They Are the Guilty Ones
Once the people of the Dang family had gone, it was only natural that the fury of the villagers should erupt like a volcano.
As a rule, people feel a sharper sense of loss from something taken away than from something they never had to begin with.
And what if that something was bound up with survival itself?
What if the ones who had provided it freely, out of sheer goodwill, had been forced to take it back under pressure from a greedy third party?
In a situation like that, even Confucius—who once thundered that the people should act like the people and ministers like ministers—would climb out of his grave, take one look at the landlords' greed, and bellow, You insolent little bastards… how dare you! And the Buddha, who preached compassion, might well awaken as a butcher.
How furious the farmers were could be guessed from the disturbances breaking out all across Guizhou Province.
When the county magistrates reported that commoners who had never dared resist, even when landlords seized their land or treated them unjustly, were now so enraged that a full-scale peasant revolt seemed possible, the Regional Military Commander of Guizhou began preparing to mobilize the local garrison.
Having heard the full story of the affair, the Surveillance Commissioner summoned Hwiyeom and heaved a long sigh.
"You really went and did it, didn't you."
"I haven't done a thing."
"Come now, Academician Dang—do you take me for a fool? You handed out free purification works and wells, then shut them down like that. Don't tell me you didn't know this would happen."
The Surveillance Commissioner pressed his temples hard, as if his head were splitting.
"Look—I understand perfectly well that you had every reason to resent those landlords. But couldn't you have chosen a somewhat gentler approach?"
"Are you saying the proper course was to grease their palms and dance to their tune?"
"…I didn't go that far."
The Surveillance Commissioner found Hwiyeom's easy smile thoroughly unnerving.
That a second-rank Surveillance Commissioner should be led around by a mere fifth-rank Hwiyeom was only natural: the man was no ordinary fifth-rank Lecturer-in-Waiting.
His family's power was first in all of Sichuan; even the Emei Sect and Qingcheng Sect, which between them were said to divide the province in three, could no longer match the Sacheondang Family's prosperity. And though he had been accused of corruption, Hwiyeom had once taken the head of Yunnan's Provincial Administration Commissioner. A constellation of high officials stood behind his house. He had the strength and the record of having turned back three hundred thousand Mongol cavalry. And with the emperor's favor at his back, he held the command of a vast state project spanning the entire Yangtze.
Simply being shut out of that enterprise for crossing him would cost a sum beyond reckoning.
Unless one were a titan of the Eight Imperial Houses moving on the stage of the Forbidden City itself, this was a man one simply did not touch. The local puppies of the countryside, too stupid to fear the tiger, had poked him—and this was the disaster that followed.
Of course the Surveillance Commissioner had no choice but to treat Hwiyeom with care.
The truly vicious part is the method.
If Hwiyeom had wanted the matter settled quietly, he could simply have refused the landlords' demands for bribes—or accepted them—and then reported the whole thing to the Surveillance Commissioner. The Commissioner would have issued a "warning," smoothed things over, and in return the Provincial Administration Commissioner's office would have taken the lead, "mediating" between Hwiyeom and the landlords and drawing out their cooperation without difficulty.
It would have taken a little time, but Hwiyeom would have suffered no real loss, gained the landlords' active help, and built friendly relations into the bargain.
How was anyone to know that a light poke from the landlords would send him charging like a bull that had taken a knife to the ribs?
The Surveillance Commissioner let out a grumble.
"You can stir this place up and walk away. The ones left cleaning up the mess are me and the Provincial Administration Commissioner."
Hwiyeom tilted his head.
"Why worry about cleaning up?"
"What? What kind of nonsense—"
"You only worry about the aftermath when there's still someone left to take revenge. Why fretting that a corpse will plant a knife in your back?"
Listening with an irritated look, the Surveillance Commissioner felt a chill run down his spine.
Hwiyeom's expression held none of the bluster or resolve of a man making threats; it carried only the calm of someone listing an obvious fact.
The Surveillance Commissioner stammered in dismay.
"L-look here, Academician Dang—that sounds as if you mean to slaughter every last landlord…"
"Hahaha. Of course not."
"Th-that's right, isn't it? However bad things get, something so dreadful—"
"Whether the landlords live or die is a matter for the landlords to decide."
"…What?"
"In truth, it depends entirely on their own karma and conduct. We need only sit back and watch."
To the bewildered Surveillance Commissioner, Hwiyeom calmly explained what was about to unfold across Guizhou.
After listening in a daze, the Commissioner finally recovered enough to ask,
"…And if—if, mind you—things don't go as you expect? What then?"
"Well, the Sacheondang Family never claimed it was obliged to save the people free of charge. We tried to provide drinking water at no cost, but if the local powers don't want that, then we shall simply have to sell to those local powers for a fair price. To the landlords, that is."
The Surveillance Commissioner frowned.
"So one way or another, you mean to start a peasant revolt! This is nothing but a fig leaf! You'll hand over the purification works and wells only if the landlords pay? And if they don't, not a drop?"
Even a child could see what would happen next. The Surveillance Commissioner would have staked his office on the certainty that the landlords would never pay Hwiyeom a single coin.
If they had been the sort to pay, they would never have started this business in the first place.
Hwiyeom met the Commissioner's almost shrieking protest with perfect composure.
"Because that's what the landlords want."
"After the Dang family, which gave water away free, withdraws from a quarrel with the landlords—if those same landlords start selling drinking water for money! Or even if they don't, if things simply return to the old water shortage and people are forced to depend on the water rights the landlords hold—that rage will fall on the landlords, every last bit of it! This is no different from the strategy of killing with a borrowed knife—using the people's hands to murder the landlords!"
