Gaining a Sworn Younger Brother
Gol Man-seung, patriarch of the Gongjong Gol Family and Minister of Works, paid a visit to the Sama Family residence accompanied by his grandson, Gol Jun-sang.
“For the Minister of Works himself to call upon us in person… it is an honor.”
“Spare me the formalities. This is a matter worth coming to see with my own eyes.”
Though the old man was nearing seventy, Gol Man-seung’s voice brimmed with vigor.
“And what a pleasure to meet the Vice Minister of Revenue as well, separate from the usual channels.”
“The feeling is mutual, Your Excellency.”
Gol Man-seung and Sama Seung exchanged smiles as they faced each other.
Gol Man-seung, Sama Seung, Gol Jun-sang, and Hwiyeom settled around a table, each with a cup of hazelnut coffee fragrant with sweet aroma set before them.
“I have reviewed the proposals you sent.”
Gol Man-seung opened the conversation with a serious air.
“Did you truly conceive all of this by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“…Where on earth did a monster like you come from…”
Gol Man-seung shook his head, looking thoroughly nonplussed.
“I shall be frank. Your proposals and the sweeping economic reforms they entail are far too radical. They will inevitably shake the existing order and give rise to conflict. Part of that, of course, is because His Majesty’s will aims at the division and weakening of the Eight Great Families—but beyond even that, they will deliver a tremendous shock to society as a whole.”
“Yes.”
“And yet…”
Gol Man-seung let out a quiet sigh.
“Even so, I cannot help but acknowledge it. If events proceed according to those plans, then yes—the Central Plains will usher in an unprecedented golden age. And our Ministry of Works, by taking part, will grow strong enough to rival the foremost of the Eight Great Families. Therefore, I have decided we will join you.”
“You will not regret it.”
Sama Seung and Hwiyeom both stared blankly, as if to say, You came in person just to say that? Gol Man-seung snorted a laugh.
“It’s written all over your faces. The real reason I came myself is political, of course.”
“To make a show of it to the Eight Great Families, then?”
Hwiyeom nodded.
“Exactly. To demonstrate that our house is joining hands with you. And when the patriarch himself steps forward, it signals not some half-hearted arrangement but a firm, unambiguous friendship. That alone will make more than a few people hesitate to pick open fights with you as you operate. Anyone who doesn’t fancy a direct confrontation with our house will at least keep their hostility under wraps.”
It was the distinctive face-culture of the Central Plains—mianzi.
When Gol Man-seung himself had come to meet them and declared he would stand as their backer, to meddle with those under his protection would be taken as a slight to Gol Man-seung’s dignity and a challenge to his authority.
In other words:
“Unless you’re another of the Eight Great Families on the same tier, the rabble had better not even think of sticking their noses in… Things will be much easier for us.”
Only Hwiyeom and Emperor Sungui knew the full details of the patent-fishing scheme, but matters had fallen into a fortunate alignment. Purges were inevitable, and the more unfortunate officials who got swept up in them—though none of them were truly innocent, having stolen patents—the more blood the court would have to spill. The Gol Family’s present move would serve to stop the lesser scavengers from getting greedy and losing their heads for no good reason.
Hwiyeom concealed his inner thoughts behind a pleasant smile. Gol Man-seung savored the coffee’s aroma for a moment, then asked:
“So, shall we begin with the construction of the Caffe the One? I’ll send someone to handle the practical details; you can discuss them together.”
“Once again, we are grateful for your consideration.”
“Consideration? Nonsense—it’s only natural. …Ahem. And there is one request—not quite a request—I would like to make…”
Throughout the conversation Gol Man-seung had never lost his hearty, confident air, but now he cleared his throat with a sudden air of awkwardness.
“Haha, whatever could it be, that the great Minister of Works himself hesitates so?”
At Sama Seung’s question, Gol Man-seung answered:
“This foolish boy of mine seems to have become an ardent follower of that young friend of yours.”
“Ah.”
Hwiyeom turned. Gol Jun-sang was staring at him with eyes so bright they could have rivaled the wish-granting pearl of the Twin Dragons, if one allowed for a little exaggeration.
“Please take me as your sworn younger brother, Elder Brother!”
“…Let me ask first.”
Hwiyeom regarded Gol Jun-sang with the expression of a man who had just encountered some bizarre extraterrestrial life-form.
“Why?”
“The train! The railway!”
Gol Jun-sang launched into a sudden acceleration.
