One Blow
“It troubles Us that a single family’s private troops grow so powerful they may yet become a blight upon Our realm—tear them apart and erase them… Is that what you heard?”
“It is exactly so, Your Majesty. We beg Your Majesty’s merciful understanding.”
“Those are not words a Minister of War should utter.”
Emperor Sungui gave a short, dry laugh.
“If we are speaking in that vein, the first thing that wants tearing down is the present state of affairs, in which the Pi Clan already holds most of the military authority of an entire nation.”
At the emperor’s barb, Pi Jae-hyeon bowed his head.
“Your Majesty, the Pi Clan lives solely on the court’s stipend and exists only to serve Your Majesty with loyalty. How can Your Majesty compare the private troops of some provincial house, raised for their own ends, with Your Majesty’s regular armies? We beg Your Majesty’s merciful understanding.”
“Loyalty, is it. Then allow Us to ask. When the private soldiers of a single household can sweep a den of thieves so cleanly and so thoroughly, why has the Regional Commander charged with the safety of an entire province failed to do the same—and what, exactly, has the Five Military Commissions, whose duty it is to oversee such matters, been doing all this while?
“Are you telling Us that Our regular troops are weaker than one household’s private soldiers?”
“Your Majesty, it is with the deepest dread that I report this: the water bandits of the Eighteen Strongholds of the Yangtze Waterways have reappeared again and again, no matter how many times they have been suppressed. It is by no means that the Regional Commander has neglected his charge, nor that Your Majesty’s regular troops are weaker than private ones.”
“They reappear no matter how often you suppress them—then suppress them every time they appear. That you have failed to do so is simply the army’s incompetence, is it not? When thieves break into a man’s house, does he blame the endless supply of thieves rather than the constables who cannot catch them?”
Pi Jae-hyeon found himself at a loss for words.
It was not that the emperor’s logic had persuaded him. It was more the feeling of This bastard knows full well—why is he suddenly pulling this?
The empire’s military power, after all, could never truly control every corner of the provinces. That was precisely why the Thirteen Provinces existed, and why local officials were given authority to govern them.
Of course, one could send regular troops and scour the Yangtze clean.
But once that season passed, the water bandits would simply reappear.
If that point were pressed, there was only one counterstroke available from his side.
“Your Majesty, grant the Ministry of War and the Five Military Commissions still greater strength. Expand Your Majesty’s regular armies and lavish them with arms and supply!
“Then every lawless rabble under heaven will fear Your Majesty’s forces of their own accord and vanish from sight.”
A perfect reversal.
Having turned the emperor’s rebuke of the military into a demand for budgets and manpower, Pi Jae-hyeon allowed himself an inward smile—until Emperor Sungui smiled back.
A thin little smirk.
He’s laughing?
Pi Jae-hyeon had expected the emperor to change the subject or show irritation. The unexpected reaction unsettled him for a moment.
Emperor Sungui wore an expression that said, plain as day: Got you.
“The water bandits of the Yangtze cannot be wiped out. The mountain bandits of the realm cannot be wiped out. The Sichuan Dang Family, it seems, is rather more capable than Our army.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“In Sichuan Province the mountain bandits have been wiped out to the last man. Are you aware of that fact?”
“That… is…”
Pi Jae-hyeon’s eyes rolled. What did it matter to him whether a pack of lowly mountain scum dried up or not?
When he failed to answer, Emperor Sungui continued.
“The army under your Pi Clan’s control has made excuse after excuse, failed to eradicate them, and left them to fester—yet in Sichuan alone those bandits have been scoured from the earth.
“Whose achievement do you suppose that is?”
“…Surely not.”
“Exactly. The work of the Sichuan Dang Family. They conceived a road-and-transport network, and they suppressed every Green Forest bandit who stood in its way, until they made Sichuan a land without mountain bandits.”
Emperor Sungui leaned forward over the armrest of the dragon throne, almost growling.
“They have already erased the mountain bandits, and now they are erasing the water bandits as well. Are Our armies overfed hunting hounds—or fat swine you yourself have been raising?”
Hui-yeom had not, in fact, “crushed” the mountain bandits.
He had simply reformed them—luring them with profit and the promise of a life fit for human beings until they became ordinary commoners.
