The Investor Briefing
Hwiyeom gave the assembled crowd a simplified version of the same explanation he had once delivered to the bureaucrats while drafting the policies and statutes surrounding stock investment.
Fortunately, most of those present were either officials themselves or people who had already absorbed the essentials through their connections, so they grasped it quickly enough.
"Well then—that's another round of the basics on stocks. From this point on, I'll explain why this Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company is bound to prosper."
A mischievous glint entered Hwiyeom's eyes.
"Of course, I expect more than a few of you are sitting here with a single thought in mind: that any venture His Majesty the Emperor has personally championed cannot possibly fail."
"Ahem! Ahem!"
"Hrrrm!"
The pointed remark drew a scatter of awkward coughs from around the room. Hwiyeom grinned.
"That won't do! This venture may well be sound—but going forward, if you invest your money on nothing more than a vague piece of good news, you can lose it just as easily. You have to examine every angle.
I'll demonstrate the method for you now, by way of example.
Please look at the papers we distributed.
Somewhere in the middle you should find the Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company Investment Prospectus."
Rustle, rustle.
The sound of pages turning filled the hall.
Hwiyeom continued.
"The key point is this: the Beijing railway will not exist merely for passengers. It will become a critical artery in the flow of goods."
He walked them through the prospectus page by page.
"As you can see, the annual freight-transport demand currently generated within Beijing is summarized in Table 7, and projected passenger demand is…"
The audience had no choice but to fall completely under the spell of the presentation.
The merchants, especially, were stunned.
A business report this clean, this systematic…
Hah. So that's why they call him Sichuan's Crouching Dragon.
He wasn't just some lucky brat basking in the Emperor's favor… Damn it. With a subordinate like this, I could double my trading house in a few years.
"…And so, after deducting projected revenue, expenses, and the dividends to be distributed among you shareholders, the estimated annual net profit is listed at the very bottom.
Under ordinary circumstances, profit of this scale would have been difficult to achieve. But because the Beijing railway is not a private enterprise—it is a state project operated by the Imperial House—we were able to establish a new agency called the Railway Administration to supply management and operational personnel, and to assign government slaves as the lower-level laborers. That allowed us to cut labor costs dramatically.
That is how these numbers become possible."
Unlike the Sichuan Railway, which already more than recovered its capital simply by running freight lines between Sichuan and Yunnan, and Sichuan and Guizhou, a railway confined to Beijing might have been limited if it relied on passenger traffic alone.
But the capital's floating population was enormous, the volume of cargo Beijing itself absorbed was staggering—and above all, the power of reduced labor costs was nothing short of monstrous.
With this single Beijing railway project, Emperor Sungui stood to win the hearts of the capital's people and secure a tidy little side revenue stream for the throne.
"…If there are no further questions, that concludes the investor briefing for the Beijing Railway Joint-Stock Company.
You may begin purchasing shares now.
Please proceed to the counters you see over there and speak with a counselor. You will be called in the order of the numbered tickets you received upon entry.
While you wait, the staff will provide refreshments and Caffa without limit, so take all the time you need to deliberate carefully.
I wish you a productive afternoon."
The moment Hwiyeom finished his bow and turned away, a murmur erupted across the hall.
"Anyone want to trade ticket numbers?!"
"Me first—I'm going first!"
Rather than wait their turns, people scrambled to swap numbers so they could buy shares sooner. The fear that the stock would sell out before their number was called was written plain on every face.
Watching the commotion, Hwiyeom allowed himself a quiet smile.
The time was approaching when the capital raised here would let the railway construction begin in earnest.
One more thing to prepare. The commoners—who will treat all of this as someone else's business and show no interest whatsoever—I need to pull their capital in as well.
For commoners who own no means of production, the paths to wealth are few.
Why was America—a country infamous for its wretched medical insurance—said to have one of the best systems of old-age security in the world?
Because of the 401(k), which forced a portion of every worker's paycheck into stock funds.
Day trading for thrills was hard. But when long-term investment met a growing economy, the synergy was terrifying.
"Secretary Hwang. That printing-house lot I ordered purchased last time—how is it progressing?"
Hwang Ji-su scrambled to answer, stumbling over the words.
"Y-yes, yes. The lot has been purchased, and we're currently moving equipment inside. We've also ordered and stockpiled printing paper… and the presses ordered from Sichuan are expected to arrive within a few weeks."
