Negotiations with the Green Forest King
The roads Hui-yeom meant to lay were a railway for trains and a paved highway for horse carts and ox wagons.
Building a railway demanded vast quantities of wrought iron, and Hui-yeom placed the entire order with the Sichuan State-run Ironworks. Naturally the provincial treasurer, pockets suddenly bursting, let out a cry of pure delight.
"Heavens above! You're really going to dump every last coin we earned from the coal sales straight back into this?"
The treasurer made no effort to hide his joyful laughter even as he pretended to protest. Hui-yeom only chuckled.
"If we made the money in Sichuan, we should spend it for Sichuan. Put it to good use, Great-Uncle."
"You truly are a loyal subject and a filial grandson! Hahahaha!"
That was only the beginning. Beyond the Sichuan Dang Family's Construction Department and the companies under the affiliated Hwi-eon Comprehensive Construction, Hui-yeom hired massive numbers of workers throughout Sichuan itself.
People still spoke of the "busy farming season," yet the transplanting method used across Sichuan actually left far more free time than broadcasting seed by hand. Direct seeding required four or five full-scale weeding campaigns; transplanting seedlings needed only two or three. So Hui-yeom hired the farmers who sat idle after the rice seedlings were in, and put real money in their pockets.
"Wait—they actually punched holes through the mountains?"
"Since when did the Dang Family have this many masters?"
The tunneling work had been kept strictly secret from outsiders, so the public could only gape in wonder when they finally saw the mountains pierced through.
"All right, stop marveling and get to work!"
"Start by digging the trenches…!"
"Gravel—more gravel over here!"
Laborers dug ditches and tamped the earth. They laid large stones along the trench bottoms for a foundation, then mixed smaller stones, gravel, lime, and sand into a layer roughly twenty-three centimeters thick. Atop that they spread a thirty-centimeter course of still finer gravel, lime, and clay. The surface was finished with large polygonal flagstones, the joints sealed with mortar made from cement. Drainage channels on either side completed the road.
The most famous highway built by this method was the Appian Way, begun in 312 BC by the Roman censor Appius Claudius Caecus. Originally the road linked Rome to Capua—some two hundred twelve kilometers—later extended to Taranto and Brindisi for a total of five hundred forty kilometers. Even by modern standards it was a tremendous length, and sections of it still survive into the twenty-first century, proof of its durability. It was more than enough to connect every county and city across Sichuan.
And then there was the railway. The same Roman method prepared the roadbed; the only difference was that wrought-iron rails, cut to exact intervals, would be spiked down along the surface. Laying those rails, however, still needed time—time to produce enough iron track and time to introduce a practical steam locomotive.
"But we don't have the luxury of waiting," Hui-yeom reported to Dang Un-sang. "Even in the worst case it will take no more than a year to secure enough wrought-iron rails and bring the locomotives online. Before then we must build the toll posts that will collect passage fees at regular intervals and manage the roads, and we must sign contracts with the 'administrators' who will staff them. So Father, you must handle today's meeting well."
"That's the fourth time you've said it. Enough—I understand." Dang Un-sang pressed his fingers to his temples as though the world were spinning. "Never in my life did I imagine I would one day ride out not to fight the Green Forest King to the death, but to sign a contract with him."
"Come now, it's not as if you're writing a life-surrender pledge. No need to look so grim…"
"The mere fact that I'm contracting with mountain bandits is grim enough, you little brat!!"
Dang Un-sang seized both of Hui-yeom's cheeks and stretched them sideways in pure frustration.
The meeting place was Mount Byeong near Yellow Dragon Gorge, some distance from Seongdo. There the summit with the Green Forest King and the negotiations themselves had been arranged.
To avoid drawing public notice, Dang Un-sang and Dang Hui-yeom set out quietly under the pretext of inspecting the cement works at Yellow Dragon. They brought no proper escort.
Im Deok-sul, King of the Green Forest, saw them arrive and laughed with open-hearted gusto.
"So the Sichuan Dang Family of this generation has finally broken its long silence and begun to stretch its wings. You come with the bearing of true heroes, I see. To meet me without even a decent guard… Welcome. I am Im Deok-sul—men call me the Green Forest King."
"Dang Un-sang, Family Head of the Sichuan Dang. Glad to meet the Green Forest King."
"Not bad-looking for a bandit, eh? Wahahaha! Everyone imagines me some three-headed, six-armed monster, but the truth is we choose Green Forest Kings for their handsome faces!"
