Plans Gone Awry
“Iron production is ridiculously insufficient. The same goes for coal.”
The vast quantities of iron forged at Sichuan’s State-run Ironworks had clearly been enough for the province to use and still export inland.
That, however, had been true only before the war.
Simply relaying the railways and barbed-wire barriers wrecked by the fighting, and manufacturing the cannons and shells that had been expended, demanded the total mobilization of the company’s entire capacity. On top of that, the construction of facilities for the Angang Water Transport Safety Management Corporation—somewhat relegated to the back burner amid a succession of big events—also required enormous amounts of rebar. And, as promised to Shaolin Temple, the 2nd State-run Ironworks still had to be built in Henan Province.
Under those circumstances, securing enough output to lay railway lines all the way to Beijing was, even for Hwi-yeom, an impossible demand.
“…For that reason, I propose we temporarily suspend the matter of the Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company and give priority instead to the construction of the 2nd State-run Ironworks in Henan.
“Sichuan’s works… from this day forward I shall refer to them as the 1st State-run Ironworks. The iron they produce will, for the time being, be reserved solely for border defense and for the construction of further State-run Ironworks.”
Of course the State-run Ironworks were not the only source of iron; the output of private forges across the Central Plains was also considerable. Yet because that iron was not reserved exclusively for official use, every bar of it already had somewhere to go.
This was one of the rare miscalculations Hwi-yeom had made. Until now the iron from the State-run Ironworks alone had been more than sufficient for every project he envisioned. He had therefore forgotten how frail pre-modern production infrastructure truly was, and had unconsciously assumed that so long as money existed, iron could be obtained in any quantity.
When Hwi-yeom—who only moments earlier had been pushing as though the Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company would be founded tomorrow—uncharacteristically bowed his head, Emperor Sungui let out a short laugh.
“So even Academician Dang has a human side after all.”
“I am deeply ashamed, Your Majesty.”
“No, it is fine. More to the point, since matters have turned out this way the plans will need revision. As I see it, constructing that 2nd State-run Ironworks will also require a great deal of capital. How would it be if we simply accepted investment from the ministers when we build it? We could make the State-run Ironworks the very first joint-stock company.”
Hwi-yeom turned the emperor’s proposal over in his mind for a brief moment. In truth, converting a railway company into a joint-stock company and converting a State-run Ironworks into one were rather different propositions. The State-run Ironworks was infrastructure fundamental to the nation; the original plan had been to keep it as a public enterprise under complete government control. Once ordinary shareholders entered the picture they would be able to interfere in management in all manner of ways—pressuring, for example, that finished ingots be delivered preferentially to their own merchant houses, or that iron ore and coal be purchased only from mines they owned.
Unlike a railway that merely ran fixed routes, carried passengers, and collected fares—though railways, of course, were also enterprises of public importance—this was a matter of genuine consequence.
“I believe making the 2nd State-run Ironworks a joint-stock company would be better deferred until after the Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company is completed.”
“Your reasoning?”
“Once the Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company begins laying track in earnest, the operating profits of the 2nd State-run Ironworks will soar through the roof. It would be a golden opportunity to inflate the share price—would it not be a waste to throw that chance away in advance?”
“…”
Emperor Sungui stared blankly at Hwi-yeom for a second, then slapped his knee.
“An eye that looks several years ahead! I missed that entirely. Excellent!”
“It was merely an unfamiliar concept upon first encounter, Your Majesty. Your brilliant self would have arrived at the same thought soon enough.”
“Hahahaha! Enough flattery. More importantly… Hmm. Then as for the capital shortage, I shall contribute more from my privy purse.”
“I am overwhelmed with gratitude.”
“At this rate, pouring money left and right into Academician Dang’s schemes, my privy purse is about to run dry! Hahaha!”
Of course no one was foolish enough to take the emperor’s grumbling at face value.
The war reparations wrung from the Chagatai Khanate will keep the coffers solid enough…
Indeed. The Gyeong imperial house possessed a fatter purse than at any time since the founding of the dynasty.
War is rarely a business in which one throws the first punch, decides the odds no longer look favorable, and then cheerfully announces, “Well then, we’ll be heading home now—do take care of yourselves.” Unless the defending side has suffered such catastrophic losses that it cannot raise another army, or is paralyzed by internal political chaos, the defender ordinarily switches roles and marches after the retreating enemy’s main force. To forestall exactly that outcome, the former attacker—now the defender—sits down to negotiate an end to hostilities.
Sorry for starting it. We’ll pay a massive indemnity and leave.
Sorry isn’t good enough. Why else do wars exist? Stay right there—I’m driving a tank over to crack your skull!
Calm yourself. How much will it take? How much so we don’t have to fight?
One thousand gwan of silver, all in hard cash.
A thousand is far too much. Let’s settle for forty.
Negotiations of roughly that flavor tended to unfold.
The Chagatai Khanate had launched a one-sided war of aggression under the banner of “restoring the ancient territories of the Great Yuan.” It had never even set foot on the Central Plains proper; it had failed to push beyond the remote western wastes of Qinghai and Yunnan, lost a third of its three-hundred-thousand-strong host, and finally fled when winter cold and empty granaries broke its back. By contrast, the losses suffered by the Yunnan and Qinghai garrisons that had blocked its advance numbered not a hundred thousand, not even a thousand.
One might have dismissed such figures as grotesque exaggeration—except that every battle had been meticulously recorded, leaving no room for denial. After all, even in a world without martial arts there had been men like Cheok Jun-gyeong who, with only ten comrades, had carved through Jurchen encirclements as though the enemy were empty air until relief arrived. When an army equipped with the latest powder weapons and poison gas, fighting from carefully chosen terrain, produced a similar disparity, it was hardly miraculous.
What did that mean?
