Harvest Season
The affair with the Yangtze River Eighteen Strongholds had drawn to a close.
The seasons had already slipped past White Dew and were advancing toward the Autumnal Equinox.
While Hwiyeom shuttled in and out of Hubei Province for the sake of Anjiang’s ventures, capable members of the Sichuan Dang Family were, in his stead, gathering the harvest of the many enterprises he had sown.
First, the coffee plantations.
Three full years of patient endurance had been required to obtain the commodity called Caffa—but the yield was sweet in proportion.
Already possessed of a stable cash flow and ample fiscal room, Hwiyeom had willingly underwritten the Yunnan Caffa estates through three years of zero return, paying the Jeomchang Sect as well for their protection and thereby knitting an ever-tighter bond.
Coffee is, by nature, an intensely labor-intensive crop. It is often said that the crimson flesh of the coffee cherry is nothing less than the blood and sweat of colonial laborers.
Yunnan, however, was different.
Thanks to the reliable produce supplied by the Sichuan Agricultural Cooperative, the already modest pressure of food self-sufficiency in Yunnan had eased still further. Peasants preferred to grow Yunnan tea or Caffa for cash rather than cheap rice or barley. While established tea growers still held an edge thanks to their mature market, the Dang Family had laid down such an open carpet of roses that many farmers swung over to Caffa all the same.
With their livelihoods stabilized by Dang investment, Yunnan’s farmers tended the Caffa with heart and soul. At last the three years passed, and the first commercially viable harvest of coffee cherries was brought in.
Once the flesh was stripped and the beans dried, the green coffee had to be given a preliminary roast before it ever left the plantation—Hwiyeom’s deliberate ruse to prevent anyone from smuggling viable seed and planting coffee elsewhere. The once-roasted beans were stored in the Yunnan cooperative warehouses; a portion was forwarded to the Sichuan Dang Family.
Hwiyeom ordered renowned tea masters, together with a Muslim specialist introduced by Ibn al-Nasir, to research the roasting and brewing of coffee.
“I’ve only ever drunk the stuff—never made it,” he admitted. Still, he knew enough: roast the green beans, grind them, filter the brew through paper or silk, and drink.
The Muslim, a man named Abdul Hamad, had once tried to commercialize Caffa within the Islamic world and had gone spectacularly bankrupt. Considering how long it had taken coffee—long used by Muslims merely as a wakefulness tonic—to become a popular beverage, he could fairly be called a pioneer in the field.
Hwiyeom judged that the drink must first be made fashionable in Sichuan before it could be sold in Beijing.
Then there was Guizhou’s sugarcane.
Lavished with the Dang Family’s phosphate and nitrogen fertilizers, and dusted with sulfuric powder to neutralize the limestone geology, Guizhou’s once hellish soil had been transformed into true fertile earth. The province’s fierce sun, its well-drained terrain, and the lightly calcareous soil produced by sulfur neutralization drove the cane’s sugar content to the absolute maximum. It bore no comparison to the tentative plantings now beginning in Guangdong.
Having sucked every last nutrient from the barren climate merely to survive, and having lost its moisture to the scorching heat, Guizhou sugarcane was sweet enough to chew raw—and demand for it never ceased. Consequently the farmers of Guizhou suffered an unseasonable epidemic of sugarcane theft.
“You little bastards! Stop right there!”
Children who had cut stalks and were chewing them contentedly scattered like a flock of sparrows at the farmer’s roar.
“Hey, you brats! Why run if you’ve done nothing wrong? You’ll fall! Watch where you’re going!”
The farmer shouted after them in feigned irritation, yet the corners of his mouth twitched upward of their own accord. Compared with years when half the rice seedlings withered, a few missing cane stalks from a bountiful field were nothing at all. Still they hid that warm satisfaction and kept up the stern façade.
“Don’t you dare go into the cane fields alone! Snakes! Snakes come out!”
