Sugarcane for Guizhou
Hui-yeom summoned Jin Cheong, who oversaw the Agricultural Cooperative, and U Seong-sik, the elder representing the Landlord Branch.
"I intend to start a new crop plantation in Guizhou Province."
"…Young Master, do you realize that Yunnan's first Caffa harvest year has already buried me under so much work I could die?"
Jin Cheong's face twisted in pure disbelief. Hui-yeom only smirked.
"No need to put your spines up so fast. This will be far easier than building the Caffa plantations, at least."
"How on earth could farming that barren Guizhou soil be easy? I trust most of what the Young Master says, but this…"
When Elder U Seong-sik backed Jin Cheong up, the latter seized the momentum.
"We do not have the people left to expand any more branch offices into Guizhou!"
"We don't need to expand the branches right away. For the time being, all we'll have to do is manage the local tenants."
"Manage the tenants?"
Jin Cheong's curiosity was piqued. Hui-yeom began to explain.
After hearing the full plan, Jin Cheong and U Seong-sik glanced at each other.
"…Understood."
"If that's the scale of it…"
Their resistance softened; they agreed to follow Hui-yeom's lead.
Hui-yeom turned to Baek Beon.
"Inspector, would you lend your aid to a project that will improve the imperial lands of Guizhou Province and fill the bellies of its starving people?"
"Yohohohohoho! So the great Sichuan Dang Family wants to use this humble Inspector for its private business?! What magnificent nerve! I rather like that about you."
Baek Beon cackled in the thin, flamboyant voice peculiar to eunuchs, then nodded.
"Very well. Feel free to make use of this body of mine."
And so Hui-yeom's new enterprise began to turn its first wheels.
The office of the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission.
Seong Dong-uk, Provincial Commissioner of Guizhou, tilted his head at his aide's report that a commoner sought an audience.
"Why are you bringing this to me instead of handling it yourself? Is the fellow some great local magnate?"
Guizhou did have old gentry families, of course. The problem was that none of them possessed the vast wealth or influence of the great clans elsewhere. Seong Dong-uk found it hard to believe anything serious enough to reach him personally could be afoot. The aide wiped sweat from his brow.
"W-well, the man is not a native of Guizhou. He is from Sichuan…"
"Sichuan? What do those mountain bumpkins want?"
Seong Dong-uk's face soured. Years earlier, when locusts had forced him to request emergency grain, Sichuan had refused; he still nursed the grudge.
Then the aide's next words forced a complete change of expression.
"H-he claims to be the Young Master of the Sichuan Dang Family…"
"What? The same one who took the head of the Yunnan Provincial Commissioner?!"
"Yes, and he has brought an Inspector of the Dongchang with him."
"What?!"
Even if a Provincial Commissioner outranked an ordinary Dongchang inspector in the formal hierarchy, everyone knew the Dongchang were the Emperor's eyes and ears. Falling out of favor with them was a fine way to lose one's life. And given that the accompanying Hui-yeom had already toppled a Provincial Commissioner in Yunnan, this was no ordinary visit.
Seong Dong-uk asked in a tense voice,
"Why would the Young Master of the Sichuan Dang Family and a Dongchang Inspector come here? I—I haven't committed any corruption! Has something happened under me?"
"N-no, my lord! I swear Guizhou has clean hands."
"Ugh, well… there's nothing here worth stealing in the first place, this godforsaken backwater!"
"What shall we do?"
"What do you mean, what? You want me to snub a Dongchang eunuch and invite disaster? We go out and greet them at once!"
Somewhat reassured that he had nothing to hide, the Guizhou Provincial Commissioner hurried to the reception hall. Receiving visitors there rather than in the formal office was already a mark of special favor.
"I am Seong Dong-uk, Provincial Commissioner of the Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission. You come from the Dongchang?"
Baek Beon returned the greeting with a coquettish smile.
"I am Baek Beon, Chief Inspector of the Dongchang's Regional Inspectorate. An honor to meet you, Lord Commissioner Seong. Yohohohoho!"
At the words "Chief Inspector," the Commissioner's face stiffened oddly.
Chief Inspector at that age? Damn it, this one won't be easy.
"Is that so? Chief Inspector so young… I find myself in the presence of a remarkable talent."
"You flatter me. Yohoho."
"Yet… for what reason has the Chief Inspector asked to see me? I have nothing of which I am ashamed before Heaven."
"Oh, your integrity is well known even in Beijing~"
Baek Beon laughed slyly.
"We have come today because this young man has business with Your Excellency."
Only then did the Commissioner's gaze settle on Hui-yeom.
"So you are the much-rumored Young Master of the Sichuan Dang Family?"
"An honor to meet you, my lord. I am Hui-yeom, Young Master of the Sichuan Dang Family."
"Indeed. I wondered what the young master of that great clan—the one that turned its back on its neighbors in their hour of need—might look like. Quite the handsome fellow, I see."
The pointed barb only drew a gentle smile from Hui-yeom.
"I wished to aid Guizhou as well, yet our family's strength was barely enough to help Yunnan. If that caused offense, I beg your forgiveness."
"Hmph."
Hui-yeom's swift apology left the Commissioner little room to press further. Moreover, the Dongchang eunuch clearly regarded Hui-yeom with favor, making any further hostility unwise.
"Fine, fine. So? You didn't travel all this way merely to apologize for old grievances. What business does a man of your stature have in poor Guizhou? We have no special products here for you to covet, unlike Yunnan."