He shouted at the top of his lungs, both hands waving like a conductor’s baton.
“Carve through the mountains! Split the earth and open the roads! Transportation is the very blood and veins of a nation! The greatest goal our Gong Family must pursue is to lace the world together like a spider’s web of roads! And yet until now we have failed! Why?!”
Gol Jun-sang’s eyes rolled wild.
I’ve seen those eyes somewhere before…
While Hwiyeom tilted his head, Gol Jun-sang sprayed spit with his impassioned speech.
“Because of everything! The technology was lacking! The skill to bore through mountains! To throw bridges through the air across valleys! To build roads so sturdy they will not wash away even in the rain! The budget was lacking! The vast continent of the Central Plains is like a gigantic furnace that devours enormous sums! When you propose cutting roads through the mountains, the local magistrates answer only with groans of complaint! The imperial treasury is finite, so why pour money and labor into roads when people can just travel the paths that already exist? Are you only trying to do the merchants a favor? That is the sort of outrageous rubbish the local officials spout! And the railway? An entire province producing that much iron? Damn it, are you a Buddha of Iron?!”
“No! Forgive me! You are the Buddha! Of course you are! You who work miracles, making a lifeless dragon of iron carry rice and coal across hundreds of li—you are most certainly the Buddha, aaaaaah!!”
“…My apologies. He used to be such a timid, quiet child. I don’t know how he turned into this…”
Why did the shame fall upon Gol Man-seung? As the old man bowed his head, face flushed, Hwiyeom, who had briefly lost the power of speech, managed a difficult nod.
“…Not at all. We have one more… individual of this sort in our own house, so I understand perfectly well. Yes…”
“A terrible tragedy.”
Hwiyeom could almost hear Dang Unhwa’s voice shrieking beside his ear: Art is an explosion, aaaaaah!
After the explosive fanatic, now an iron fanatic—or rather, what should one even call this? A road fanatic?
Even the ancient Romans would have drawn a line and said, Well, we paved roads across the world, but even we never hit that level of tension… Gol Man-seung sighed as he looked at Gol Jun-sang.
“For all that, he is normally a clever boy. He passed the provincial examination at fifteen and the metropolitan examination at sixteen. He entered the Ministry of Works and was learning the work step by step when… well, there was a rather unfortunate incident, and he has been on leave for a while.”
“Grandfather! That bastard absolutely deserved to have his skull cracked open!”
“You’re the bastard! Keep your mouth shut for once!”
Gol Man-seung, who had been striving for dignity, finally lost the battle against his temper and bellowed.
Did the hot blood run in the family as well?
“What do you mean? That bastard was embezzling kickbacks from a construction project, and when he got caught the only thing he said was ‘So what?’ And I’m supposed to just leave him alone?!”
“The problem is that he was your superior! If you had quietly informed me, this grandfather of yours would have handled it! But smashing your superior’s head open with an inkstone in the middle of the government office in broad daylight—how am I supposed to deal with that?! Do you have any idea how hard I worked to smooth that over?!”
Hwiyeom watched the warm family exchange between grandfather and grandson in blank silence, at a complete loss for how to react.
Sama Seung, observing him, quietly added an explanation.
“Young Master Gol was… rather famous for being as straight as a bamboo stalk.”
In short, he had been that rarest of public servants: a justice-obsessed, principle-bound firebrand of a bureaucrat—and of excellent pedigree to boot. A complete package.
Of course, by the standards of the medieval civil service, armed as it was with mottos such as “Never rock the boat,” “Keep things amicable,” “Leave today’s work for tomorrow,” and “Do nothing without precedent, and never create a precedent,” he had been a traitor of the first order.
“I can see why he left.”
“To be honest, if it weren’t for the family, he would have been buried in some dead-end post long ago.”
The quarrel between grandfather and grandson was entirely one-sided. What good did it do to be right? If persuading a fanatic were possible, the Crusades and Islamist terrorism would never have happened.
“Anyway!!!”
Gol Jun-sang brushed aside his grandfather’s lecture—which might or might not have reached thirty-six thousand four hundred and fifty characters—with a single “I don’t care!” and ignored Gol Man-seung, who was beginning to clutch the back of his neck and calculate whether today would make a suitable death anniversary. He turned to Hwiyeom instead.
“In short, Elder Brother! You are the supernova that will inject tension into the slack political scene of the Gyeong Empire!”
“…That’s kind of annoying.”
