A Winter of Whispers and Blood
A year had passed since then.
It was the eleventh month by the lunar calendar. The first frosts of Sanggang, the Descent of Frost, had long since fallen, and even Ipdong, the herald of winter, was already a fading memory.
Hanyang, too, was greeting a bleak and bitter winter.
The main thoroughfares stood empty of passersby, and the few souls still abroad, buried to the ears in their padded winter coats, hurried along with white breath streaming from their lips.
Yet the winter of this year, the Year of Gyeyu, was singularly grim and oppressive — and it was not the cold alone that weighed on the city.
Every man, woman, and child in Hanyang knew of the blood-soaked atrocity that had unfolded only days before.
"They say Grand Minister Kim Jong-seo — Jeoljae, the Tiger Minister — was beaten to death with iron maces."
"No, no. He didn't die at the first blow, or so I heard. Somehow he survived that — only to be cut down by a sword in the end!"
"Well. The Tiger Minister lived up to his name in death, at least."
"And that's not all. Chief State Councillor Hwangbo In, Right State Councillor Jeong Bun — all the great ministers were murdered in the dead of night as they entered the palace."
The people hunched close, hushing their voices as they whispered the dreadful rumors to one another.
The previous October, the King who would one day be known to history as Great King Munjong had passed away, and his Crown Prince, Hong-wi, had ascended the throne at the tender age of twelve. A mere year later came the coup — the one in which the three great ministers entrusted with the King's dying command to protect the young sovereign, along with dozens of court officials, were butchered without mercy. Because it took place in the year of Gyeyu, posterity would come to call it the Gyeyu Coup.
"It's an omen. The dynasty is doomed!"
"Watch your tongue, man. Doomed, indeed."
Dozens of high officials had been slaughtered in a single night; how could people with tongues in their heads keep silent? But fear of what might follow kept every voice low, every glance furtive.
"You know... this dynasty has run red with blood since its very founding, and now the ministers are being cut down one after another. If that isn't a sign of a kingdom's fall, what is?"
"Come now, don't be absurd. It all happened because Suyang wants to be king, that's all..."
"Have you lost your mind, blurting that out? Keep wagging that tongue and you'll find your own name written in that ledger — the Ledger of Life and Death, or whatever the thing is called!"
At that, the mouths around him snapped shut. As if the very wind had been waiting for its cue, a harsh gust of winter air pried its way through the door seams, and each man shuddered where he sat.
"Does that thing really exist...?"
"It must. They say Han Myeong-hoe wrote it."
The Ledger of Life and Death!
A chilling thing, they said — a list on which the names of those to be spared and those to be killed had been decided in advance. Some whispered that Grand Prince Suyang had written it with his own hand; others claimed it was the work of his chief strategist, Han Myeong-hoe. In truth, no one could say whether such a thing existed at all.
And yet — if it did not, then how could the entire court have been swept away in a single night?
The people of Hanyang had half accepted the ledger's existence as established fact.
"Han Myeong-hoe, that gentleman — he had a wretched youth, you know. Failed the civil examinations time after time. Ended up spending years as nothing but a palace groundskeeper, and the shame of it festered in him. All that old resentment — he's settling the score properly now, isn't he?"
"They say once you cross Han Myeong-hoe's eyes, you don't live to tell of it."
"Exactly. And Han Myeong-hoe aside, the thing itself — what a scheme! However did he dare plan something so audacious? I hear his merit in this coup is no small matter."
"From what I've heard, he was already consorting with military men back when he was a groundskeeper in Songdo. That's how he came to introduce so many of them to Suyang."
Just so — Han Myeong-hoe, who had always been fond of cultivating swordsman's fellowship, had not only introduced Han Ga-ryeong to Suyang in days past, but also fierce warriors of the Inner Royal Guard like Yang Jeong, Yu Su, and Hong Dal-son, men renowned for their strength and valor.
"Han Myeong-hoe is formidable enough, but Suyang himself is no fool either — overturning a nation with barely thirty men. Ah, though I suppose when the princes rose in arms decades ago, they had several hundred private soldiers at their backs."
"That's true enough..."
"Enough, enough. Will all our jawing restore a world that was turned upside down overnight? Go home, all of you. Times like these are times to be quiet."
"Right. Off you go. Don't invite suspicion for nothing."
As if those words had been a signal, the men slunk away one by one.
In mere days the world had been turned entirely on its head, and everyone knew it: Suyang was now the new master of this realm. The proof lay in the list of Coup Merit Subjects, published only days before. For the merit of purging the ministers who had monopolized power, Grand Prince Suyang himself was named Merit Subject of the First Rank — and simultaneously took for himself three offices at once: Chief State Councillor, Minister of Personnel, and Minister of War.
