High Officials Flip Their Palms
“What? You’re going to do nothing?”
Whether by coincidence or fate, at the exact same hour Jegal Eun-ryeo and Jegal Jin were deep in conversation, Sama Yun and Hui-yeom were speaking as well.
When Sama Yun asked what he intended to do with this joint-stock company policy he had gone to such lengths to introduce, Hui-yeom quoted a famous line from a certain film: “Nothing. Everything.”
Seeing her blank confusion, he smiled and explained.
“It’s impossible to control every variable, and almost as impossible to drag every outcome in the direction you want. With national policy especially. People have this uncanny knack for understanding the government’s orders completely backward, like contrarian frogs, and then putting them to the most bizarre uses. Sometimes you wonder if the universe is just testing how creative humans can get at sabotaging state policy.”
He ground his teeth as though nursing a long list of old grudges. Sama Yun tilted her head, a little taken aback.
“Um… Dang Gaga, this is the first time you’ve ever meddled in national policy, isn’t it? What you did in Sichuan and Yunnan was more like company business than statecraft. Where on earth did you get that kind of experience…?”
“….”
Hui-yeom froze for a beat, then smiled as if nothing had happened.
“Anyway, sealing off every single variable in advance is impossible, no matter how paranoid your scheming gets.”
Once a policy is born, side effects inevitably follow. People collide with them, victims appear, and society learns and adapts to the new system. That process is unavoidable.
“So I plan to leave the market alone and simply watch every one of those side effects hammer the Eight Great Families. Clean-up comes after.”
“Will that be all right? I’m worried everything will end up blamed on you, Dang Gaga.”
“Don’t worry, Yun-mae.”
Hui-yeom smiled.
“I said it’s impossible to control every variable, and especially impossible to predict every contrarian stroke of genius people come up with, right?”
“Yes.”
“It might sound contradictory, but predicting the problems a specific group will cause isn’t all that hard. Especially a big, lumbering mass like the Eight Great Families—the larger their influence, the simpler their behavior tends to become.”
The behavioral patterns of the Eight Great Families could be fully decoded using the same principles that governed modern interest groups and political machines. Eras might differ, but people were people. The only real difference was the volume of information they held; put them in the same situation and they would think much the same thoughts.
And the behavior of conglomerates and politicians? That was Hui-yeom’s specialty.
I majored in political psychology on Wall Street, you bastards. I’ll wring every last tear and snot out of you.
When Cheon Sang-hun and the handful of high officials who had been dragging their feet and throwing wrenches into the joint-stock company policy suddenly turned cooperative, the discussions at the Ministry of Revenue gained sudden momentum.
They took a bribe, all right.
The only “bribe” those officials had received was blackmail (Hui-yeom had brandished dirt dug up by the Sama Clan and the Dongchang on Cheon Sang-hun and several others), so they felt deeply wronged. To everyone watching, however, it simply looked as though they had been bought off by whatever benefits Hui-yeom had offered.
Cheon Sang-hun was even summoned by Cheon Myeong-gwang, head of the Ministry of Personnel and patriarch of the Cheon Clan.
“What in heaven’s name are you thinking, backing that half-baked policy? Do you think the main house endured the Bang Clan’s harassment and pushed you all the way to Vice Director of the Ministry of Revenue so you could pull stunts like this?”
Traitors always had to fight twice as hard to regain trust. Under Cheon Myeong-gwang’s suspicious glare, Cheon Sang-hun launched into a desperate persuasion: why supporting the joint-stock company policy actually served the Cheon Clan’s interests.
“Look farther and wider, Patriarch! Right now it may look as though the main house’s money houses and the branch families’ money houses are taking a hit, but if we swallow a little short-term loss we can make far more money!”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s no need to sell off land or buildings in Beijing. Just keep holding them. Liquidate whatever capital we can free up, tidy up a few provincial assets, and buy as many of those ‘shares’ as possible. From what I’ve learned, His Majesty is personally determined to push this joint-stock company policy through. That means there’s definitely big money to be made!”
“That sounds plausible enough… but opening the stock market to those lowborn creatures is an entirely different matter, is it not? How can we possibly share the management rights of a company equally with talking beasts?”
“Patriarch, precisely because they are mute beasts we can slaughter and eat them without worrying about consequences, can we not? Think of the ignorant commoners the same way we think of cattle and pigs. When those fools, not knowing their place, rush into the stock market dreaming of wealth and glory, their demand will drive the share prices up. If we seize the cheap early shares and then sell them to the lowborns at a higher price, we can make a fortune!”
Even in the modern world, a stock market could not function without “ant” investors. Individually their capital was meager, but pooled together the scale became impossible to ignore. And in Beijing—already crowded with wealthy commoners and merchants who were not officials—the economic power of the common folk was more than enough to supply that demand.
In the tulip mania and the South Sea Bubble, the victims had not been limited to the nobility. Far more often it was ordinary people who poured their entire fortunes into the dream of rising above their station and were left ruined beyond recovery.
Cheon Sang-hun was no fool; he had frantically constructed a defensive logic in advance for the moment the main house inevitably called him to account. Hui-yeom had helped him craft it. Consequently the mechanism by which the joint-stock company policy would vacuum up capital and send their asset values soaring was crystal clear.
