Preparing to Become a Father
News of Sama Yun’s pregnancy spread throughout all of Sichuan.
The people of Sichuan were in a true festival mood.
Everyone who met him offered congratulations, until Dang Un-sang could only laugh in disbelief.
“Honestly, anyone listening would think she’d already given birth. She’s only just pregnant, yet everyone’s getting so far ahead of themselves.”
“I’m a little scared something might go wrong and jinx it,” Sama Yun said with a shy smile. Dang Un-sang shook his head.
“That will never happen. The Dang Family will protect you.
And who is your husband? The man who even defeated the plague god, isn’t he?
Now that his wife is pregnant, just how thoroughly do you think he’ll prepare?”
“I suppose that’s true…”
Sama Yun let out a long sigh, and Dang Un-sang tilted his head.
“Come to think of it, what business has that boy Yeom been up to lately?”
“Well… about that…”
Sama Yun hesitated with a slightly uncertain expression before answering.
“I think… he’s building a liquor factory?”
“…What?”
Completely unexpected, Dang Un-sang cocked his head in confusion.
“But Young Master, why are you suddenly building a distillery?”
At Lee Jinmyeong’s question, Hui-yeom set down the medical text he had been reading and clicked his tongue.
“The midwives of the Central Plains look far too primitive for me to feel secure. Securing high-proof alcohol for disinfection is essential—absolutely essential.”
“Disinfection, sir? What does that have to do with distilled spirits?”
“Ah, right—Secretary Lee, you weren’t part of the family yet during the Emei Sect cholera crisis.”
Hui-yeom closed the medical book with a soft thump.
Ever since learning of Sama Yun’s pregnancy, his entire focus had swung completely toward childbirth and postpartum care.
He had even gone so far as to delay every single construction project by a full year.
When Emperor Sungui received the three-volume letter packed with elaborate excuses, he sent back a brief reply.
What kind of nonsense is this, writing three volumes of reports just to say you can’t work because you’re worried about your wife?
Handle the work that doesn’t require you in person first. Send a proxy and remote-control it. That should do it.
And congratulations. I pray for a safe delivery.
Watching her husband so brazenly postpone national projects for a year on the pretext of her pregnancy left Sama Yun stunned enough to ask,
“I-is that really all right?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? What’s the point of me working so hard in the first place? It’s so I can live happily with you. So the people of the Dang Family can eat well and live well—and that starts with your happiness and mine, doesn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but…”
They say that when someone who is usually terrible suddenly treats you well, it hits even harder.
Hui-yeom, who normally lived like a work-obsessed demon, had shoved even state projects aside and thrown himself entirely into preparing for her delivery. Sama Yun felt her chest tighten with emotion.
Hui-yeom was not the only one whose eyes had spun at the news of Sama Yun’s pregnancy.
Eun Seol-ran was thrashing about like a fish that had found water.
“What about the letter to Master Baek in Beijing? Master Son of Henan? Master Ma of Guangdong?!”
“…You only sent the letters half a month ago. They haven’t even arrived yet.”
“Ha, what am I supposed to do? What if those masters receive letters from other houses before ours and go there instead, so they never make it to Sichuan by the time Yun’s due date arrives…?”
Watching Eun Seol-ran fidgeting in place, Ye-eun gave her a flat half-lidded look that said, Why is this auntie having another fit? and answered in a lifeless voice.
“…According to the attending physician, it’s only been about two months. There’s still more than half a year until delivery—if we summon them this early…”
“No, Ye-eun! How can you say something so carefree? Famous physicians of the realm are incredibly busy! You have to lock in the reservations far in advance or you’ll regret it later!
And they’re traveling long distances—how can anyone know what might happen along the way?
The roads could collapse or get blocked and they might miss the date, or they could run into bandits or river pirates!
And! Do you think a person can immediately perform work that demands intense concentration right after a long journey?
We need to bring them here at least one or two months early, treat them with the utmost care, and finish every preparation!”
“….”
Ye-eun briefly recalled the time Eun Seol-ran had given birth to Dang Hui-yeom.
