Pushan Hadaru's Proposal and the Court's Blind Eyes
"Of course, for now the right thing is to lie low and build your strength, benefactor. That Pushan Hadaru is a man who does nothing but gorge himself on what his ancestors piled up — but what they piled up is enormous all the same. Don't underestimate him too much. At least, not yet."
"...I'll keep that in mind."
"Good!"
Hwang Ga nodded.
"As for Lee Go-nap-hap — even in Jianzhou, the man is pointed at as reckless. Behind his back, of course. Say what you will, he is still Lee Man-ju's son. A shell of a thing, true, but a shell that holds the title of Dudu of the Jianzhou Guard. Best to stay on good terms with him if you can."
"I'll do my best."
Hong-wi answered as images burned through his mind — Ban Village in flames, the corpses strewn where they had fallen.
"Good, good. As far as I know, the Onyan clan is the most noble lineage among the tribes. To catch the eye of people like that... you mustn't come half-prepared. You understand, don't you? The gifts, too — nothing less than the finest of the finest."
"Yes, I understand."
"And above all, you need to know the road to Anchuunbugu."
"That, I'll have to look into now."
"Pushan Hadaru will know. No — he most certainly knows. If he doesn't, who would?"
Hwang Ga replied. Just then, Cha Gyeong-yeon called from outside.
"My lord, Pushan Hadaru requests an audience."
"Pushan Hadaru?"
Hong-wi asked back. Hwang Ga nodded as well.
"Speak of the tiger and it appears, they say... Go see him. If you need anything, ask Jang Hui-sun — I'll provide the support."
"Thank you."
The one who came to fetch Hong-wi was Ugunai. Not once, the entire way, did the man utter a single word.
Pushan Hadaru received Hong-wi with his pride puffed up to bursting.
"Do you have any idea how much trouble you put me in, defying Lord Kunaha as you did?"
"I beg your forgiveness."
"Is begging enough? I wore myself to the bone smoothing over Lord Kunaha's anger on your account..."
Pushan Hadaru droned on for a good while. Hong-wi listened with patience. Once his resentment had mostly drained away, Pushan Hadaru got to the point.
"You intend to go to Anchuunbugu, I hear."
"...Pardon?"
For the first time, Hong-wi was genuinely startled.
Now? Out of nowhere?
Pushan Hadaru, watching his reaction, took it as confirmation that the rumor was true.
"That is rather sudden."
"Indeed. You need to keep a low profile, and Anchuunbugu is a remote place. You'll go there and lie low until Lord Kunaha forgets you ever existed."
"I was told it is not a place just any merchant may enter."
A suspicious feeling crept over him. As far as Hong-wi knew, Anchuunbugu was a sacred sanctuary, and only merchants of considerable standing had been permitted to visit it, generation after generation. It was hardly the sort of place one sent a man under the pretext of house arrest.
And sure enough, Pushan Hadaru's expression stiffened at once.
"You refuse? I went out of my way to think this up for you, and this is how you answer me?"
Suspicion hardened into certainty. What business did a man like Pushan Hadaru have playing guardian angel for Hong-wi — worrying over his welfare, fretting on his behalf?
And there was precedent. He had once sent Hong-wi off to a place called Sahalcha with the open intent of ruining him — the only reason it hadn't worked out that way was the unexpected success that followed.
There's something scheming behind this, but I meant to reach Anchuunbugu anyway, so isn't this all to the good? Whatever game he's playing — let him try it.
"That was not my meaning. It's only that it's all so sudden... If you so graciously propose it, my lord, then I will go."
Having settled his mind, Hong-wi answered without hesitation. Only then did Pushan Hadaru stroke his beard in evident satisfaction.
"Hmph. That's more like it."
Though the two men sat in the same room, the thoughts each carried were worlds apart.
While Hong-wi was being told by Pushan Hadaru to go to Anchuunbugu, Park Won-hyeong, the Dochechalsa of Hamgil Province, had likewise heard of the affair in the Jianzhou Guard and summoned Yang Jeong to interrogate him.
"Oh, come now. It was nothing worth mentioning, yet you keep at me."
Yang Jeong's attitude was insolence itself. The Dochechalsa was a special inspector dispatched briefly from the central court to the provinces on yearly rotation — hardly a position a Dojeoljesa could treat so carelessly. What was more, Park Won-hyeong concurrently held the post of Minister of Punishments, while Yang Jeong held nothing at all. Comrades of the Gyeyu Coup or not, such audacity was out of line.