“Pardon?”
“Ah, nothing.”
Hwiyeom, momentarily dizzy at Gol Jun-sang’s declaration that he would inject hip-hop tension into the loose atmosphere, asked:
“…So you want to get along well with me?”
“I wish to serve you as my sworn elder brother!”
Well… all right, let’s see.
Hwiyeom thought it over for a moment, but he could see no particular downside. Since they had already decided to form an alliance with the Gol Family, it was a choice that could only help—so long as this fellow didn’t go and commit some disaster under Hwiyeom’s name.
“Then… shall we do that?”
“Please speak freely, Elder Brother! I’m a year younger!”
“Haha, well then. I’m glad to have such an energetic younger brother.”
Overflowing passion, properly redirected, became overflowing work ethic. When a premium-grade worker came running of his own free will, how could one not welcome him?
Hwiyeom smiled and said:
“Come with me when I return to the family estate this time. Showing you the trains of Sichuan will give you plenty of reference material for the Beijing Loop Railway construction!”
“Perfect! Grandfather! I’ll resume my post after the trip to Sichuan!”
“…Do as you please.”
Gol Man-seung ground his teeth with the thought that if this had not been his true eldest grandson he would have… then cleared his throat and forced an uncharacteristically ingratiating smile.
“Ah… he may look a bit off, but that is only because he has not yet found a proper outlet for his passion. The boy is bright. The Gol Family’s influence played no part whatsoever in his taking first place in the examinations—it was entirely the fruit of his own studies! Keep him by your side and teach him steadily for about ten years, and he will become a pillar that supports this nation, mark my words!”
“Hahaha, I understand. I shall do my best to teach him well.”
“Thank you—truly, thank you!”
Gol Man-seung stretched out a wrinkled hand and seized Hwiyeom’s in a firm grip.
Hwiyeom was left with the ominous feeling that he had somehow been hooked.
And Gol Jun-sang leapt from his seat with a shout of joy.
As a side note, exactly twenty years later the two men would speak of this day’s meeting as follows:
“An employee with passion is always welcome. It was truly the right decision.”
“I… did love trains and construction, that’s true… but I never imagined I’d spend twenty years digging the earth without once being able to go home…”
Gol Byeong-sang—ah, no, Gol Jun-sang’s cup held tears half and ink half.
Well, that was how it went.
In any case, the Gongjong Gol Family, the Sichuan Dang Family, and the Sama Family succeeded in forming a most amicable relationship.
The Sama Family and the Gongjong Gol Family made no secret of broadcasting the fact throughout Beijing, and it would prove both advantageous and disadvantageous to Hwiyeom as he launched various enterprises in the capital.
The Gol Family sent Hwiyeom a list of the various construction companies that served them, and Hwiyeom entrusted the Construction Second Section Chief with the practical task of drawing up a business strategy to parcel out those project segments that the Hwi-eon Trading Company alone could not absorb to those construction firms.
The beginning was the selection of a business site in Wudaokou, which could be called the heart of Beijing’s central district.
In Hwiyeom’s world this area was a commercial district surrounded by countless universities—Peking University, Tsinghua University, Beijing Language and Culture University, and more. Even now, thanks to its excellent location, it was a central quarter filled with tea houses, multi-story buildings, and private academies.
The Sama Family swiftly disposed of one building and handed the site over to Hwiyeom.
“What is the height of the tallest multi-story building in Beijing?”
“Five stories.”
No structure in Beijing could be built taller than the Forbidden City where the Emperor resided.
Hearing that differentiation by height was impossible, Hwiyeom stroked his chin.
“There are constraints on breadth because of the site as well, so… mm. I’ll just have to tell Michelangelo to give it everything he’s got.”
If scale was impossible, they would compete with the splendor of the interior.
“In that case, we go all-in as a sanctuary of sculpture and painting.”
In later years the Beijing flagship of Caffe the One would be known as Michelangelo’s Dream Box (La “scatola dei sogni” di Michelangelo) and designated a World Cultural Heritage site. Its legend began that day.
For reference, Michelangelo’s reaction upon hearing the plan was as follows:
“You told me to build a dam—when am I supposed to do that?”
“Design it in the spare moments between sculptures.”
“Sei pazzo?”
“I understand Florentine, you know.”
“Are you insane?”
“Thank you so much for saying it a second time.”
Well, when ordered to do it, one had no choice but to do it.
Even the great Michelangelo could not escape that fate.