Through the Dongchang, Emperor Sungui had already learned the true nature of “Noksan.” He simply pretended not to know. And so Pi Jae-hyeon had nothing left to say.
Flush-faced, he managed:
“Your Majesty’s armies possess more than enough capacity for the same. But to clear out such scum for a season and to pull them up by the roots are entirely different matters—”
“And there is a greater problem still.”
Emperor Sungui cut him off.
“Those water bandits attacked a merchant convoy. Do you know what was loaded aboard those ships?”
“—? Steel, was it not? Goods bound for sale in Wuchang…”
“Not only that. Among the cargo was…”
Emperor Sungui’s smile stretched into a thin, sharp curve.
“…tribute goods meant for Us.”
“What?!”
Not only Pi Jae-hyeon—every high official in the hall flinched as one.
Bandits had intercepted tribute destined for the emperor?
Emperor Sungui drew out the letter he had received from Hui-yeom and handed it to the eunuch at his side. The eunuch carried it straight to Pi Jae-hyeon.
Pi Jae-hyeon unfolded the letter in a flustered haste. Almost at once the corners of his eyes began to twitch.
Your servant Dang Hui-yeom, unable to contain a heart of utter desolation, kowtows twice with forehead to the ground and offers this letter to Your Majesty…
…and so Your servant had prepared a tribute of precious gunpowder with which to arm Your Majesty’s Imperial Guard…
…yet a lawless pack of bandits sank the vessel that carried it, and Your servant’s distress is as though he had lost a parent…
…and so, unable to endure the righteous fury rising within, Your servant dares to raise the household troops and uproot that bandit rabble who laid hands upon Your Majesty’s property…
…death holds no terror; only the fact that Your servant has not yet been able to serve Your Majesty with greater loyalty is a crime that shames him.
“Th-this…”
Pi Jae-hyeon’s beard trembled of its own accord.
Water bandits had attacked a ship carrying the emperor’s tribute.
And a provincial martial house, learning of that fact, was prepared to fight those bandits to the death.
To plunder goods meant for the emperor was a crime on the order of treason itself.
It was a matter grave enough that the entire regular army ought to be mobilized, if necessary, to wipe the water bandits of the Yangtze from existence.
And yet, in that very situation, he had been about to criticize the only people who had fought the bandits out of pure loyalty to the emperor—and to argue that suppressing the bandits was somehow a foolish course…
Cold sweat ran down Pi Jae-hyeon’s back.
He slammed his forehead to the floor at once.
“Your Majesty! This foolish servant failed to grasp the full truth of the matter. I shall immediately order the Regional Commander of Hubei Province to uproot every last water bandit on the Yangtze!”
“Minister of War.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“We find Ourselves rather doubtful of both the ability and the true intentions of the Regional Commander of Hubei.”
Emperor Sungui drummed his fingers on the armrest of the dragon throne like a tiger herding its prey.
“We have looked into the matter. It seems there were curious factions at work within the Five Military Commissions during the process of his appointment?”
“?!”
“Surely… that story has no connection to your clan?”
A question asked with full knowledge of the answer. Its intent was perfectly clear.
Take your hands off Hubei Province.
Hearing those words, Pi Jae-hyeon squeezed his eyes shut.
Hubei Province sat at the very heart of the Central Plains, and its military importance could scarcely be overstated.
For the Pi Clan, which held the reins of military power, it was a strategic prize they could not afford to surrender. Hold the central armies of the Five Military Commissions and the provincial forces of Hubei and a few other key provinces, and one possessed, in effect, the raw force to replace an emperor whenever one pleased.
It was a position that had to be held at any cost—a post into which, after years of grinding, blood-drying struggle and intrigue against the throne, they had finally managed to insert their own man…
…We have no choice but to give it up.
Pi Jae-hyeon bowed his head.
“Your Majesty, that is a thousand times, ten thousand times unthinkable.”
“Is that so? Then you would have no objection if We hold that man responsible for this affair, strip him of the office of Regional Commander of Hubei, send him into exile, and appoint another in his place?”
“As Your Majesty wills…!”
Having extracted Pi Jae-hyeon’s declaration of surrender, Emperor Sungui twisted the corner of his mouth.