The posts left vacant by the slaughtered ministers were all swallowed whole by Suyang's faction. The court now belonged to them.
But the purge did not end within Hanyang's walls.
Before long, word arrived of calamity in the northern border province of Hamgil.
"There's rebellion in the north!"
"Rebellion? Ai, what is it this time?"
"The Provincial Commander of Hamgil-do rose in revolt, and was cut down — killed alongside his own sons!"
"What? The Provincial Commander — you mean Yi Jing-ok? That warrior who supposedly beat a tiger to death with his bare hands?"
Before the uneasy mood of the capital could even settle, trouble had broken out at the northern frontier. Yi Jing-ok, the Provincial Military Commander of Hamgil-do, had attempted to raise a rebellion and been slaughtered for it.
He had been a famed general who once basked in the trust of the Tiger Minister Kim Jong-seo, slain in the Gyeyu Coup, back when Kim opened the six northern garrisons by King Sejong's command.
The futile death of a commander who had once held the whole northern frontier in his grip shook all of Joseon.
"How could a man like Yi Jing-ok go out like that?"
"They say he was killed at a banquet the Magistrate of Jongseong hosted. His eldest and second sons lost their heads there with him."
"Of course he did! That boar with the tusks — you think he'd go down easy?"
The people lamented, each in his own way. With his enormous frame and prodigious strength, Yi Jing-ok had so terrorized the wild Jurchen tribesmen that they called him 'the Tusked Boar' and regarded him with awe.
"Now that he's gone, who will hold the tribesmen back?"
"Well... I'm sure His Majesty will see to it."
"Majesty, my foot. What will His Majesty do? It's Suyang's world now."
"Hey! Mind your words! Want your name in the Ledger of Life and Death too?"
The people fell silent.
"Still... what became of his family?"
"The first two sons died with their father. His daughter was made a slave. Only the youngest boy, eight years old, fled somewhere no one knows. They can't find hide nor hair of him — and that's why the officials are in such an uproar. They're afraid the remnants will rise up."
"Hmm, truly... no, wait. A man who spent his whole life hunting tribesmen — how could he have conspired with them to raise a revolt?"
"Well, they say it wasn't really a revolt at all."
"What do you mean?"
When the crowd's attention fixed on him, the man who had spoken glanced about warily.
"Well... Yi Jing-ok was, ah, originally of Kim Jong-seo's faction, wasn't he? And just recently, word came from Hanyang that Jong-seo was monopolizing state power, and his whole faction was purged — families exterminated and all. So, you see, with Suyang holding all the reins now, ask yourself how Yi Jing-ok looked in his eyes, and the answer answers itself, doesn't it?"
"Enough! Watch your mouth! Those are not words to bandy about!"
The people fell silent once more, casting uneasy glances in every direction. Someone sighed.
"Ai, whatever happens... I only pray none of it touches our own lives."
"Touch us it will. The tribesmen will run wild now that they've got a world of their own. Damn it all — men like Yi Jing-ok don't grow on trees..."
"You think the lords up top care about a borderland like this? Let Lee Man-ju and his lot rage all they want — they'll pillage these parts and be done. As if they'd march all the way to Hanyang."
"Ah, but it's only ever us who die for it."
While Hanyang seethed with such unease, Seong Sam-mun was just then returning from court and reading in his study.
He greeted Jeong Ho-chan's unexpected visit with surprise, but warmth all the same. The book open in his hands was the Records of the Grand Historian — the Basic Annals of Xiang Yu.
Seated in the main room of the house, Jeong Ho-chan studied his friend's face in silence. He had grown thinner since Jeong Ho-chan had last seen him years ago, and fatigue showed plainly in his features — a weariness of the mind rather than the flesh, it seemed.
Seong Sam-mun spoke first.
"So it was as you said. At long last... the upheaval has come, not even ten years after you foretold it."
"You remembered."
"Remember it? How could I forget? Though I'll confess nothing — at first, I didn't know whether this was the upheaval you spoke of."
Seong Sam-mun's voice was heavy. Jeong Ho-chan let a faint smile touch his lips, but his eyes did not laugh.
"And now? Do you believe it now?"
"I do."
Seong Sam-mun spoke as though at last letting slip words he had long held back.
"I, too, thought it wrong that the three great ministers, wrapping themselves in the late King's dying command, pushed our young sovereign aside and treated the governance of the state as their own plaything. And what of Grand Prince Anpyeong? He was all too happy to join their side when they coaxed him. Left unchecked, they would have gnawed the nation hollow — blindfolding the young Prince's eyes, gagging his mouth, and doing as they pleased. Punishing them was, I grant, a necessity. But if that necessity merely births a new traitor in their place — then it is another matter entirely."
