Business Expansion
Even in a situation where the word traitor had just left the Emperor’s mouth—enough to freeze most men’s minds with shock—Huiyeom merely smiled and bowed his head with perfect composure.
“How so, Your Majesty?”
Realizing that Huiyeom was not the least bit flustered, Emperor Sungui let out a short laugh.
“What a dull fellow you are. Would it kill you to at least pretend to be startled for form’s sake?”
“Forgive me, Your Majesty. This humble servant has never possessed any talent for acting…”
“Hahaha! That insolence of yours is almost endearing. The court ministers, jealous of your success and eager to keep you in check, are blowing things out of proportion and branding you a traitor. That only proves you have risen high enough to threaten them. First, let us drink a toast to celebrate the fact.”
“Your Grace is boundless.”
The wine table had already been laid, yet the spread was surprisingly modest.
Perhaps an emperor who dines on every luxury under heaven still finds himself craving simple fare from time to time, Huiyeom thought as he accepted the empty cup the Emperor himself held out.
Sungui filled it and spoke again.
“And I offer my sincere congratulations on your marriage. I hear you have taken a beautiful and wise woman as your wife.”
“I am deeply honored.”
Huiyeom and the Emperor drank, shared side dishes, and enjoyed a brief stretch of casual conversation.
“As I said earlier, your standing has changed considerably.
You successfully defended Sichuan and Yunnan against the barbarians. The decisive factors that made it possible were the production and administrative foundations you built, and the weapons and provisions you created upon them.
The powerful ministers covet those things and fear them in equal measure; they will try to tear them away from you.
The best countermeasure would have been a political marriage. In that sense, taking a daughter of the Sima family as your wife was an extremely shrewd move.
Any scheme to plant a daughter in your bedchamber and then use the wife’s family prestige to control their son-in-law has been cut off at the root.”
“You overpraise me. None of it would have been possible without Your Majesty’s gracious favor.”
“Boy, there are only the two of us here. Drop the formalities. Act at ease.”
“Your Grace is—”
“Tsk.”
“…Yes, Your Majesty.”
“However, because they can no longer possess you that way, they will now try to attack you, strip you of what you have, or force you into submission.
To prevent that—and to realize the ‘plan’ you submitted—I intend to bestow an official post upon you.
Of course, it will not be a post that chains you to the central court. More of an honorary title, really.”
“In truth that would make movement freer and invite less interference. A wise decision, Your Majesty.”
“Not disappointed? If we were to weigh your merits in earnest, I could grant you the rank of General of the Western Garrison, or at the very least the post of Provincial Commander. If I stretched things a little further, I could even create the title of Commander of the Three Provinces in recognition of your defense of Yunnan, Sichuan, and Qinghai…”
“It would only increase the scrutiny and make maneuvering harder. That Your Majesty has considered me so carefully is more than enough.”
“Tch. Barely past twenty, and already the lad has no ambition and has learned humility far too early. How dull.”
“Rather than that, advancing enterprises that aid Your Majesty is far more glorious for me as well…”
“Speak properly. It is not glory—it is because it makes money, is it not?”
“And Your Majesty’s privy purse grows fatter as well, does it not?”
“I told you to relax, true enough, yet hearing you speak so openly, I see you are no ordinary fellow either! Haha, drink up.”
“Yes.”
Several more rounds of wine were poured.
“So? What do you intend to do from here on? What would you have me do for you?”
“First I must clear away the chopsticks poking into my own house. The pretext for calling me a traitor is that a single family manufactured and possessed weapons capable of arming a hundred thousand cavalry, is it not?”
“Exactly.”
“If they make an issue of manufacturing and owning weapons, then Your Majesty can make an issue of the private armies the bureaucrats keep. The national law strictly forbids private soldiers, yet in practice it is almost never enforced, is it?”
“Indeed.”
Of course the officials would claim the men they kept were mere “servants,” but that was the purest form of self-deception.
Any fool who believed the Emperor was unaware of the practice and therefore dared to utter the excuse had no business remaining in Beijing politics.
“Furthermore, if they make an issue of concealing weapon-crafting methods and stockpiling them, that is no different from making an issue of every martial sect and family in the jianghu.
Gunpowder and poison are the secret arts of the Dang family. Martial artists will do anything to pass their family’s secrets and martial arts to the next generation and prevent them from leaking outside.
Seizing those secrets is no different from the state stepping in and confiscating the ancestral fields of a powerful local clan.”
“True.”
“And if we extend that logic, it applies equally to the great local magnates.”
“Hmm. So the secret martial arts handed down only within a family across generations are the same as the land, wealth, and family traditions that famous clans inherit from generation to generation?”
“In any case, until Your Majesty has weakened the power of the military Pi family and fully taken the central armies into your own hands, you still need the cooperation of the jianghu and the provincial forces, do you not?
If Your Majesty firmly displays your will, divisions will arise among them as well.”
“They will. While we are on the subject, you have clearly set your course on cutting down the Pi family and have joined hands with the Gol family. What of the remaining Eight Great Families?”
“I intend to speak with the Bang family of the Ministry of Revenue and draw them to our side. Of course, only with Your Majesty’s leave.”
“Hmm… the Bang family…”
Emperor Sungui stroked his chin, lost in thought for a moment, then spoke.
“You know the characteristics and power of each of the Eight Families, I trust?”
“Yes.”
“The ones I cannot compromise with, the ones whose strength I must reduce, are the foremost of the Eight: the Ju family and the Cheon family.”
The Ju family was the Emperor’s own bloodline—the imperial clan itself.
The Cheon family was the current Emperor’s maternal kin, the powerful relatives by marriage.