In the end, Cheon Myeong-gwang was persuaded.
“Hmm. Very well. I see you had your own thoughts on the matter. From now on, however, explain yourself and receive instructions first.”
“Yes…!”
Having barely cleared the hurdle, Cheon Sang-hun wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
Through similar processes, the other clans of the Eight Great Families quietly shifted their stances one by one.
And so, on the morning when the ministers finally all sang from the same score, Hui-yeom’s draft of the joint-stock company policy was formally submitted to Emperor Sungui during the regular court conference on state affairs.
“Thanks to the efforts of my ministers, such an excellent policy has been produced in so short a time.”
Emperor Sungui first praised the officials’ labors, then looked down at Hui-yeom.
“It has always weighed on Our heart that We never bestowed a proper office upon Our loyal subject Dang Hui-yeom, who rendered the great service of saving three provinces. Now that he has again distinguished himself in the drafting of national policy, We can delay no longer. Hear Our command. From this moment We bestow upon Our loyal subject Dang Hui-yeom the office of Attendant Academician of the Hanlin Academy, and We charge him to attend Us as advisory officer for the joint-stock company policy.”
A murmur rippled through the officials. There was a touch of bewilderment, but most of the reaction amounted to little more than “Well, that was inevitable.”
Hui-yeom, having already been given some advance notice, performed the ritual prostration without the slightest agitation.
“Your Majesty’s grace is boundless. This humble servant shall devote every ounce of his strength, however meager.”
An Attendant Academician of the Hanlin Academy was a scholar attached to the Hanlin Academy and ranked at Principal Fifth Rank. It carried no particular responsibilities or authority; the sole duty was “attending lectures”—in other words, advising the emperor on specific policies or fields. It was essentially an honorary post, yet because the holder could counsel the emperor directly it sat close to the core of power, something like an unofficial power broker.
Usually the emperor appointed a particularly learned scholar as Attendant Academician to receive instruction, or else appointed someone to assist in the advancement of a particular policy. This rank was just low enough that the officials would not throw a fit and could grudgingly accept it—an appointment that revealed Emperor Sungui’s exquisite political sense.
The ministers found it awkward to object. In truth Hui-yeom had already been performing the work of an Attendant Academician while drafting the policy; he simply lacked the title. Exclude him? Remove the one man who understood the matter better than anyone? If someone else took the post now, no one could predict what unforeseen side effects might swallow that person whole. Far better to agree to give Hui-yeom a purely nominal office and then, when the policy eventually stumbled, seize the excuse to cut him down.
…I can see every one of you thinking exactly that, you bastards.
From his elevated seat Emperor Sungui watched the officials exchange glances and smiled.
You have no idea what a monster the Hui-yeom you think you can manipulate actually is. You couldn’t imagine it even in your dreams.
In Emperor Sungui’s eyes, Hui-yeom resembled the legendary deep-sea anglerfish. The lantern of the anglerfish possessed a mysterious power that lured fish; its light looked like a delicious little morsel, drawing them in. Once they approached the light, however, they swam straight into the gaping maw of a fish the size of a house and were swallowed whole.
Drawn by the various tasty-looking benefits Hui-yeom dangled, people ended up steered exactly as he wished—just like fish following the anglerfish’s lantern. The old foxes of Beijing politics might be battle-hardened in court intrigue, but when it came to money and economics they were no match for Hui-yeom whatsoever.
…Even in politics I suspect they wouldn’t stand a chance…
Looking at the feats Hui-yeom had already accomplished since entering Beijing politics left one simply speechless. An irreparable rift had opened between the Cheon and Pi Clans, while the Gol Clan had begun acting completely separately from the rest of the Eight Great Families. Signs were appearing that the Bang Clan was gradually tilting toward a pro-Hui-yeom faction, and intelligence suggested the Ma Clan was starting to hover around the Sama Clan as well. He had rallied allies and turned two of the four enemy powers into bitter enemies—what else could one call that god-given talent for setting the board?
And look at the skill with which he had pulled Hanlin Academy Grand Academician of the Second Rank Pyeon Do-seok, Tongjeongsa of the Second Rank of the Office of Transmission Yu Jang-hwan, and Vice Minister of Rites Ok Chang-jun over to the side of the joint-stock company policy.
The problem is that all of this rests on the premise that the bastard never betrays me…
In truth, even Emperor Sungui sometimes felt a chill when he looked at Hui-yeom. Sichuan had single-handedly stopped three hundred thousand Chagatai cavalry in all but name. Which meant that if Emperor Sungui ever sent three hundred thousand troops against Sichuan, they could be stopped just as thoroughly. And then there was that masterful political maneuvering. A more suspicious sovereign would already be calculating how to cut Hui-yeom down first.
But—
I will trust my own eye. He is not the sort to harbor other ambitions. That bastard cares about nothing except growing his business.
Emperor Sungui’s eye was accurate, and he trusted it.
Thus Hui-yeom officially became a government official, and the joint-stock company policy moved into implementation.
Now the time had come to create the first joint-stock company that would fall under the policy: the Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company.
Yet even at the conceptual stage, a problem arose.