Jeong Ho-chan nodded. He knew well that when Suyang's faction cut down the ministers during the Gyeyu Coup, the younger officials had looked upon the deed not with displeasure, resentful as they were of the old guard's high-handed rule. To Seong Sam-mun and his circle, the coup itself had seemed a kind of necessary evil. That, however, had been the naïve view. The trouble began when Suyang's faction rose to become the new core of the court. The Grand Prince Suyang of today lorded over the realm with a tyranny that made the likes of Hwangbo In and Kim Jong-seo seem mild by comparison.
"Is it not too soon to judge? Suyang may yet — who knows, he might follow the example of the Duke of Zhou of old."
The Duke of Zhou, Dan of the Zhou dynasty, had been the exemplar of the faithful uncle: when his young nephew took the throne, he served him devotedly, and once the boy came of age, quietly returned to his place as a mere vassal lord.
"Do you truly think so?"
Seong Sam-mun's rejoinder was sharp. Jeong Ho-chan paused a moment, then shook his head.
"No. You see it rightly. Suyang's ambition ends at the throne."
"So I thought."
"Then — if it comes to that... what will you do?"
In answer, Seong Sam-mun fixed him with a piercing look, then said, as though spitting the words out:
"For a scholar-official, loyalty stands above even filial duty. When I have sworn my allegiance as a subject, how could I stand idle while my sovereign faces peril?"
"I knew that would be your answer."
Jeong Ho-chan spoke as if in lamentation.
"And if you feel so, then men like Insu and Cheonjang must surely feel the same?"
"Mm, you see clearly. If Suyang emulates the Duke of Zhou, as you hoped, then all is well and good. But if Suyang harbors in his heart, as Wang Mang did, the intent to steal the throne itself..."
Seong Sam-mun's beard trembled.
"Then I will bring that man down, without fail."
"Come now, Geunbo."
Jeong Ho-chan spoke as one soothing a child.
"Is that a realistic thing to say, at this point? Whatever you thought of Hwangbo In or Kim Jong-seo, they were the only men with the strength to contend with Suyang. With them all struck down, how could anyone in this realm hope to bring down the man who now holds its power in his fist?"
"Suyang managed it, didn't he!"
"Suyang is not the same kind of man as you upright scholars!"
As Seong Sam-mun raised his voice, Jeong Ho-chan's rose to match it. For a moment, the two men sat in silence.
It was Jeong Ho-chan who first broke the awkward quiet.
"Forgive me. But I could not say anything less... You are truly an unbending man. Yet there are things that cannot be done by a man like you, but can be done by men like Suyang — even when the deed is the same. And of course, the reverse is true as well."
"No — there's no need. I know well enough what heart you spoke from."
Seong Sam-mun answered gravely, accepting the apology. Seeing that his old friend's resolve had set like stone, Jeong Ho-chan was silent for a long while. At last he cried out, as though in a sigh:
"Slim though the odds of success may be — should we fail, our blood will stain the annals of ten thousand ages, and our names will be handed down to posterity. What more is there to say!"
Having cried it out once, Jeong Ho-chan rose from his seat.
"I will pray for your success. But I confess — I fear this may be the last time I look upon your face in this world."
"Hear me, Ho-chan."
Seong Sam-mun's voice was cold as ice.
"When you said then that we would shoulder the state with our whole bodies, did you not also say that you, in your own way, would serve this land as well?"
"I did. I said it."
Jeong Ho-chan conceded it. Seong Sam-mun looked him straight in the eye. Loyalty to the state was pressing down upon the friendship of decades — and Jeong Ho-chan understood perfectly what that burning gaze meant. You will not tell me that 'for the good of the realm' means aiding Suyang's usurpation — will you? Because if it does, I will look on you as a friend no longer. That was what lived in his eyes.
"As your old friend, I sincerely pray you achieve the end you seek. But if you and your comrades should fail... then I will carry on your will, and protect the sovereign in your stead."
At those words, the hardness in Seong Sam-mun's face eased somewhat.
"I see."
"You do."
Seong Sam-mun said nothing for a moment. Then he spoke in a low voice.
"Thank you. I am in your hands."
There were no more words between them — only the hot glances they exchanged across the room. Jeong Ho-chan rose to leave, and Seong Sam-mun rose with him. Neither asked whether they would ever see each other again.
Seong Sam-mun walked his friend to the gate with his own hands.
"Travel safely."
"Stay well."
And so the two men parted. Seong Sam-mun returned to his study with a heart heavy and tangled beyond all telling.