"Why do you simply say it was nothing? Lee Man-ju raised a force of hundreds, and I receive no report at all. Does that make sense to you?"
"It wasn't worth reporting, that's why. The trouble happened in the Jianzhou Guard, didn't it? If we must be strict about it, that falls under Pyeongan Province's jurisdiction. What business, then, occurred in my jurisdiction — no, in your jurisdiction, Your Excellency?"
Park Won-hyeong kept his face deliberately composed, though inside he was barely smothering a slow-boiling anger.
Is this wretch taking me for a fool because I don't know the ins and outs of the frontier tribes?
Such was Park Won-hyeong's suspicion. And the suspicion was fact.
"Come now, why do you hide behind jurisdiction? Look at a map — cross the Tumen River from Jianzhou and you land squarely in Hamgil Province."
Haah... this fool!
Yang Jeong was exasperated. On paper, Jianzhou and Hamgil Province did indeed face each other across the Tumen River. But that region was rugged highland, an unopened wilderness that neither man nor horse could easily cross. Why else did the Jurchens of Jianzhou, coming to Joseon, refuse the Hamgil route and insist on going around through Manpo and Pyeongan Province?
He found Park Won-hyeong repulsive — prying and pestering while knowing nothing of how the frontier actually worked. If you don't know, then leave it to the experts!
"I understand, Your Excellency. But you needn't worry. The tribes kill each other among themselves — what problem is there in that? If they cross the Tumen into Hamgil, I, Yang Jeong, will take responsibility and settle the matter. Leave it to me."
With Yang Jeong trumpeting his assurance this loudly, Park Won-hyeong could hardly press further.
"Fine! Then do as you see fit."
Yang Jeong regarded him with a sullen face.
"On another matter... ah, that is — have you any news yet of Grand Prince Nosan's whereabouts?"
"None."
Yang Jeong answered brusquely. But even without Park Won-hyeong breathing down his neck, it was a matter that weighed on Yang Jeong's own mind. Forget Han Myeong-hoe's promises — capture Nosan-gun Hong-wi, and this wretched life in Hamgil Province would end that very day, wouldn't it?
"Are you certain?"
"Your Excellency, do you distrust me that much? I've already dispatched search parties and swept the entire Tumen basin. Some have crossed the river, yes — but they were nothing but deserters and criminals."
Yang Jeong did not bother to mention what end those men had met. They were all dead men walking anyway.
"I see. We'll leave it at that."
"By the way, Your Excellency — about ferreting out Yi Jing-ok's remnants. Couldn't we, ah, ease up on that a little?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, that's what's strangling the frontier's work. My subordinates keep getting hauled about by the Dochechalsa's men, ordered here and badgered there — how is anyone supposed to get anything done?"
Yang Jeong was quietly, steadily chafing at Park Won-hyeong. On this matter, the fault was not entirely Park Won-hyeong's. It had been four or five years since Yi Jing-ok died, and his working officers were only just regaining their footing — only to be dredged and sifted yet again in the hunt for Jing-ok's remnants. How were they expected to endure it?
However far Yang Jeong's attention drifted from Hamgil Province, he was still a soldier. He knew very well what such harassment did to army morale. If anything, he had long resented the meddling of career bureaucrats who understood nothing.
"Really, old man. The roots of treason must be torn out — what kind of talk is this?"
"Oh, stop! Who said anything about keeping treason's roots alive? This is not Hanyang, nor the three southern provinces. This is the front line, I tell you. I'm merely saying you mustn't grind down too cruelly the people who hold this place day after day."
"Heeh..."
Park Won-hyeong was taken aback. Taken at face value, Yang Jeong's words sounded like sound reasoning — like a true soldier shielding his men from political logic.
But in the course of his inspection, Park Won-hyeong had also sensed that Yang Jeong was squeezing no small amount of wealth from the tribes and the local magnates of Hamgil Province, lining his own coffers.
Rotten to the very root, and yet how well those open mouths talk. In that respect, Yi Jing-ok was a hundred times the better man.