“Grand Eunuch.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Strip the Regional Commander of Hubei of his post and exile him to Yunnan Province. There he shall wait until the day We summon him, and keep watch over the Chagatai nomads, who may yet invade the Central Plains at any hour.”
“Your Majesty’s grace is boundless.”
“And who was that suitable candidate for the next Regional Commander of Hubei?”
In principle, the Regional Commander—supreme military authority for the defense of an entire province—was appointed by the emperor himself. In practice, however, the emperor never simply named someone on his own thought.
The usual course was for the Five Military Commissions to put forward recommended talents, for the Ministry of War to pass them through a personnel board, and for the emperor to give final approval or rejection of the candidate so determined.
But now, Pi Jae-hyeon—supreme power in both the Five Military Commissions and the Ministry of War—could not so much as twitch.
The other houses among the Eight Great Families of the Empire watched the scene with keen interest.
The Pi Clan just took a proper blow.
Heh heh. Still—who will he choose for Regional Commander?
From the look of it, something was arranged under the table beforehand… It won’t be one of the other Eight Houses.
The Yang Clan of Beijing, perhaps? But if those who already hold the Embroidered Uniform Guard also seize provincial military authority, the emperor would only be creating another Pi Clan for himself. He wouldn’t do that… would he?
While everyone was turning complicated calculations in their heads, a completely unexpected name fell from the Grand Eunuch’s lips.
“There is one Sama Geol, Assistant Regional Commander under the Henan Branch of the Regional Military Commission—a man of the second rank, roughly a lieutenant general in modern terms.
“His ability is outstanding, his character excellent; he is said to command the respect of every general and soldier under him.”
Every gaze in the hall snapped at once toward Sama Seung, Vice Minister of Revenue—Sama Yun’s granduncle.
Sama Seung himself had known nothing of this. He hastily managed his expression and bowed his head.
The Sama Clan…
Not one of the Eight Great Families of the Empire. One of those Nine Great Noble Families of the murim, and only middling among them at that.
Still, they are not to be underestimated. Like the Jegal Clan, they produce geniuses at the drop of a hat, and though they cannot shake the entire board, they have planted their people in any number of places.
Does His Majesty mean to carve away the Pi Clan’s authority and hand that role to the Sama Clan?
Everyone’s calculations grew more tangled still.
And looking down upon them all, Emperor Sungui was smiling as he thought of the second letter from Hui-yeom—the one he had not revealed in this hall.
To think you would dare try to take Us in hand, you insolent whelp.
That letter had laid out the relationship between the Sama Clan and the Sichuan Dang Family; the changes that could be wrought in the central government if the Sama Clan were given strength, and the resulting balance of power; and a rough blueprint for how, if the Sama Clan rose and in turn pulled the Sichuan Dang Family upward, the prestige of the Eight Great Families of the Empire might be smashed to pieces.
Wound the Pi Clan’s authority and pry that wound open while swallowing the iron-and-steel market of the Central Plains.
In matters of construction, take the Gol Clan’s hand, pretend to tear into the Pi Clan, and thereby provoke mutual slaughter between the Pi and Gol Clans—then, with the superior building methods of rebar and concrete, encroach in time upon the Gol Clan’s domain as well.
Expand the concepts of agricultural cooperatives and banks already operating in Sichuan into the Central Plains, seize control from the existing money houses, place that control under the emperor’s hand, and thereby cut down the power of the Cheon Clan, which holds the Ministry of Revenue…
It was a plan far too vast and ambitious to fit on a few sheets of paper.
The problem was that it had not been written as the wild daydream of some worldly-innocent teenager, but in a political grammar so cold and so ruthlessly realistic it was almost frightening.
That settles it. You are not meant to be the head of the Dang Family. You are meant to be the chief minister of Our cabinet.
Meanwhile Pi Jae-hyeon, who had taken a proper blow from the Sichuan Dang Family, wore a mask of perfect calm—yet beneath his official robes his nails had dug so deep into his palms that blood was running from the clenched fists.
Sichuan Dang Family… you bastards…!
And so Hui-yeom, having earned the lasting enmity of one of the Eight Great Families of the Empire, was at that same hour absorbed in a completely different worry of his own.