Weapon Demonstration
Escorted by the Imperial Guard, the Huamang Unit of the Sichuan Dang Family took their positions at the prepared firing range.
Curiosity lit the faces of the watching ministers as the unit formed ranks opposite the targets set roughly three hundred paces away.
"If it's a new weapon, is it that multiple-launch rocket system His Majesty recently issued to the Imperial Guard?"
"Doesn't seem so. That's a heavy piece, like a great crossbow that has to be hauled on a cart. Those short-spear-looking things the Dang people are holding must be the new weapons, no?"
Their gazes turned to the flintlock muskets.
From buttstock to muzzle each measured about three chi—roughly a meter—with a bayonet fixed beneath the barrel. To an untrained eye they looked for all the world like oddly shaped short spears.
While the ministers murmured among themselves, Emperor Sungui took his seat.
As a precaution, two expert fighters with shields took station on either side before him. A eunuch gave the signal.
"Begin the demonstration!"
"Load!"
Hwiyeom raised a hand. The Huamang Unit moved with crisp efficiency: tearing open powder pouches, pouring powder and lead ball down the barrel, ramming a cloth patch home with the rod drawn from beneath the stock, then packing the charge tight.
While the ministers watched with open curiosity, the soldiers took priming powder from their flasks, filled the pan, closed the frizzen, and stood with muzzles pointed skyward.
"Aim!"
They raised the muskets and leveled them at the targets.
"Fire!"
—Crack-crack!
"Huk?"
Several startled officials let out short cries at the sudden, monstrous report.
A thick cloud of smoke billowed up and, a moment later, thinned. The Huamang soldiers had already returned their muzzles to the sky and resumed a rigid stance.
"What was that?"
"Is that all?"
The ministers, who had been expecting the flashy martial displays typical of the murim, looked distinctly deflated. In truth, there had not been much to see.
Had it been bows, they would have watched the arrows fly and bury themselves in the targets; with muskets there was none of that, and the officials grew only more confused.
Only when Imperial Guard soldiers brought the targets forward did the ministers finally understand what had happened.
"There are holes in the targets."
"So it is like a bow that looses invisible arrows."
"The noise when they fire is rather excessive, is it not?"
"How different is it from a bow, really?"
"It seems worse, if anything. The procedure before firing looks far too long and complicated…"
While officials of the Ministry of War and others with knowledge of weapons and armies whispered and traded opinions, Emperor Sungui allowed himself a quiet smirk.
If they had tested that flintlock at its true range, the reaction would have been quite different.
From Baek Beon's reports he already knew the musket's range was nearly twice that of the crude Central Plains bow, yet he had deliberately ordered the demonstration at three hundred paces—the standard bow range.
If the Ministry of War learned that the weapon could strike from five hundred paces or more, like the composite bows of Goguryeo or the Mongols, they would howl for the flintlocks to be turned over at once.
But if they decide its performance is no better than a Central Plains bow, they will see no need.
Sure enough, after the demonstration the ministers' earlier excitement—stoked by the twin-dragon box—had soured into mild disappointment.
Minister of War Pi Jae-hyeon likewise kept silent.
I wondered whether this was the weapon that let seventy men drive off three hundred private soldiers… but at this level it could hardly have decided a battle. So it really was a matter of poison and martial skill after all?
The Pi Clan's own analysis had concluded that the Huamang Unit's martial levels were higher than expected and that poison had played a larger role in the chaos of close combat than anyone had guessed.
Thus, exactly as Emperor Sungui intended, both the utility and the power of the flintlock musket were thoroughly undervalued.
The emperor himself gave a rather indifferent nod and offered Hwiyeom a measured word of praise.
"A fine weapon. You will present these flintlocks so that the Imperial Guard and the Embroidered Uniform Guard may be equipped with them."
