Recruitment War
The fifty Europeans rode Sanseong No. 3 all the way to Sichuan, and the entire journey left Hwi-yeom thoroughly satisfied.
“Look at that! There’s a hole punched straight through the mountain!”
“You mean they bored a road through solid rock?!”
“Look at the state of these roads! Even the old Roman Empire never had highways this sturdy or this clean!”
Some of them marveled at the massive roadworks and tunnel projects the Sichuan Dang Family had completed.
“No bandits on the whole trip?”
“Who would dare approach a monster of a vehicle like this? They probably fled in terror.”
“I doubt it. Think of that Montagna Verde checkpoint we passed earlier. They said those people are responsible for maintaining and securing this entire route—so they must have already cleaned out every bandit in the area.”
The engineers chattered among themselves, never once dreaming that Montagna Verde—Green Mountain—was exactly the mountain bandit group they had been fretting about.
“To be able to travel from city to city with neither bandits nor wild beasts to fear…”
The astonishment of Paracelsus, who came from the mountainous country of Switzerland, was especially profound.
“If Switzerland had transportation like this… our homeland could have advanced so much further…”
He sighed, yet a fierce resolve kindled inside him.
“I will work here, learn everything about this train, and one day return to my country to spread the knowledge.”
Excommunicated by the Pope, with political enemies everywhere who wanted him dead, it might have been nothing more than an empty vow that could never be fulfilled.
Yet that determination drove a deep stake into Paracelsus’s heart. As long as the thought remained, he would give everything he had for the Dang Family.
Before the roads and railways that pierced the mountains existed, the journey from Kunming in Yunnan to Chengdu in Sichuan had taken roughly a month and a half. Riding Sanseong No. 3 in a straight line shortened it to a single week.
Proper high-performance headlights did not yet exist, so night travel was too dangerous; they could run only during daylight. A rockslide, a heap of dirt, even the carcass of a deer or wild boar lying unnoticed on the tracks could derail the train and cause a catastrophic accident. There was simply no other choice.
A week later Hwi-yeom arrived in Sichuan and reported everything that had happened in Yunnan to Dang Un-sang.
An emergency grand council was convened at once over the question of how to treat the fifty engineers and scholars he had brought home.
Everyone wanted them.
The engineers were fought over tooth and nail by the Innovation Hall, the Forge Division, the Architecture Division, Cheol-u-jeon, and more. Scholars with administrative talent, along with chemists and physicians like Paracelsus, were coveted not only by the Inner Hall and the Poison Hall but even by the previously quiet Medical Hall.
Not that the Innovation Hall was indifferent to chemists—far from it. Given that the hall dealt with explosives and chemical substances every day, they could hardly stay out of the scramble.
As a result, the grand council chamber in the Patriarch’s Hall nearly turned into a coliseum.
The reason it only “nearly” happened is that a single sentence from Hwi-yeom settled the entire affair.
“First they need to learn the language.”
“Ah.”
Of course. Until they could actually talk to one another, assigning anyone to any post was meaningless.
“I propose we enroll them in the Spider Academy first so they can learn spoken language and classical writing. Only those who become fluent will be assigned to departments, one by one.”
“The Spider Academy? Not the Main School?”
Dang Un-sang’s question drew Hwi-yeom’s answer.
“It won’t be simple language training. A measure of ideological education will have to be included—for their sake as well as ours.”
“Hmm…”
Bak Chang-eon weighed in as well.
“The students at the Spider Academy are children between eight and fifteen who are already learning the language. Having the Europeans follow the same curriculum makes perfect sense. Opening a separate language course at the Main School just for foreign scholars and craftsmen would be both wasteful and preferential treatment.”
“You’re right.”
In the end Dang Un-sang nodded.
“I heard from the Young Family Head that they claim the center of the world is not the Central Plains but Europe—the land of the old Roman Empire—and that they call the sea there the Mediterranean.”
“Yes. Anyone who does not live inside the civilization they themselves defined is labeled a barbarian—barbaroi—or branded a heretic and killed. They hold an extremely self-righteous, self-centered worldview.”
Exactly like the Han people of the Central Plains, really—the behavior is identical. Instead of voicing that sarcastic aside, Hwi-yeom looked around the room and spoke in a persuasive tone.
“If they keep those ideas intact, sooner or later the clash of ideology and culture is inevitable.”
If the Italian craftsmen went about their daily lives believing themselves the true heirs of Rome, that Rome was the center of the world, and that the Central Plains were no better than Egypt or some other provincial backwater, then conflict with Chinese who looked down on them as “Red-haired Devils,” “Western Barbarians,” or “Semu people” was only a matter of time.
“Ideological education that teaches mutual respect and understanding of each other’s differences is absolutely necessary.”
Hwi-yeom himself, during his years doing business in America, had endured more than a few outrageous experiences simply for being of yellow race; the bone-deep loathing he felt for racists was absolute.
When he spoke with that firm conviction, the Dang Family executives—who had not fully grasped the seriousness of the problem—tilted their heads yet agreed for the time being. From their perspective, the notion that some insignificant Western “barbarians” might dare look down on the great Sichuan Dang Family of the Central Plains and treat them like “yellow monkeys” was simply unimaginable.
I will not stand for that.
Fire blazed in Hwi-yeom’s eyes.
The only good racist is a dead racist.
And so, exactly as Hwi-yeom insisted, the Europeans took up residence at the Spider Academy and began language instruction.