(For the record, of all the entertainers Hui-yeom remembered from the twenty-first century, Im Deok-sul most closely resembled Ma Dong-seok of the film The Outlaws.)
Before Dang Un-sang's expression could curdle completely, Hui-yeom stepped in.
"Indeed! You overflow with the vigor of a true man!"
"They said the Young Dragon of the Immortal Lineage was sharp… Wahahaha! Truly the hope of the Dang Family!"
They traded empty pleasantries and loud laughter for a while, then sat facing each other across the contract.
The curious thing was that the document bore neither the names of the parties nor any place for seals. From the Dang Family's standpoint, leaving written proof of a deal with the Green Forest was as good as forging a political weakness. From the Green Forest's side the danger was much the same: should factions inside the Green Forest resent an alliance with the orthodox Sichuan Dang and rise in rebellion, the existence of a contract would hand them a ready-made banner.
So the meeting served only to confirm the mutual obligations each side must honor—and to look one another in the eye and build trust.
"Nothing strange in the contents."
"Seems so."
"Then since we've checked everything… shall we move to the next step?"
"Of course."
The next step was drinking.
East or West, past or present, one of the surest ways to make strangers of different stations open their hearts is to share liquor. The two men, who could never have spoken freely sober, emptied jar after jar as though draining them were the sole purpose of existence.
How much time passed? The sun that had stood high overhead vanished; the moon hung at the center of the sky. Only then did Im Deok-sul speak.
"Family Head Dang, what do you think will become of the martial world?"
"Hmm…" Dang Un-sang rolled his cup slowly in his fingers. "The martial world is peaceful for the moment. I expect that peace will hold for some time yet."
"I disagree."
"What do you mean?"
"Before long, a bloody wind will sweep the martial world."
"Why do you think so?"
A faint killing intent began to swirl in the Green Forest King's eyes.
"The currents in the martial world are strange. Forces openly picking fights with the Green Forest have multiplied."
"Well, that is…" Dang Un-sang swallowed the words "only natural," but he could not keep the thought from showing on his face.
The Green Forest King gave a short laugh.
"I can see what prejudices you hold, Family Head. But our Green Forest rarely collides with the great sects. Hot-blooded juniors sometimes thrash a few of my boys while 'walking the righteous path,' true enough… yet as you know, we control every vital traffic route. And every power in the Central Plains that can fart with any force either runs merchant houses and escort agencies themselves or has their secular disciples do it. Full-scale war with us would cost them dearly, so they leave us alone on purpose. Our very existence gives merchants a reason to seek the protection of those sects. The Green Forest and the martial world live in a kind of symbiosis."
"Mmm… that is so."
"Yet now, out of the Central Plains, they are openly pressing the Green Forest. Not one or two sects—orthodox and unorthodox alike, a full-front assault from every direction. Unless they all swallowed poison on the same day and went mad, anyone can see something is wrong."
Had only the orthodox moved, he would have suspected the Martial Alliance. Had only the unorthodox moved, he would have suspected the Evil Path Alliance. But both sides moving together narrowed the possibilities to powers that could influence both.
"You suspect the court is intervening, Green Forest King?"
"How else would you explain it?"
The court ordering both orthodox and unorthodox to strike the Green Forest? Hui-yeom tilted his head.
If such an order had been issued, the provincial treasurer and the military commander of Sichuan would surely know. And if they knew, they would have blocked the whole affair from the start. There must be some misunderstanding…
While Hui-yeom turned the thought over, the conversation continued.
"But why suddenly turn on the Green Forest they left alone for so long…?"
"The reason doesn't matter. Who can fathom the black hearts of high officials? The fact remains."
Im Deok-sul drained his cup in one swallow and set it down with a sharp click.
"…And at this very moment the Sichuan Dang Family proposes a joint venture—claiming it already has the yamen's approval. How am I supposed to read that?"
Dang Un-sang, who had been listening with a growing sense of unease, let open displeasure settle on his face.
"Are you, by any chance, suspecting my family?"
"Using a private enterprise as bait to lure us out of the mountains, then cooperating with the authorities to wipe us out in one stroke—would that not be possible?"
The pressure between Im Deok-sul and Dang Un-sang suddenly spiked. The surrounding air whipped about; pebbles on the ground trembled. The grass around Dang Un-sang yellowed and withered.
This was the clash of auras between masters who had passed Peak and entered Transcendental Peak—or beyond. The sheer pressure made Hui-yeom feel for an instant as though his breath had been cut off.
