Negotiations with the Gol Clan
“You really are something else…”
Gol Min-seung, young lord of the Gol Clan, pressed a hand to his forehead with the look of a man whose head was throbbing. Barely into his mid-forties, he seemed to be nursing a migraine brought on by the sheer lack of sense in his teenage son. With a sigh he turned to Hwiyeom.
“My apologies. The boy has a rather… eccentric streak.”
“Not at all. I’m simply glad that someone from the great Gol Clan looks on me kindly.”
“Elder Brother is a man worthy of respect!”
Well now. Hwiyeom had never even agreed to accept the title, yet the boy was already calling him Elder Brother. Faced with that shameless brand of friendliness, Hwiyeom could only manage a faintly dumbfounded smile. Gol Min-seung spoke again.
“…This is my son. Gol Jun-sang.”
“Jun-sang, at your service! Please, just call me Sang!”
“Ah—yes. A pleasure. I am Hwiyeom, young lord of the Dang family.”
“I know!”
Jun-sang’s eyes shone with almost excessive brilliance.
“How could anyone who aspires to architecture not know of Elder Brother? It would be the same as a man who calls himself a scholar not knowing Confucius and Mencius!”
“Praise so lavish it’s hard to accept… is it?”
When Hwiyeom cast Gol Min-seung a questioning glance, the older man merely shrugged with the air of one who had already given up.
“He heard about the mountain-tunnel works in Sichuan and that ‘train’ of yours, and he’s been like this ever since. Truly, the young…”
“Ah…”
“Well then. Shall we go inside and speak properly?”
“Gladly.”
Hwiyeom followed Min-seung’s lead into the young lord’s study within the clan head’s hall. He had not been granted an audience with the clan head himself, yet the young lord had come out in person to receive him. Considering that the other party was one of the Eight Great Families of the empire, the protocol was extraordinary—and Hwiyeom found himself curious about what they were thinking.
Seated before steaming cups of Yunnan tea, the three men began their discussion in earnest. With the young lord present in person and his son already showing such open goodwill toward Hwiyeom, the atmosphere softened of its own accord.
“So. What brings you to our house? I doubt you came all this way merely to ask that we look after you while you stay in Beijing… Or have you come to talk business?”
“The greeting of ‘please look after me’ comes first. Business talk after that.”
Hwiyeom set the gift bundle he had brought onto the table.
“Gifts really aren’t necessary…”
“This particular gift is not unrelated to the business I wish to discuss.”
“Oh?”
At that, Gol Min-seung finally showed a spark of curiosity. Hwiyeom untied the wrapping cloth, revealing two boxes. When he opened the first, a fragrant pouch, a small coffee grinder, an elegant filter—silk, in fact, a flannel drip filter—and coffee cups emerged.
“I feel rather rude after being treated to fine tea, but… I would like you to taste this.”
“Is this the tea you plan to sell in Beijing at that tea house of yours?”
“Yes. It is called Caffa, brought in from the Western Regions.”
“Hmm.”
If that was the case, it certainly counted as business talk. Father and son waited quietly while Hwiyeom prepared it. He ordered boiling water from a servant, opened the brass lid of the grinder, dropped in the beans, and began turning the handle. Once the beans were ground, he drew out the small drawer beneath, poured the powder into the silk dripper, fixed the dripper over the teapot, and slowly poured the boiling water in a circular motion, letting it steep. As the coffee bloomed in the hot water, a rich fragrance filled the room.
“Oho… this is…”
Even Gol Min-seung, a man who had enjoyed every luxury under heaven, widened his eyes at the intensity of the aroma. It was thick enough to smother the mild fragrance of the pu’er that had lingered in the air. In sheer strength of scent alone, no tea could rival coffee—though of course intensity was not the sole virtue of a brew. Hwiyeom had even ordered a portion of hazelnut-scented beans blended in, maximizing the fragrance; the favorable reaction was only natural.
When the coffee had finished dripping, Hwiyeom removed the silk dripper, lifted the pot himself, and filled three cups. Then he took out a small jar of candy and offered a spoon to Gol Min-seung.