"Quite the opposite."
"Opposite?"
"Yes. I have not come to purchase Guizhou's special products. I have come to discuss the cultivation of a crop that will become Guizhou's special product."
"What?"
The Commissioner cocked his head as though he had heard nonsense and tapped the table with his fingertips.
"Young Master, do you even know the soil and climate of Guizhou?"
"I know them well."
"You know them well? Then you must be mocking every farmer in Guizhou, myself included."
The Commissioner's expression hardened.
"Do we look like fools to you? Are we the sort of lazy incompetents who have failed to reclaim the very land we live on and develop any products of our own?"
"I harbor no such thought in the slightest."
"Then what?"
"In the Sichuan Dang Family we have a saying: 'Repeating the same actions while expecting better results is a form of madness.' If all our efforts fail to improve agricultural yields, is it not right to consider a different approach?"
"A different approach? Do you mean waterworks or soil transfer?"
"No. Waterworks and soil transfer demand vast funds and labor. Guizhou, if you'll forgive my bluntness, does not possess that kind of capital at present."
"…Ahem!"
The Commissioner flushed with embarrassment and cleared his throat.
"Then what exactly do you propose?"
"I have brought seeds of a crop that thrives even in water that is bitter, soil that lacks stickiness, and a climate that is hot and rainy."
"Such a crop exists?"
"Yes. It is called sugarcane. It has already begun to be cultivated, little by little, in Guangdong Province."
The Commissioner looked doubtful.
"A Guangdong crop? The soil and water there are completely different from ours."
"Think of grapes and it will make sense. In a drought year, grape yields fall but the fruit is low in moisture and far sweeter than usual. In a year of heavy rains, the sugar content drops."
"Mmm…"
Grape cultivation in the Central Plains had a long history. According to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty first brought grapes from Ferghana. Measured against the present Gyeong Dynasty, that meant the crop had been grown for more than a thousand years. The Commissioner understood the analogy at once.
Hui-yeom continued.
"Guangdong, with its abundant water and fertile soil, is an excellent environment for sugarcane. It shoots up like bamboo. The stalks grow large, but the sugar content falls. In a place like Guizhou, where irrigation water is scarce and rainfall is concentrated in short seasons, the stalks grow to less than half that size. But that very constraint concentrates the sugar."
"You speak as if you've grown the stuff yourself."
"Well…"
Hui-yeom could hardly admit he had once toured sugarcane plantations in both Guizhou and Guangdong on business in a previous life. He simply smiled.
"Sugarcane is not native to the Central Plains at all; it comes from Tianzhu—India—in the Western Regions. I learned of it by reading agricultural texts brought from there."
It was a lie, but one impossible to disprove. The Commissioner's skepticism melted under Hui-yeom's confident delivery.
"Is that so? Then…"
Sensing the man wavering, Hui-yeom drove the point home.
"I can guess what troubles Your Excellency. You fear that if you set aside precious farmland for an unproven crop and the harvest fails, Guizhou's finances will suffer yet another blow."
"…I won't deny it. I am already harried by creditors."
"Then there is no need to give us any reclaimed farmland at all. Simply grant us permission to use the leftover waste land. We will handle the reclamation, the cultivation, and the farming ourselves."
"Is that true?"
The Commissioner's face brightened. The arrangement meant he would bear no risk whatsoever.
"Yes. There is one condition, however. For any land we reclaim at our own expense and labor, the Dang Family must be given priority rights."
"You mean ownership of the land?"
"Exactly."
"Hmm."
After a moment's thought, the Commissioner nodded.
"Under the tenant system it is common enough for wealthy farmers to own estates in other provinces and lease them to local people. Very well. But taxes must be paid without fail."
"Of course."
"Good. Then let us draw up the contract at once."
The Commissioner was not a man who dragged matters out. He ordered his aide to prepare brush, ink, and paper on the spot, drafted the contract, and affixed his official seal. Hui-yeom reviewed the terms and stamped it with the clan head's seal of the Dang Family. Each man kept one copy.
With the contract sealed, they set out to survey Guizhou and designate the land for the Dang Family's sugarcane fields. Along the way Baek Beon asked,
"Young Master, isn't this contract a tremendous loss for the Dang Family?"
"A loss?"
"Yohohoho…"
Baek Beon laughed without much confidence and ticked points off on his fingers.
"You reclaim someone else's worthless land, supply all the people and seed yourself, and the land isn't even tax-exempt. Unless that soil turns out to be extraordinarily fertile, you'll take a heavy loss… am I wrong?"
"Are you worried about us?"
"Naturally. I do not regard the Dang Family as strangers. Yohohohohahahahat!"
A man who would report the slightest whiff of treason without hesitation, yet he could still utter such words with a straight face. Hui-yeom found he did not dislike the shamelessness. In his own way Baek Beon was a loyal servant of the realm—a diligent worker faithful to his post. Difference of position or not, he was hard to hate.
So Hui-yeom smiled.
"The truth is, I plan to make confections that the high officials of Beijing will pay a fortune to buy. The money from those sweets will more than cover the reclamation costs here in short order."
"What confections?"
At Baek Beon's question Hui-yeom smiled again.
"Shall we call them ice-sugar gourds and sugar-cloud fruit?"
It was time to introduce the soul food of the Chinese people—tanghulu—and cotton candy, a delight that would leave the people of this age utterly astonished.