"What a strange thing to say. If they dislike that, the landlords can simply give the water away free, can't they?"
"Who in the world would dig wells and build purification works with their own money and then hand out the water for free? Of course they'd want to recover their—"
He stopped short, as if something had struck him, and closed his mouth with a sharp intake of breath. Hwiyeom's faint smile vanished; his face went cold and blank.
"My house did exactly that."
"…"
It was true.
The Sacheondang Family had been fully prepared to bear the cost purely for the public good—the relief of the sugarcane farmers. Had the landlords not stuck their spoons into the pot, thrown up obstacles, and demanded bribes, the people of Guizhou could have enjoyed all of it at no expense whatever.
And because that was not some baseless claim of "we would have," but a fact of "we already did," the Dang family now held a moral high ground that could never be overturned.
As if delivering a finishing blow to the speechless Surveillance Commissioner, Hwiyeom went on.
"My house meant to share the water free of charge. What ruined that was the landlords' greed. You would do well not to look away from that."
"…"
"We have not the slightest intention of wrestling the landlords for control of Guizhou land, where our family's influence doesn't even reach. It isn't land worth the trouble.
And really—self-importance has its limits. Why on earth would we, the masters of rich Bashu, covet the second-poorest stretch of wasteland in the whole Central Plains? Self-importance like that is a disease. A disease."
"…"
"While we're on the subject—we gave people who could barely feed themselves a way to live through sugarcane farming. And when that created a water shortage, we tried to solve the water problem as well. Is that a crime? Is it?"
"…"
Not a word of it was wrong, so there was not a word with which to answer. The Surveillance Commissioner was learning, with perfect clarity, what it meant to be left without a reply.
Hwiyeom gave a short, incredulous laugh.
"You want control? Then give to the people accordingly. Is that so hard? It is the way of the world that hearts return in measure with what was given."
"…"
"But if your petty greed won't let you bear even a little loss, then of course you must also endure the people's curses.
If there are landlords who have given generously all along, the people will not resent them. No—such landlords would have come to me themselves and begged me to dig the wells and build the purification works, even if it cost them money.
But those who, to fill their own pockets, looked sourly on farmers reclaiming wasteland and using water for it—they will be forced to choose.
Either they release some of what they've clutched and walk a path of mutual survival with the peasants, or they taste their fury."
Every word was true, and the meaning buried within it was a clear-eyed forecast of the unrest about to sweep Guizhou.
In the end the Surveillance Commissioner's anger and dismay both drained away; all he could manage was a single remark, spoken with pity for the province's future.
"…You are a frightening man."
"I gave them every chance. The fault lies with those who, blinded by greed, made the worst choice in the end."
"…Is there no way to finish this quietly? However you look at it, this will be a mortal blow to the local great families.
Is the Sacheondang Family not itself a great provincial house? Break the power of the local clans like this, and one day it will be the Dang family's turn."
The Surveillance Commissioner did not want the affair to grow noisy. Not because he was fond of local magnates who had always been uncooperative and swollen with privilege, but because he hated the idea of a major incident exploding during his own term of office.
At that, Hwiyeom nodded as if yielding under protest.
"There is a way, of course. Will Your Excellency convey it for me?"
"I'm listening."
"As goes without saying—the landlords will bear the full cost of re-drilling the wells and of installing and maintaining the purification works."
"That much is only natural. I'll try to persuade them."
"And they will voluntarily return all water rights to the Provincial Administration Commissioner's office."
"What?! Do you even understand what that means?"
"I say it because I understand."
"What?"
"The reason local magnates came to hold the water rights in the first place is that a term-limited official like the Provincial Administration Commissioner knows less about local water resources than they do, and cannot ignore regional history and custom—so he merely delegated his authority and borrowed the legitimacy of water control from them. But those rights originally belong to the Provincial Administration Commissioner's office, and beyond that, they are powers bestowed by His Majesty the Emperor."
"…"
"And yet the landlords use those water rights without the slightest scruple for their own convenience—drawing the channels to their own tenant fields and their own paddies, while reducing the flow to freeholding farmers who refuse to sell them land. Did you think I was unaware of that vicious custom?"
"That is a long-standing internal matter of the region, which outsiders cannot—"
"If local circumstances matter so much, then I will not interfere.
But if that is the case, the situation will only grow worse.
At this rate, one of two things will happen: either a riot breaks out and the peasants hang the landlords, or the landlords, feeling threatened, turn their retainers and servants loose and massacre the farmers. Even then—are those 'internal circumstances' still so very important?"
"How dare you say such a thing so shamelessly!"
Hwiyeom spoke as if he found the whole conversation exhausting.
"Shameless? Why am I the shameless one? I am the victim; the perpetrators are the landlords. My house bestowed a kindness in good faith, and they, for private greed, are stubbornly marching down the road to ruin. And in spite of that, I am the villain? Shall I show you what a real villain looks like?"
"Mind your tongue!"
"Forgive the intrusion!"
Just then, before the Surveillance Commissioner's face could finish turning purple and he could finish shouting, an official burst in from outside in a panic.
The Surveillance Commissioner roared.
"How dare you rush into my office without leave! Is this your private chamber?!"
But the official seemed not to see the Commissioner's rage at all.
Waving his arms wildly, he cried out in utter panic.
"Th-there's disaster! The servants of Scholar Hwang of Geumsa County have beaten farmers to death with clubs—there's a riot—!"
"Damn it all. Too late."
As the Surveillance Commissioner spat the curse, Hwiyeom spoke.
"Your Excellency—if this continues, a full peasant revolt will break out."
The strength drained from the Surveillance Commissioner's limbs as if cut.
It was the worst possible outcome.