The Gyeong Empire possessed both the motive and the surplus manpower to invade Chagatai’s heartland.
Having been struck first, its casus belli was unassailable; having suffered almost no losses, it still had the strength to march. Adiya Khan understood this perfectly and therefore sent an enormous indemnity in the hope of forestalling Gyeong’s retaliatory campaign. The ministers urged Emperor Sungui to display the majesty of Heaven’s army against those lawless barbarians, yet the emperor answered:
“Gyeong is the center of the world, and We are the Son of Heaven. That those lawless barbarians dared ignore hierarchy and invade Our realm is a crime for which even pickling them alive would be insufficient. Yet a parent, when a child errs, forgives and merely guides him onto the proper path. To chase after those who never even breached a single one of Our cities and who already lost tens of thousands of men and horses, only to swing the sword further, would be to diminish the dignity of a great empire. Far better simply to accept the barbarian chieftain’s own bowed head when he comes begging forgiveness.”
It was pure “nonsense” rooted in the traditional Sinocentric world-view. Of course Emperor Sungui had not spared the Chagatai Khanate out of any philanthropic impulse.
If I start another war now I am merely handing the Pi Clan a chance to earn glory. Better to leave them alive so they can tear one another apart in civil strife. War is the worst option.
That cold political calculation was the real reason. The campaign that had left the military Pi Clan looking, in vulgar terms, “utterly crippled” had already given the emperor countless pretexts for whittling away their power. Launching a fresh war would only hand them an opportunity to wash away the shame and claim new merit. Emperor Sungui therefore simply ignored Pi Jae-hyeon’s blood-veined pleas—“Grant me the chance to wash away this humiliation even if I die on the field!”—and instead extracted an indemnity so large that even a healthy Chagatai Khanate would have staggered under it.
Defeated in war and stripped of a crushing indemnity, Adiya Khan—however thoroughly he had purged his internal opponents during the campaign—now found himself facing a crisis of responsibility and the very real threat of civil war.
In any case, with a privy purse that fat, Emperor Sungui possessed more than enough room to flex. After issuing orders in the audience hall for the eventual conversion of the 2nd State-run Ironworks into a joint-stock company, he summoned Hwi-yeom for a private conversation.
“We currently have rather a lot of capital on hand. Where would you advise Us to invest it?”
“You should monopolize, as far as possible, every vein that yields coal and iron ore.”
“Hmm? Could I not simply proclaim that coal and iron mines may be owned only by the state? Ah…”
Seeing Hwi-yeom’s awkward expression, the emperor laughed mischievously.
“That would cost you a fortune, would it not?”
“I am humbled, Your Majesty. Yet that is not the only reason. Iron and coal deposits are common throughout this land; even an imperial decree could never stop illicit mining. Drive them underground and they simply vanish from sight. Far better to bring them into the light.”
In truth the people of the Central Plains had not been digging and selling coal earlier only because they had not known its value before Hwi-yeom’s State-run Ironworks appeared. After the works opened, Hwi-yeom’s monopoly of Sichuan’s coal fields made entry impossible there, while shipping coal from other provinces to the 1st State-run Ironworks in Sichuan made transport costs so high that no competitor could ever win on price—a structure Hwi-yeom had deliberately engineered in advance.
But now, beginning with the 2nd State-run Ironworks and then the 3rd and 4th along the Yangtze, no measure could prevent people from developing coal fields across the entire empire.
Even for the Sacheondang Family to profit from the Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company, some form of coal regulation is still necessary.
That regulation, however, was not a ban on mining; it was, exactly as in Sichuan, the pre-emptive seizure of the major, geographically advantageous, commercially rich veins. Fortunately Hwi-yeom already held full authority over the entire project.
Emperor Sungui nodded.
“I understand. I shall purchase every commercially viable deposit near the sites of the future State-run Ironworks and hand the locations over to you.”
“I am terrified to speak so boldly, yet if Your Majesty would leave a few for my family and the Sima clan as well…”
“In exchange you will hand over other fine business schemes, I take it?”
“Need Your Majesty even ask? Every ability I possess exists solely to make Your Majesty’s realm rich and strong.”
Pleased by the flattery, the emperor laughed heartily.
“A man who puts his own house first still has a silver tongue! Yet I forgive you. You know full well that the path most helpful to your family is the path that also serves Us and Our Great Gyeong.”
“Your Majesty’s grace is boundless.”
Thus, armed with the emperor’s leave, Hwi-yeom immediately set the Dongchang in motion. A new dedicated inspector was also assigned to him, replacing Baek Beon, who had been stationed as the family’s exclusive auditor down in the Sichuan Dang Family estate…
“…Auditor Baek?”
“I am no longer an auditor! From now on you will address me as Outer Inspector Grand Eunuch—yohohohohoho!!”
Baek Beon, formerly chief inspector, had returned, been promoted, and been reassigned once more to supervise Hwi-yeom. Outer Inspector Grand Eunuch was the lowest rank among those entitled to the title of Grand Eunuch, yet it still marked the threshold of the high eunuch bureaucracy. To reach that post at Baek Beon’s age was uncommon; it was, without exaggeration, a meteoric rise.
“Thanks to remaining at Academician Dang’s side I have been credited with numerous merits and promoted with uncommon speed. That debt of gratitude remains, so let us continue on excellent terms! Unless it’s actual treason, I’ll cover for you as best I can!”
“That is most reassuring. In that case I already have a request.”
“Oh-ho, already? As expected of the ruthless Academician Dang who works people hard! Well then, what is it?”
“Survey every coal and iron deposit along the Yangtze for me.”
Hwi-yeom smiled.
After all, the fundamental lesson of economics—one that can be learned even from Monopoly Junior or a game of Monopoly—is that whoever monopolizes the best locations wins the game.