Back then, aside from Dang Un-sang and a few direct family members, no one had paid any attention to Eun Seol-ran’s delivery.
Perhaps Eun Seol-ran was making such a fuss precisely because she wanted to prevent her daughter-in-law from suffering the same cold treatment she herself had once endured.
But still…
She should at least make sense when she talks.
The Green Forest King and the Yangtze River King were business partners of the Dang Family—what bandits or river pirates could possibly touch them?
Missing the date because the roads were blocked? Anyone listening would think she was already full-term!
Yet Ye-eun only sighed quietly and bowed her head.
“…I will do my utmost to secure physicians and midwives as quickly as possible.”
“Good. They’ll need to stay at the main house for at least half a year, so make sure we prepare everything perfectly—from their lodgings to dedicated servants—so we never put a foot wrong with them.
I’ll write more letters. I hear Master Hwang of Liaoning has a miraculous talent for delivering breech babies safely!”
For reference, Liaoning Province sat at the opposite diagonal end of the empire from Sichuan.
Ye-eun wanted to stop her.
“…The Young Master is also recruiting physicians from the Western Regions, so perhaps you could trust him and wait a little? I hear the factory he’s building for high-proof alcohol is for that purpose as well.”
“Western physicians? Can we trust them? Aren’t they barbarians?”
Eun Seol-ran’s words, free of malice yet steeped in Sinocentrism, drew a nod from Ye-eun.
“According to the Young Master, when it comes to childbirth the Western physicians are far superior to those of the Great Gyeong Empire.”
“Hmmm… Western physicians, is it…”
Eun Seol-ran tilted her head, but her faith in her son was as solid as religious conviction.
So she simply shifted her attention elsewhere.
“Ah! We must also think about after the birth. We should prepare about five hundred catties of red silk and gold thread. We’ll need to make mountains of sweets, and oh—thank-you notes and invitations must go out as well.
Ah! Whom should we invite to the first-birthday banquet? Yeom’s network is even wider now than it was at the wedding, so should I start writing the invitations already? Last time I strained the tendons in my wrist, so this time I’ll prepare early and avoid the suffering…”
“….”
Ye-eun suppressed the urge to knock Eun Seol-ran unconscious with a blow to the back of the head while muttering, Just take it easy already.
This was a household whose problem was that it had far too much love.
In this era the mortality rate for infants and mothers was extremely high.
In particular, puerperal fever caused by bacterial infection from pre-modern physicians who lacked any concept of hygiene accounted for a great many deaths.
Moreover, even the existence of germs was unknown; the story of Dr. Semmelweis—who was branded a madman for telling his fellow doctors to wash their hands before surgery and was eventually committed to an asylum—belonged to the nineteenth century.
Hui-yeom’s firm conviction was that he could not leave the safety of his wife and child solely to their immune systems and luck.
Disinfection first. Disinfection second. Disinfection is everything.
During the Emei Sect cholera crisis, Hui-yeom had already raised survival rates by using boiled cloths and high-proof alcohol for disinfection, so the people of the Dang Family at least understood that disinfection mattered.
But the physicians we invite from outside probably won’t know. And their pride might be so high that they refuse to listen to us.
Fortunately, a supply of alcohol better suited for disinfection than what they had used before—cheap and producible in bulk—was already secured.
After all, making sugar left behind vast quantities of sugarcane molasses.
In the original history, the search for a use for that molasses had produced the sailors’ drink: rum.
Rum is cheap, high-proof, and resistant to spoilage. That’s why it was used as drinking water on long voyages when ordinary water went bad.
Guizhou Province is throwing away massive amounts of molasses, so we can produce it at almost no cost.
We can use the alcohol for disinfection and also sell it as rum.
In every way, it’s perfect.
Thus Hui-yeom immediately purchased a single distillery and ordered them to research methods of producing rum using sugarcane molasses brought in from Guizhou.
White rum, classified as a cheap liquor, required only a few months of aging, so the calculation was that they could easily finish it in time for Sama Yun’s delivery.
Moreover, overproof rum—further distilled white rum—reached 75 percent alcohol and was ideal for disinfection.
