mine alone for a long time now. Nothing to worry about there." Hwang Ga snapped his fan open as he replied.
At those words, the swarthy, ill-featured man seated beside Pushan Hadaru scowled fiercely. That, presumably, was Solgo. Pushan Hadaru frowned as well.
"Hoh."
Pushan Hadaru set down his cup and leveled a thick finger at Hwang Ga, jabbing it at him. "Stubborn as ever, I see. But that Amnok River waters these very banks of Hwangseongpyeong too. You may have swallowed the river, Hwang Ga, but if we here cannot move the goods from Hwangseongpyeong deep into Jianzhou, all your labor comes to nothing!"
The guests roared with laughter at that. The men Pushan Hadaru had gathered here were frontier merchants who made their base in Hwangseongpyeong.
"I suppose they would say so. I know it well. Which is why I've decided to organize a trading company of my own this time."
"What was that?"
Pushan Hadaru's mouth fell open. The laughter drained from the faces of the other guests as well.
"You mean to say—here in Hwangseongpyeong, you dare speak of founding another company without our leave?"
"Well, I wasn't planning to skip asking permission. If you grant it, I'll accept it gratefully."
Pushan Hadaru pondered a moment, then smiled a sinister smile. "You wish for our blessing, do you?"
"I'm not the sort to go picking fights for the pleasure of it."
"That's not what Solgo here says. Did you not strike at him first?"
"Had he handed over his business peaceably, there would have been no fight. Regrettably, he refused."
Throughout this exchange, Solgo's face had hardened into stone.
"Hmph." Pushan Hadaru thought for a moment, then curled his lips into a twisted smile. "What do you take us for, fools? You want us to make room for you in the Jianzhou trade? And why, pray, should we?"
"If you cannot accept, then I'll simply have to carry on with this tedious contest of nerve."
Pushan Hadaru affected a languid expression and gave a shrug of his shoulders. But his fingers were drumming anxiously against the table.
Hwang Ga waited him out. "Your venture is doomed to fail regardless. You know that well enough. What exactly do you imagine a greenhorn who knows nothing of these lands will accomplish, coming into Jianzhou?"
"I thank you for your concern, but that's my concern to bear."
"Fine then. Who have you chosen as head of this company?"
Pushan Hadaru's eyes glittered cunningly. He was burning to know whom Hwang Ga intended to put forward. He looked around at his guests. "Is anyone here perhaps planning to join hands with Hwang Ga?"
The Jurchen merchants shook their heads one after another. "No one? Hm. The Jianzhou chieftains are even less flexible than we are, and they hate strangers. Joseon men doubly so."
Suspicion was etched into Pushan Hadaru's gaze. He turned to his trusted retainer Ugunai seated at his right hand. Ugunai, with his air of airtight competence, had served the Pushan clan since his father's day. Ugunai only shrugged.
No mole of a man would sell our Jurchen pride to become a Joseon dog's tail…… but then again, that too would depend on what profit this fellow promised him.
Just then, Hwang Ga clapped a hand on Hong-wi's shoulder and said, "This friend here. The one they call Temusi-i."
Every gaze in the room, Pushan Hadaru's foremost among them, slammed onto Hong-wi. Between Pushan Hadaru's thick lips leaked an incredulous, deflated laugh. "Hah?"
Pushan Hadaru barely suppressed the laugh. "Well, this is…… quite the genteel young lord, isn't he."
The men tittered softly. Only Ugunai did not laugh.
"That boy means to carve out a business in Jianzhou? Beat it out of the ground?"
There was a reason Pushan Hadaru and the other merchants reacted this way. Merchant and trading company they might call themselves, but in Jianzhou—where the blade came before the law—roaming from village to village to ply one's 'trade' demanded fighting strength above merchant cunning. One had to survive before one could haggle. For that reason, a trading company here was closer to a small company of hired swords.
"You truly mean to put this boy in charge?"
Hwang Ga nodded. "He looks young, doesn't he. Got any experience in trade, boy?"
"You may not remember, but that Solgo over there said much the same about me when we first met. Though his thinking may have changed a little by now."
Solgo's dark face flushed crimson. Pushan Hadaru studied him for a moment, then shrugged. "That may well be……"
Pushan Hadaru's heart eased. So Hwang Ga has finally lost his grip on himself, has he? Putting forward a whelp like that.
At that moment, Ugunai leaned in. "Perhaps it would be best to confer privately before deciding anything."
Pushan Hadaru wrinkled the bridge of his nose, but soon nodded. "We will speak among ourselves for a time."
"By all means," Hwang Ga replied with unruffled ease.
Pushan Hadaru and his merchants withdrew to the back room. Watching them go, Mak-gae asked quietly, "How will it fall?"
"Who can say." Hwang Ga answered calmly, casting a brief glance at Hong-wi. "You owe something to your looks, Temusi-i. Feel how they're underestimating you? Complacency is the greatest enemy of all."
"So it would seem. But we shall see."
Hong-wi answered in turn. Ugunai, was it? That one struck me as uncommonly sharp.
Meanwhile, the moment Pushan Hadaru's crew filed into the side chamber, Solgo—with the fire already at his heels—began to protest. "Master Pushan, you cannot do this! Is this not a betrayal of our agreement?"
But his words rang strangely hollow. The Jurchens prized connections, it was true, yet no one spares interest for a dog whose tail is already tucked, beaten in the contest before it began.
Pushan Hadaru gave Solgo a genial smile. "Solgo…… worry yourself too much, and just bide your time. How long can that Hwang Ga carry on without our cooperation? Your day will come again, I tell you."
"Master!"
"Come now, none of that. Have a drink!"
Solgo tried to protest further, but when Pushan Hadaru clapped his hands, he was swept away, helpless to resist.
"Now then, what do you all make of Hwang Ga's proposal? Dragging out some green pup like that—Hwang Ga really has lost his wits. I can't imagine what Solgo here did to get pushed out, though."
A low round of laughter rippled through the room. Pushan Hadaru turned to Ugunai. "Ugunai—what was so important that you insisted we step out and confer separately?"