“Add sugar to taste. One spoonful, or two, as you prefer.”
“My thanks.”
Curiosity plain on their faces, Gol Min-seung and Gol Jun-sang stirred sugar into their cups. They each took a sip.
“Fine tea.”
“It certainly has competitive power!”
They nodded in admiration of the taste and aroma. The sugar had tamed coffee’s characteristic bitterness and astringency, producing a flavor with almost no room for likes or dislikes.
After a short while spent praising the coffee and exchanging light conversation, Gol Min-seung spoke once the cups were nearly empty.
“Very well. I understand that this Caffa tea house of yours holds an edge over ordinary tea houses. So? Why tell us?”
“Because I wish to cooperate with the Gol Clan on construction.”
“With our house?”
“Yes.”
“I was under the impression the Dang family already runs its own construction firm—Hwi-eon Comprehensive Construction.”
“That is precisely the real reason for my visit today.”
Sensing the seriousness beneath Hwiyeom’s words, Gol Min-seung’s expression grew equally grave.
“Speak.”
“In carrying out construction in Beijing, our house needs the aid of yours. Supply of building materials and labor, even the architectural permits themselves—there is nowhere the hand of the Gol Clan does not reach. Of course our house could manage with its own capabilities… but if we were to haul every material and every worker from Sichuan all the way to Beijing and begin work that way… time and cost would swell enormously.”
“Hmm.”
“Yet if I leave it at that, it will sound as though the Dang family is merely pleading with the Gol Clan.”
“I won’t deny it. It doesn’t sound especially attractive.”
Without Gol assistance, any Beijing project would bleed money; if the Gol Clan deliberately threw up obstacles, the work itself would become a misery in a dozen ways. The Emperor had personally sanctioned the construction, so outright sabotage was unlikely—but “passive work-to-rule,” stretching every procedure to its absolute limit under the pretext of doing everything by the book, was always possible. Therefore the suggestion that they jointly build the Beijing branch of Caffe the One was bound to feel unappealing.
Gol Min-seung’s face said, clear as day: Show me the real money-making proposal you brought. Hwiyeom smiled faintly.
“Splitting the construction of Caffe the One will not yield any great profit. But what if we undertook a massive project to rebuild the entire nation together?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Please look at the second gift.”
Hwiyeom opened the second box. Inside lay several tightly rolled maps and a sheaf of documents. Gol Min-seung read the title on the topmost cover.
He lifted the proposal—thicker than a dictionary—then set it down and picked up the next document.
And finally, when Gol Min-seung spread the map fully across the table, his eyes went wide.
“…This… this is…”
“The Grand China Connection Project.”
At Hwiyeom’s words, the eyes that had been studying the map snapped up to him. Those trembling pupils held disbelief and sheer incredulity. Hwiyeom smiled.
“The last one is still only a concept for now.”
“……”
Gol Min-seung picked up the first document again—the proposal for the Second State-run Ironworks Joint-Stock Company—and began scanning it at high speed. Hwiyeom did not interrupt, and even Gol Jun-sang seemed to grasp the mood, waiting in silence while his father read the proposal as though possessed. After roughly the time it took to drink a cup of tea, Gol Min-seung set the document down and pressed a hand to his forehead.
“This is insane.”
“Is it?”
“‘Is it?’ Listen to me. Do you even understand what you are planning? You are trying to tear down the order of Great Gyeong itself!”
Anger even flickered in Gol Min-seung’s eyes.
“Think about it—a national facility capable of mass production, and then a joint-stock company that issues shares, certificates of freely tradable rights over that facility? You would have the common people privately buying and selling the facilities of the state?”
“Only a portion of the rights.”
“Even a portion! This is a challenge to authority itself!”
Gol Min-seung growled.
“Anyone with money can invest in the nation’s infrastructure. And this mad facility of yours will belch out enormous quantities of iron and rake in colossal profits. The commoners who invest will grow rich—richer, in some cases, than the quiet local gentry or the officials!”