For reasons no one could explain, sugarcane fields were a paradise for snakes. Before harvest the farmers set the fields ablaze—burning out the snakes and pests, scorching away the cumbersome leaves—until the stalks, now even sweeter from the lost moisture, could be felled with a few sharp strokes of the sickle. When the Provincial Administration Commissioner of Guizhou watched the harvested cane being carted off toward Sichuan, he could only click his tongue in awe.
“Well I’ll be damned. It actually works.”
He stared blankly at the long train of wagons, then summoned his officials.
“Aside from the land we leased to the Sichuan Dang Family, look into planting sugarcane on other plots as well.”
“That would mean buying fertilizer from the Dang Family.”
“Could that same fertilizer be used for rice?”
“Well… almost certainly.”
“Then we start by signing a fertilizer purchase contract.”
Guizhou had no leisure to celebrate this year’s bumper crop; it was already moving for next year.
The sweet-potato fields that Noksan had planted in the trenches under Hwiyeom’s orders also yielded meaningful results. Not every outpost sat on ideal farmland, yet the crop’s natural hardiness on poor soil, the power of fertilizer, and the careful attention of Noksan personnel who otherwise had little to do beyond routine patrols combined to produce a harvest.
“Aigoo, these sweet potatoes are solid!”
“How about we roast a few later?”
“I’m taking some to market and selling them.”
As the staff stuffed harvested tubers into their pouches without distinction, the outpost commanders scolded them.
“You fools! That’s company property! I won’t say a word about pocketing a few, but if you grab too many you won’t like what happens!”
“Hey, we’re the ones who farmed them—can’t we take this much?”
“Idiot! That has to go to the cooperative so you can get your Mid-Autumn Festival bonus! If you want to suck your thumbs through the holiday, be my guest.”
Only then did the Noksan men sheepishly set down the sacks of sweet potatoes.
“A few is still all right, though, right?”
“Yeah. That much I won’t complain about.”
Even while restraining their men, the commanders themselves smacked their lips in quiet regret.
“What are they going to do with all of it anyway…?”
In the agricultural sector, everyone had reaped more than expected. Of course the fertile plains of Sichuan, Yunnan, and the southern marches that fed the region had also enjoyed a great harvest.
Yet the eyes of Elder U Seong-sik—foremost among the landowning elders and overseer of the great plantation farms—remained cold as he surveyed that abundance.
“We applied more fertilizer than last year, yet the yield is slightly lower…. It seems three years is the maximum one can push a crop with fertilizer alone. Does that mean we leave the land fallow next year?”
He conveyed these concerns in a formal report to Hwiyeom, who replied:
“On land that appears exhausted, plant soybeans next year.”
Soybeans possess the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen and thus help restore depleted soil. Continuous cropping without resting the land was welcome, yet U Seong-sik worried that rice might run short. Hwiyeom answered the objection:
“Press the beans for oil and sell it in the northern provinces; we can import wheat without having to beg Anhui.”
Because of the poor water quality of the Central Plains, fried foods dominated the diet; oil that would not sell was unthinkable. Moreover, oil was an essential raw material for the nitroglycerin Hwiyeom planned to produce later.
By a curious twist of fate they had developed TNT ahead of nitroglycerin, skipping the usual technological ladder—possible only because of the Dang Family’s unique circumstances. To advance properly along the path of black powder → guncotton → smokeless powder, a large and secure oil supply would soon be indispensable.
Speaking of gunpowder…
Hwiyeom had delivered vast quantities of black powder, along with Dangroe (the early primitive grenades that used a fuse rather than a blasting-oil charge) and Dabal-shinggi-jeon multiple-launch rockets, to the Emperor, receiving in return substantial gold and grain.
Emperor Sungui, after reading Baek Beon’s reports, had taken a keen interest in the firearms used during the suppression of the Yangtze River Eighteen Strongholds—especially the powder that detonated underwater. Unwilling to leak Cheon-gyeong to the Emperor, Hwiyeom had altered the Cheon-gyeong-suroe into a black-powder device. Of course ordinary black powder could never explode while submerged, so he had to report, with elaborate waterproofing and flotation measures, that the mine drifted with the current until its clockwork ran down, then clung to an enemy hull and detonated.