Next: physicians. We need to bring in Western doctors.
Hui-yeom did not know much about medicine, but he did know one fact.
The Cesarean section was named because Julius Caesar had been born that way.
The very word “Caesarean” came from Caesar’s name.
Furthermore, Western medicine had long developed around anatomy and surgeries that opened and closed the human body, whereas Eastern medicine had developed around needles and herbal decoctions; therefore he believed Western medicine would be far more helpful for childbirth.
…In truth, the legend of Caesar’s Cesarean birth is now considered unproven and largely rejected.
But Hui-yeom did not know that, and so he worked to secure Western masters.
Fortunately, he already had one Western master who had come from the West.
“Master Paracelsus, are you able to assist in childbirth? What I mean is, if things go wrong and we face a breech birth or similar situation, can you perform a Cesarean section?”
At Hui-yeom’s question, Paracelsus shook his head with an awkward expression.
“It is true that surgery is my specialty, but I have never cut open a mother’s belly and removed a child.”
“Then begin studying from today. I will remove you from every ongoing duty.
Ah, and we will need anesthetics. Anesthetics must be made.
How much pain would a person suffer if their belly were cut open without anesthesia?”
“…Pardon?”
Paracelsus blinked as if wondering whether the Young Master had gone mad, but Hui-yeom had his own logical reasons.
Even if I brought in hundreds of mediocre European doctors, they would still be inferior to one genius physician, pharmacist, and alchemist whose name remains in history!
Thus, under Hui-yeom’s well-founded(?) faith and relentless pressure, Paracelsus set aside every other task and began studying midwifery texts and researching the development of anesthetics.
Of course the Sichuan Dang Family already possessed the poison known as Mabisan—said to have been used by Hua Tuo for surgery—as well as numerous other toxins and medicinal ingredients, so safety trials for those substances began as well.
In truth, the Poison Hall, which had been somewhat neglected in the shadow of the Innovation Division’s achievements, suddenly found itself drowning in a rain of budgets and pressure from the heavens and could not regain its senses.
Did that mean the Innovation Division finally had it easy? Not at all.
Hui-yeom had suddenly developed an extraordinary interest in the rubber products the Innovation Division manufactured and sold.
“Thinner rubber gloves! Gloves thin enough not to dull a physician’s fingertip sensitivity, yet still tough and durable!”
“Gyaaaaah!!”
And that was not all.
Cheol-u-jeon, which had been laughing “not my problem” and looking forward to some rare free time after construction schedules were delayed, was driven to the brink of collapse by Hui-yeom’s sudden flood of work orders.
“W-what is all this?”
“Needles! Thinner needles that don’t rust!”
“….”
“Needles shaped like fishing hooks that are better for suturing!”
“….”
“Is a person’s belly a quilt? Are you telling me to stitch my wife’s belly with needles this thick? The moment quilt-like stitch marks appear on my wife’s stomach, I’ll stitch your mouths the exact same way!”
“Forceps! Smaller, more precise forceps! They must be small and precise enough to grip a needle and sew!”
“….”
“Sharper blades! Scalpels—no, make them in this shape! If it can’t slice through a strand of hair without damaging the tissue, I won’t accept it! Do you understand?! That blade is going to open my wife’s belly—if the edge is dull and leaves a scar, I’ll open your bellies with the same knife and then close them again!!”
“….”
“Close them? Who said anything about closing them! The moment a scar appears on my daughter-in-law’s belly, your bellies will stay wide open!!”
“Gyaaaaah!!”
Hui-yeom was running wild, and Eun Seol-ran was going one step further.
No one belonging to the Dang Family could escape.
They had thought the fire was in someone else’s house, only to discover their own home was burning.
Double kill, triple kill, quadra kill, penta kill—the Young Master has gone berserk! The absolute ruler of the Dang Family, the Young Master!
Truly, a time of chaos, destruction, and oblivion rolled on.
People resented the Hui-yeom who pecked at them like a madman, yet because they understood his feelings they poured their very lives into the work.
Time flowed at a frantic pace, and at last
the day arrived.