Contrary to his fears, the craftsmen and scholars displayed no strong prejudice against Easterners. That was only natural; the scholars and technicians of the age were generally the most open-minded people alive.
Still…
“Ah… how pitiable are these people who do not serve the true God and worship idols instead. Lord, forgive them, for they know not what sin they commit…!”
They merely looked upon the Daoist and Buddhist faiths of the Central Plains with pure Catholic horror.
I’ll take that as a win.
Hwi-yeom felt a quiet relief that the Europeans’ character was better than he had expected.
As expected, the scholars picked up the language faster than the craftsmen.
The first to master roughly three thousand common characters and graduate was Paracelsus.
The moment he became available, the Innovation Hall and the Poison Hall locked horns over him.
The Head of the Poison Hall spoke first.
“He is an alchemist, a chemist, and an outstanding physician, is he not, Young Family Head? The Poison Hall—where we create and compound every manner of toxin and study the phenomena that arise—is precisely where he belongs!”
Hwi-yeom countered.
“Your words have merit, Poison Hall Master, but the Innovation Hall also handles every kind of chemical reagent. Our positions are identical.”
“The Innovation Hall has already been heavily reinforced with new personnel! I can barely remember the last time the Poison Hall received a single new recruit!”
“The Innovation Hall is a newly created and still-expanding organ, while the Poison Hall is already fully established—that is the difference. Looking at total research staff, the Innovation Hall still has less than eighty percent of the Poison Hall’s numbers.”
“You must consider workload as well as headcount, Young Family Head! The Poison Hall’s workload is roughly twice that of the Innovation Hall!”
“The Innovation Hall’s workload keeps growing. Especially if we are to meet the black-powder quotas we must present to the Emperor, our current manpower is nowhere near enough!”
Dang Un-sang watched the two of them argue from their own corners, fighting a battle of auras, and finally let out a long sigh. Then he raised Hwi-yeom’s hand.
“In my view… the person in this entire family who can communicate most accurately with him is the Young Family Head, who already speaks Italian. It stands to reason that efficiency will be highest if he works under the Young Family Head.”
“Family Head!”
While the Head of the Poison Hall trembled with the betrayed expression of Caesar crying “Et tu, Brute!”, Hwi-yeom smirked where the man could not see.
A fight is not about winning after you start fighting—it’s about having already won before you ever enter the ring. Poison Hall Master, you are still far too innocent.
Before the meeting even began, Hwi-yeom had already negotiated with Dang Un-sang on the condition that Paracelsus would be assigned to the Innovation Hall.
“The Poison Hall Master has been complaining for ages that he is short-handed…”
“Father, if you send Paracelsus to the Innovation Hall, I will take over your entire workload for one full week.”
“O-one week? Ahem! Even so, the Poison Hall Master has been talking about this for so long that simply overturning it with a single word is…”
“I have already reserved the VIP suite at Huanglong Hot Springs. Round trip plus a fortnight or so—forget every complicated duty, spend some quiet time with Mother, and come back refreshed.”
“Well… a man who leads a clan must always choose the best course rather than be swayed by sentiment. You are right, of course.”
The Head of the Poison Hall cast a pitiful look at Dang Un-sang, but the Family Head, feeling thoroughly guilty, merely averted his eyes.
Forgive me. I have to live too, don’t I?
There was no way Dang Un-sang was going to throw away a chance to escape hellish paperwork and enjoy a hot-spring vacation with his beloved wife.
Having secured Paracelsus through that bit of backstage dealing, Hwi-yeom personally escorted him on a tour of the Innovation Hall.
Inside the hall was a exhibition gallery displaying every invention the Dang Family had produced so far. Paracelsus gazed in wonder at the water-powered automata, the steam engines, and the model locomotives.
His true expertise, however, lay in medicine and chemistry. More than any mechanical, physical, or architectural marvel, what truly set his heart ablaze was gunpowder.
KRA-KOOM—!!
Watching the black-powder detonation test and the fireworks deliberately staged for visitors, Paracelsus’s jaw dropped.
“H-have you… drawn down the thunderbolts of Zeus into the works of man?!”
“Nothing of the sort. It is simply the product of a purely chemical combination.”
Hwi-yeom explained the ingredients of black powder and the results of each mixture; the knowledge lit a fire in the chemist’s chest.
“Of course, the Innovation Hall does not produce only gunpowder. It is the very heart of the Dang Family. You will collaborate often with both the Poison Hall and the Medical Hall. There will be no shortage of work for you, Doctor.”
“It is an honor. To be able to work in a place like this… my heart pounds harder than it ever did when I was a university professor.”
Smiling at the man’s rapt expression, Hwi-yeom handed him an identification plaque.
“Please accept this.”
“…What is it?”
“Your researcher’s identification. Considering your renown as a scholar and your years of service as a professor, I judged it a waste to leave you as a mere ordinary researcher.”
The plaque Paracelsus received was carved from white jade and lavishly ornamented; in both Chinese characters and Italian it read “Senior Researcher Theophrastus von Hohenheim.”
“I look forward to working with you. I hope you will soon achieve enough merit to rise to the rank of Principal Researcher.”
“Senior Researcher…?”
“In university terms, roughly a full professor. Principal is more like a department chair.”
Deeply moved, Paracelsus bowed his head.
“Thank you. I will repay this trust without fail.”
Several years later, Paracelsus happened to open the diary he had written that day. With hollow eyes he muttered to himself,
“Why didn’t you realize that jade plaque was the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil offered by the serpent, you fool…?”