Gone was the laughing, boorish martial brute. The dignity of the man who commanded the Seventy-Two Strongholds of the Green Forest pressed down on the air like a mountain. A voice like the low growl of a great tiger scraped across the atmosphere.
"Family Head Dang. I may be an ignorant mountain bandit, but there is one thing I do well—so well that the world ranks me among the Ten Great Blade Masters. Taking heads is my only specialty. And to this day I have never left a single man who earned my enmity alive. Not one."
"I state it clearly: my family has no intention of harming the Green Forest at the court's behest. Had we held such intent, the wine you just drank would already contain the Dang Family's poison."
"Heh. If killing me here would only alert my hundred thousand Green Forest brothers and keep them from walking into the trap, why bother?"
"Suspicion truly is a disease."
The aura clash of tiger and venomous dragon was perfectly matched. Hui-yeom felt he might collapse from lack of air, yet he locked strength into his abdomen, gripped his trembling legs, and forced a breath. The inner energy of the Green Dragon Divine Art rose from his dantian and lent him the power to endure.
Step by painful step he moved between Dang Un-sang and Im Deok-sul.
"Yeom!"
"?!"
Both men, startled, reined in their auras at once. Caught between the two forces, Hui-yeom nearly staggered and fell, but he planted his feet, lifted the corners of his mouth, and smiled brightly.
"I also have one thing I do well."
"……"
"I never abandon my people first—so long as they do not turn their backs on me."
The quiet voice carried a power that convinced. It held the entire life of a giant who had risen from bare fists to build the world's greatest corporation—the sincerity of that life itself.
Born in the scorched earth of postwar Korea, he had climbed within decades to become the world's richest man. He had forced the American high society that once scorned "yellow monkeys" to bow their heads in submission. As a once-humble entrepreneur who had become great, that principle was all he had ever possessed.
"I never cast my people aside first. How can a man build an enterprise of his own if he cannot even protect those closest to him? Who would give loyalty to a householder who fails to guard his wife and children, a general who neglects his soldiers, a king who does not care for his people?"
Men who stood above others—Dang Un-sang and Im Deok-sul—could not fail to feel the resonance in that voice. An inexplicable solemnity settled across their shoulders.
"……"
"Do not worry."
Hui-yeom smiled through lips that had begun to bleed.
"I will treat them as family."
At once Im Deok-sul's killing intent vanished as if it had never been. He gazed at Hui-yeom for a moment with clear eyes, then let out a small sigh.
"I have done something unforgivable to one so young. I only wanted to drive a stake into the Family Head. I needed assurance that this choice would not hurl my sons into the jaws of death. I wanted you to know that if my boys came to harm, you would not walk away unscathed. Keep your promise and there is no problem. That is all. Yet a child has shamed me."
"For a man who just crushed another man's precious son under killing intent, you talk a fine game," Dang Un-sang said, making no attempt to hide his displeasure.
Im Deok-sul laughed heartily.
"I thought the Family Head could handle at least this much. Your internal energy is thinner than I expected."
"…I don't believe it would be difficult to put the Green Forest King in the ground right now."
"Your confidence alone rivals any of the Ten Great Masters. Kkkkkk. Very well—I apologize for the discourtesy. Shall I kneel?"
"…Enough. Never do it again."
"Wahahaha! Magnanimous! Excellent! Excellent!"
Im Deok-sul threw his head back and laughed at the sky, then bowed deeply to Dang Un-sang.
"I entrust my boys to you. I will not claim they are innocent victims, yet every piece of trash who slaughtered or tormented ordinary civilians is already dead by my own hand. Those who remain are simply fools—worms who gathered under me because they never learned how to live like normal men. Still, as martial artists they have never done anything of which they need be ashamed. Is there not a saying—hate the sin but not the sinner? If they can receive a second chance, that is enough for me."
"……"
For a moment Dang Un-sang stared at the crown of the Green Forest King's lowered head—the crown of one of the Ten Great Blade Masters of the Realm—then sighed. He looked at Hui-yeom.
You little day-ghost… watching the things you do, every absurdity under heaven seems to come true.
Bandits? He despised them. No amount of pretty language could change what they fundamentally were. Yet there was no reason to force a confrontation here. For the revival of the Dang Family he would befriend anyone short of the Demonic Cult itself.
So Dang Un-sang nodded.
"Congratulations on your appointment as president of a subsidiary of Hwi-eon Comprehensive Construction—President Im of the Nokshan Road Traffic Safety Management Corporation."
Im Deok-sul raised his head and smiled.
"I look forward to working with you, Chairman."