"Your Majesty, I speak at the risk of offense, yet the power of this new weapon does not appear remarkable when set against existing strong bows. Must we truly rearm—"
When Pi Jae-hyeon tried to obstruct the decision, Emperor Sungui cut him off.
"That musket is certainly no better than a bow in pure performance. Yet look at its form. A bow makes it awkward to carry spear or sword as well; the musket itself serves as both spear and blade, does it not? I mean to issue it to the Imperial Guard and ease the burden on soldiers who must otherwise haul several weapons. Do not oppose me."
"…I receive Your Majesty's command."
And so only the emperor's own Imperial Guard received the flintlock muskets.
No one present noticed that an asymmetric force had just been created between the Guard that answered solely to the throne and the central armies under the Ministry of War.
Once every ceremony had ended, Emperor Sungui arranged a private audience with Hwiyeom.
"Well. Everything seems to have unfolded exactly as you intended."
"All of it is by Your Majesty's grace."
"Hmph. I have done nothing."
Emperor Sungui gave a dry laugh and asked,
"I hear you mean to open a teahouse in Beijing?"
"That is so."
"You are not the sort to open a mere teahouse simply to pick the pockets of high officials. What is the real aim?"
"This humble subject merely wishes to expand the teahouse enterprise nationwide, beginning with Beijing…"
"Come now, none of that."
The emperor's expression turned sly and his voice dropped.
"You claimed the mountains of Sichuan choked the flow of goods and made life hard, so you would cut roads and collect tolls—and instead turned the entire province into an impregnable fortress fit to stand against a whole nation. Surely there is a deeper meaning."
It was pressure, a clear warning that I am watching every move you make.
Hwiyeom bent deeply at the waist, pressing his forehead to the floor in full prostration.
"Your Majesty, I swear by Heaven and Earth and the names of my ancestors that this subject harbors not the slightest disloyal thought. It was solely a measure to protect Sichuan from the assaults of those barbaric nomads."
"Indeed. Had I truly doubted you, your enterprises would never have proceeded so smoothly."
Emperor Sungui refrained from saying aloud that he could have sent troops to wipe them out; there was no need to strain the relationship further. Yet Hwiyeom understood the thought perfectly well.
He simply kept his head lowered.
Even with the multiple-launch rockets, the barbed-wire obstacles, and the trench fortifications, Sichuan cannot defeat the whole of the Central Plains. Not yet, at any rate.
And he had never intended to fight in the first place.
The world was wide and business opportunities endless—why spend a lifetime at war merely to seize land one could never properly use?
I understand his position, but… it would be nice if he trusted me a little more.
Hwiyeom sighed inwardly and decided to offer the answer the emperor would want to hear.
"Ordinary goods—foodstuffs, daily necessities—cannot break into Beijing's already saturated markets. Specialty products such as Sichuan brocade, Yunnan tea, or pepper already have merchants with whom we trade; cutting them out to sell directly in Beijing would be a breach of trust. That leaves wine houses and pleasure quarters… but the water trade has always been a filthy business on the back end, and the local operators would welcome us with open arms. Their backers, of course, would be the Eight Great Families. There is no need to prod that particular hornet's nest."
"So after eliminating every unworkable venture, the teahouse was what remained?"
"A teahouse will certainly set us at odds with the existing tea houses and tea rooms… yet their backers are already enemies of our house, so there was no need for restraint. Moreover, to prove that our new product has true market value, we needed to make it fashionable among Beijing's upper ranks."
"Enemies of the Dang Family?"
"More precisely, enemies of the Sama Clan, with whom the Dang Family is about to form a marriage alliance."
"Ah, I see. The Divine Skill Zhuge—the Zhuge Clan."
A faint, knowing smile touched Emperor Sungui's face. He had accepted Hwiyeom's reasoning and, at the same time, formed a slight misconception.
"Your devotion to your wife is extreme. To enter their field of business simply to check the enemies of your in-laws."
Hwiyeom made no effort to correct the misunderstanding.