Bound by blood—so-called bloodline spoons—they could be the Emperor’s firmest allies, yet under the wrong circumstances they could just as easily become a corrupt force that eroded imperial authority and dominated state affairs.
“From ancient times, whenever imperial or royal clans grew too powerful, chaos inevitably visited the realm. We need look no further than the royal house of Goguryeo in the east; even now they are locked in civil war among the royal bloodlines themselves.”
Huh? Goguryeo still exists?
Huiyeom, who in his previous life had paid little attention to the history of his old homeland, was startled anew.
After all, the Gyeong Empire occupied the place of the Ming Dynasty; by that era Joseon should already have risen.
Yet this was a world in which Goguryeo still lived on…
Oblivious to Huiyeom’s surprise, the Emperor continued.
“Next come the Wang family and the Pi family.”
“The old feudal lords and the military power, respectively.”
The Wang family was literally the surname bestowed upon the former feudal lords and royal houses that had been absorbed into the Gyeong Empire and sworn loyalty.
Because those old lords had held formidable regional power, the Gyeong imperial house had summoned them to the center to detach them from their localities.
There, in the central court, they formed alliances, intermarried, and reinforced their connections until at last they coalesced into a single family under the name “Wang.”
They possessed that much latent strength.
“The Ju, Cheon, and Wang families each dominate one of the Three Departments—the Central Secretariat, the Chancellery, and the Department of State Affairs—and constantly meddle in my reign. I must thoroughly correct that behavior.”
Well, of course it would grate on him.
Every time the Emperor tried to enact a law, relatives and former feudal lords would come running; if it looked disadvantageous to their interests they would screech, “That’s not right, cancel it!” while if a bill favored them they would shove it forward with “Do this for us.” The stress must have been enormous.
Huiyeom briefly recalled the relatives who, in his previous life as a corporate executive, had appeared out of nowhere demanding money and positions as if they were entitled—many of whom he had never even known existed—and wore an expression of sincere contempt.
He understood the Emperor’s motives with perfect clarity.
And as for military authority, it would be strange if a man in power did not react sensitively to it.
Emperor Sungui spoke.
“Excluding the four surnames Ju, Cheon, Wang, and Pi, extend a hand to the remaining Eight Families and set them to devouring one another. That is the stratagem of using poison to counter poison.”
“Then the remaining houses are the four: Bang, Ji, Ma, and Gol.”
The Bang family of the Ministry of Revenue, who held the empire’s purse strings;
the Ji family of the Ministry of Personnel, who controlled the empire’s appointments;
the Ma family of the Ministry of Rites, who oversaw the empire’s diplomacy and ceremonial affairs;
and last, the Gol family of the Ministry of Works, with whom he had recently formed a favorable connection.
“I saw how skillfully you joined hands with the Gol family. Given the many construction projects you will push forward, the interests you can offer them are clear; it was only natural. Of course the Gol family would have preferred to take you as a live-in son-in-law.”
“I must become the head of the Dang family, so becoming a live-in son-in-law was never an option, Your Majesty.”
“Do you think those people consider such things? The Eight Families? They believe anyone outside their circle is scarcely human.”
Huiyeom lightly ignored the emotion in the Emperor’s words and refilled the empty cup.
Sungui drained it in one swallow, poured for Huiyeom in turn, and said,
“Do you have a plan? Which family do you intend to cultivate first? If you have nothing prepared, I can arrange an introduction.”
“As it happens, a new enterprise of mine requires the assistance of the Ministry of Revenue. If Your Majesty would aid me, I would like to use this matter to forge a connection with the Bang family.”
“The Bang family, is it? Ah, first the money source. What enterprise do you wish to discuss?”
“At present Daegyeong contains countless merchant houses, large and small.
Some are bound not by blood but by common interest and contract, like guilds or companies; others are sustained by the bloodline of a particular family; still others are public works carried out by officials on the state’s behalf.”
“True enough.”
“And when these groups advance their businesses, do you know how they raise the funds they lack?”
“They borrow from the money houses, or from relatives and acquaintances, do they not?”
The money houses of this age could not be regarded as one hundred percent identical to modern banks.
There was no reserve requirement system, nor any of the sophisticated financial products that would later appear; in Huiyeom’s eyes their structure was thoroughly pre-modern, inefficient, and ripe for corruption.
He wanted to tear that fundamental structure apart and rebuild it.
And Emperor Sungui seemed to share the sentiment.
“The money houses… are far too closed. Local gentry rooted in a particular region lend money using their cash or land.
Fall out of favor and the investment is withdrawn, so the merchant houses must constantly watch the money houses’ moods; many end up subordinate to them. It is a chronic evil.”
“Exactly. Under those conditions healthy competition cannot form, and it is difficult for new enterprises to receive investment and be established.”
But if one simply marched up to them and said, “Stop doing business that way!” how many would answer, “Ah, yes, of course”?
To negotiate with them, their power first had to be drained.
And now, not with swords and spears, but by another method.
“But what if a channel for raising funds other than the money houses came into existence?
If the silver coins sleeping in the vaults of officials and local magnates, and in the chests of commoners, could be drawn into the market and channeled into such new enterprises, could we not weaken the entrenched money-house powers and blow a fresh wind through the empire?”
“Is that possible?”
And so Huiyeom resolved to show these pre-modern, bloodline-centered, vicious loan sharks-cum-pawnshops-cum-local-gangster outfits a spicy taste of twenty-first-century capitalism.
Wearing his characteristic bright smile, he said to Emperor Sungui,
“I once submitted a brief memorial concerning stocks… allow me to explain it in detail.”
It was a clear, innocent smile, as if even if many investors who later failed would one day measure the temperature of the Yellow River and ask, “Is the water warm?”—none of it would be his fault.