Baek Beon, who had never been near the actual battlefield, regarded Hwiyeom with a peculiar expression rather than simply accepting the account.
“The figures for black-powder production, the quantity presented to His Majesty, and the amount the Dang Family itself is stockpiling… do not add up.”
The usual flamboyant laugh was nowhere to be seen.
Even Hwiyeom felt cold sweat slide down his spine for the first time opposite Baek Beon, yet his face remained perfectly steady.
“Ah—during product development at the Innovation Hall we happened to detonate rather a large quantity.”
“Young Family Head.”
Baek Beon gave a thin smile.
“I’ll take it as that. I won’t mention it to His Majesty either.”
“…What do you mean?”
“Even if, under the pretext of poison-arts training in the underground of the Poison Hall, the Young Family Head is secretly manufacturing something for His Majesty… so long as that loyalty is directed toward the Emperor, I am prepared to look the other way to a certain extent.”
“I have no idea what nonsense you’re talking about. I hide nothing from His Majesty and stand with a clear conscience.”
“…….”
Baek Beon stared at him a moment longer, then broke into his usual exaggerated, clownish grin.
“All the better then! Yohohoho!!”
Declaring he needed a daytime drink, he swayed theatrically and vanished. Hwiyeom watched the retreating figure and gave a bitter smile.
“I don’t know what he’s thinking… but I’ll have to be more careful.”
That night the secret letter Baek Beon dispatched contained the following:
— The existence of gunpowder that detonates underwater is unfounded. The Cheon-gyeong-suroe is an anti-ship weapon that floats upon the surface and, after a predetermined interval, explodes at the waterline to inflict catastrophic damage and induce sinking.
— There is no discrepancy among the total quantity of powder produced by the Sichuan Dang Family, the amount presented as tribute to the Imperial House, and the Family’s own stockpile.
— Contrary to my previous report, the clockwork spring appears to be a device of considerable utility. As demonstrated in the Cheon-gyeong-suroe, it may serve as the core component of mechanisms that operate for a set duration or, conversely, activate only after a set duration. Full particulars are contained in the attached report.
As he fastened the letter to a messenger hawk and released it, Baek Beon wore his characteristic eerie smile.
“Ah… what a fine moonlit night. Yohoho.”
“…….”
Eight crimson eyes glowed in the darkness. Baek Beon turned and met them.
“Surprised? Of course not. You already knew. For all my appearance, I was originally a geomancer charged with keeping the palace free of demons.”
“…….”
“Hidden motives? How hurtful. I have always dealt with the Dang Family in complete sincerity. You, on the other hand, are only now showing me your true face. What will you do—kill me to silence me?”
“…….”
“Caprice? Not at all. It is simply trust.”
“…….”
“Hahaha! Ruthless, aren’t you? From the vantage of a demon who has lived more than a thousand years, human antics like these must look ridiculous. Yet it is precisely these ridiculous things that distinguish humans from beasts.”
“…….”
“Nothing at all.”
“…….”
“I too, before I am the Emperor’s eunuch, am a subject with hot blood in my veins. When I witness the human hymn of people pulling together, changing their surnames if need be, all to live well—then even I begin to feel human anguish.”
“…….”
“Well, if it isn’t discovered, what’s the harm? Conversely, if I reported honestly I suspect I’d end up buried in the Dang Family’s back garden by your hand.”
“…….”
“Yohohohahahaha! My thanks for that. Then I look forward to our continued association! Ah—and would you return that messenger hawk? That single bird is worth a year’s salary for a humble man like me!”
“…….”
“Very well. Have a pleasant night, Otherworldly Lady.”
Autumn—the season when the past year’s farming is judged. Hwiyeom appeared to have succeeded not only with sweet potatoes and sugarcane, but with the cultivation of people as well.