Opening teahouses to sell coffee was reason enough by itself, yet there were many other advantages he could hang upon it.
For one, a teahouse offered an excellent base of operations for an intelligence network like the Minjeongwon to function inside Beijing.
Important conversations—secret talks among officials, debates on the state of the realm—took place either in tea rooms or in pleasure houses. Scholars of refined taste preferred the former.
Tea was hardly cheaper than wine, yet officials who wished to appear pure and incorruptible still favored it over liquor.
Like twenty-first-century men who drink only premium whiskey and insist that whiskey and soju are both distilled spirits and therefore the drink of the common people.
Ridiculous, yet profitable. And it yielded information.
Moreover, every grain of sugar and every bean of Caffa consumed at Caffe the One became another shackle around Guizhou and Yunnan.
It fit Hwiyeom's principle perfectly: control them by giving them profit.
Once Guizhou and Yunnan had tasted the flood of silver pouring from Beijing, they would never let go of the Dang Family's hand.
And that was not all.
Merchants who sampled Caffa and sugar would want to deal in them themselves. Unlike other goods that could be copied and sold, these could not. The only sources in the entire Central Plains were Yunnan and Guizhou under contract with the Sichuan Dang Family.
Those provinces could not betray him.
The future rewards Hwiyeom had dangled—rail lines across both provinces, a massive dam in Guizhou—were far too large to risk for a few coins today.
They might try to crush him with force and power, but without proper justification they would simply become prey for the legal team led by Bang Un. And the Dongchang already owed Bang Un and the Dang Family a heavy debt from that earlier affair.
With the emperor himself looking favorably upon the Dang Family? Betrayal was simply impossible.
In the end every money-hungry soul in Beijing would throng to Hwiyeom's feet, trying every possible method to cosy up and wring profit from him.
The methods were endless, yet handling them was child's play for Hwiyeom—who had once run multinational conglomerates while treating Wall Street, Washington D.C., Beijing, and China's provincial governments as his own backyard. The frogs at the bottom of the well called "China," busy devouring one another, were hardly worth a yawn.
Emperor Sungui finally concluded that Hwiyeom had opened a teahouse in Beijing for profit and for the sake of his wife's family.
"Very well. Is there anything further I can do for you?"
"Your Majesty, there is one matter for which I beg your leave."
"Speak."
"Grant this house permission to form close ties with the Gol Clan of the Eight Great Families."
"The Gol Clan?"
The emperor's eyes sharpened.
"You are not unaware that my intent is the exclusion of the Eight Great Families?"
"Your Majesty, if we make enemies of all eight and seek their ruin, they will only bind themselves more tightly and resist, making the task harder. But if we embrace a portion of them and sow division among their ranks, the grand design becomes far easier to achieve. Afterward it is simpler still to put a collar on them by planting the fear that they too may one day be discarded."
Hwiyeom spoke of the classic method of divide and rule, long the specialty of a certain island people. Emperor Sungui considered at length, then nodded.
"Will you be able to control the Gol Clan once they grow larger and stronger under your wing?"
Hwiyeom smiled.
"Of course, Your Majesty."
"Why such confidence?"
"Because…"
Hwiyeom answered,
"If they do not walk with me, they will simply race ahead on their own and trip over their own feet."
"Very well. Try it."
"Your Grace is boundless."
With the emperor's permission secured, Hwiyeom sent a messenger to the Gol Clan the moment he left the palace, requesting a meeting.
"Will that haughty Gol Clan even agree to see us? Even if the Sama Clan offers to arrange it…"
Contrary to Sama Seung's worries, the Gol Clan replied at once that they would meet.
The following evening, Hwiyeom found himself in a thoroughly unexpected encounter at the Gol Clan residence.
"I revere you! Please accept me as your disciple!!"
"…Hm?"
Even Hwiyeom had not seen that coming.
It was… more than a little unexpected.