“Oho.”
So the seat of one of the Eight Great Families had not been won by mere luck. The fact that Gol Min-seung instantly grasped what the advent of joint-stock companies and mass-production base industries would unleash proved he was no ordinary man. He spoke like a crow croaking an ominous prophecy.
“Put a sword in a man’s hand and he wants to swing it; give him money and he no longer wishes to be looked down upon. That is human nature. Once ordinary folk grow wealthy, they will lift their heads and begin to defy the ruling class. The collapse of the system will follow! Are you plotting treason?”
Gol Min-seung’s thinking was partly correct. The appearance of the spinning jenny and the factory had birthed the bourgeoisie—a new wealthy class armed with large-scale production facilities—who then clashed with the traditional nobility and ultimately ended the monarchy. Yet the mere arrival of stocks and means of mass production had not immediately toppled the class system. The concept of joint-stock companies first appeared in the seventeenth century; colonial mass production and mass consumption had existed even earlier. The French Revolution that brought down the monarchy came in the eighteenth century; Britain’s Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth. Why the gap of so many years between them? Because time is required before every person reaps the benefits of a new system, and still more time before discontent with the evils of the old order accumulates enough for people to rise and tear it down.
Hwiyeom knew how to control that process.
“First of all, the common people do not turn into rebels because they themselves are making good money. They turn into rebels because a certain class is making good money while they themselves still are not—or, worse, because they are suffering more than before.”
Even when the bourgeoisie ignited the French Revolution, they had made use of a populace already seething with rage against the monarchy. The gap between rich and poor had been extreme, social contradictions piled high.
“Why does inequality arise? Simple. Goods pile up in the storehouses of the local gentry and high officials and never circulate. They hoard fortunes they could never spend in a lifetime and refuse to release them. I will create an excellent investment vehicle—joint-stock companies managed by the imperial house—so that their money flows out into the market. I will legally empty the gentry’s storehouses, use that money to run steelworks, produce iron, and consume it both in the domestic market and in the external market of the Western Regions. The profits earned will fund various state enterprises. Employment will be created for the people. Will the people turn into rebels? They will praise the Emperor’s grace. Those who will turn into rebels are elsewhere.”
Hwiyeom’s smile turned wicked.
“Those who fall out of the Emperor’s favor and fail to climb aboard this current.”
“…!”
“As you already know, His Majesty believes the Eight Great Families hold too much power and intends to break them. Think of me as the vanguard—His Majesty’s general, arriving not with the old political methods but with the weapon of economics. Young lord of the Gongjong Gol Family, you who control the Ministry of Works: you may become the greatest beneficiaries of this grand undertaking, or the first enemy to be cut down.”
“……”
“Join us. I sincerely hope to work with you. With the Gol Clan’s help, we can advance the tide of this great project by at least a decade or two.”
“…May I… look over the rest of the plans a little more carefully?”
“Consult with the clan head as well. This is not a decision to be made lightly.”
As Hwiyeom rose from his seat, Gol Min-seung asked urgently,
“You cannot mean to strike down every one of the Eight Great Families—not when you make a proposal like this! Who else? To whom else will you extend your hand?”
“To establish and maintain the joint-stock system, the cooperation of the Ministry of Revenue will be necessary.”
“And the rest?”
To that question Hwiyeom gave no answer. He only smiled deeply, bowed his head, and said,
“I shall see you again in a few days.”
The words were a de facto declaration that even the imperial Zhu clan and the Cheon clan would not be exceptions. Gol Min-seung’s face twisted. Only Gol Jun-sang, unable to keep pace with the conversation, looked back and forth between the two men and grew grave by association. Seeing that, Gol Min-seung sighed.
They are only a year apart, yet how can they be so different?
“…I will contact you as soon as possible.”
“I shall wait. Then, until next time.”
And with that, Hwiyeom departed.
Gol Man-seung, clan head of the Gol family, paid a personal visit to Sama Seung’s residence only two days later.