He decided to swallow it down — arguing with such a military boor would accomplish nothing. It was an open secret that Suyang shielded his coup comrades no matter what they did. Murder charges were waved away as it was; a little corruption could be forgiven as a fondness. And in any case, Park Won-hyeong needed only to serve out his one year as Dochechalsa. Yang Jeong would go on rotting in Hamgil Province forever.
"Very well. I shall hold the middle course."
Once Yang Jeong withdrew, Park Won-hyeong wrestled with how to word the report he would send to Hanyang. Yang Jeong was insolent, no doubt — but on the matter of the northern tribes, the man understood it better than he did.
In the end, it was only the tribes killing each other.
Park Won-hyeong judged there was no need to make a crisis of it. He too needed only to finish his term as Dochechalsa and return as if nothing had happened; until then, burying problems was the wisest course. He resolved to paper it over with the standard, time-worn phrases used for exactly such occasions.
While Park Won-hyeong drafted his report to the capital, Suyang was in audience with Yi Du-ri, Vice Commander (Domanho) of the Jianzhou Guard. The second son of Lee Man-ju had come to court as a diplomat in his father's stead. The weather being hot, Suyang received him at Gyeonghoeru Pavilion.
"Your father is ailing again, I hear."
"Yes, Your Majesty. He is unwell, and so he sent me in his place."
Yi Du-ri spoke with practiced fluency. Suyang regarded him through narrowed, clouded eyes.
"Was the road easy on your way here?"
"Thanks to Your Majesty's graciousness in opening the old Pyeongan road, the journey was smooth indeed."
"How convenient. Though coming in summer, the roads flood with the long rains and the heat saps a man — would autumn not have been wiser?"
Suyang answered absently. Of late he had been suffering a skin affliction, and when summer came the itching grew unbearable.
"In truth, my father has a request."
"And what is it?"
"Yes... it is nothing other than this: we wish to farm the land and live by it, but we lack many things."
"Farming for your bread — how admirable. If only your father and your brother would live so virtuously, I would be most grateful."
"Truly so. But unfortunately, we have no serviceable farming tools, and that is a great calamity."
"No farming tools. Is that so."
"Therefore, if Your Majesty would grant us more of the iron used to make hoes and plows, we would extol your virtue, and all our clan would flourish."
Yi Du-ri was a quick-witted one. He knew perfectly well that if he simply asked for iron as his father Lee Man-ju wished, Suyang would never hand it over. So he couched it as a matter of farm implements. Joseon regarded agriculture as a state principle and always wished for the tribes to take up farming and stop troubling the frontier — there could be no better pretext.
Suyang's brow twitched.
This whelp thinks he can take me for a fool.
A snort nearly escaped him. Lee Man-ju caring about farm work — the very thought was laughable. Suyang too had, in his own way, been involved in northern border affairs since his youth, assisting his father and brother. He knew full well that Lee Man-ju was not a man to ever be content tilling fields.
"Well... wanting to farm and feed yourselves is a most admirable thing. How could I refuse to help?"
Still, flatly refusing a request for aid in farming would have been awkward. "I shall instruct my Provincial Governor and Commander to send men specially to your villages to teach you farming tools and methods. How does that suit you?"
Yi Du-ri's expression dimmed. He'll attach overseers to us. Suyang is no lightweight either.
"Your words are gracious, but the road is long and harsh — how could we trouble the officials of the superior state? If only you would open the permitted quota at the official trade a little further..."
"Hm. Is that so."
Suyang fell into brief thought.
"We shall discuss that matter in due course. But tell me — of late, how many of Our subjects have crossed over to settle in Jianzhou?"
"Well... I cannot say I know precisely..."
The abrupt question flustered Yi Du-ri. "Not so very many, I should think."
"Of late, many who were Our subjects have committed crimes and fled across — a matter of no small worry. Could I order your father to root out those who have newly crossed into Jianzhou?"
Suyang spoke as if doing them a favor. "If your father aids Joseon, then I too can aid your father."
"That would be no difficulty at all."
Yi Du-ri brightened. What could possibly be easier?
Suyang nodded.
"Then that is good."
Nearly a year had already passed since Grand Prince Nosan — Hong-wi — vanished from Yeongwol. And yet his whereabouts remained undiscovered. Every circumstance pointed north, and every other region had been searched to the last blade of grass — still, Hong-wi could not be found.
Wherever you hide — if you live, I will seize you without fail; if you are dead, I will confirm the proof of it. Hong-wi... where have you hidden yourself?