"Well done. Yes—that's how work should be handled."
"Th-thank you!"
Hwiyeom smiled faintly.
"It's about time the Sichuan Daily stopped being a provincial paper, don't you think?"
The age of a colossal megaphone, ahead of its time, was about to begin.
Yi Gyu-chan, elder and vice president of the Sichuan Daily, furrowed his brow.
"Another loss this quarter?"
The subordinate who had submitted the report shrank his neck like a turtle.
"Yes…"
"Tsk."
Yi Gyu-chan clicked his tongue. The subordinate shrank further still, and the elder waved a hand.
"I'm not scolding you. It's just—at the next meeting I'll have to sit there quietly again while every other division and company talks big… Ah, honestly."
Emboldened by the tone, the subordinate ventured a reply.
"W-well… there's nothing to be done about it, is there? From the day we were founded, the Young Master himself said the Sichuan Daily is structurally unsuited to turning a profit…"
"Even so, a man must never treat the act of bleeding money as a matter of course…"
"…"
"True, our Sichuan Daily carries a weighty mission no other company can shoulder.
But if we use that as an excuse to settle for failing to make money, where is the growth supposed to come from?
We have to find some way—any way—to plug the deficit and turn a profit. If we won't even try, then what am I doing in the vice president's chair, and what are you doing as a bureau chief?
We might as well pull a monkey out of the laboratory, slap an armband on it, and park it in the vice president's office."
"…I am ashamed."
"Enough. I was only irritated because I couldn't see a way forward. No hard feelings—go on."
"Yes, sir."
Once the bureau chief had withdrawn, Elder Yi Gyu-chan pressed a hand to his forehead.
"Damn it… Half the commoners—no, half is generous. Eight or nine tenths are illiterate. How am I supposed to sell newspapers at a profit?"
With so few who could read, newspaper sales beyond the fixed quantities purchased by government offices amounted to little more than the mandatory handful of copies each Baekga-jaengsik franchise table was required to take.
You needed customers before you could make a profit.
And if they raised the price of the paper, it would become a magazine for the wealthy few—and the newspaper would lose the power and influence it needed as a medium of information and public opinion. Hwiyeom had driven that stake into the ground himself. Absolutely not.
"No answer. None at all… Am I just going to grow old eating leftovers and watching my back…?"
Yi Gyu-chan was still sighing when a knock came at his office door.
"Pardon the interruption. I come bearing a message from the Young Master. Is Elder Yi Gyu-chan present?"
"…Come in."
Yi Gyu-chan tilted his head, puzzled. The door opened, and a man of ordinary appearance strode in and drew a letter from his robes.
"A letter sent by the Young Master from Beijing."
"Ah, thank you."
Yi Gyu-chan reached out to take it—but the man stepped lightly back.
"Before I deliver the letter, I must verify that you are indeed Elder Yi Gyu-chan."
"…What kind of nonsense is this?"
Yi Gyu-chan scowled, but the man did not flinch. He raised both hands above his head.
"A circular was recently issued: agents of the Demonic Cult may already have infiltrated our ranks, so constant vigilance is required. Lift your chin and show me the underside of your jaw. I will first confirm whether you are wearing a human-skin mask."
"Oh, for heaven's sake…"
Grumbling, Yi Gyu-chan tilted his head back to expose the clean line of throat and jaw.
"At this rate, I'm more afraid a real agent will walk up just like you, wait for me to lift my chin, and cut my throat."
"To prevent that, I step back beyond arm's reach and place my hands above my head. If a black-ops agent ever approaches without doing so, subdue him at once or call for help.
That was in the circular, was it not? Unless…"
The agent's eyes narrowed. Yi Gyu-chan flapped his hands in alarm.
"I saw it! I read the circular! I am Yi Gyu-chan himself! Good grief. Ugh…"
"…My apologies."
Yi Gyu-chan tore open the letter the Minjeongwon agent handed him and began to read.
A short while later, his eyes had gone faintly bright. He drew a long pipe from his robes.
He rolled the letter tight, thrust it into the charcoal of the brazier to light it, and used the burning paper as a spill to kindle the pipe between his lips.
Then he tossed the letter into the brazier to burn, and exhaled a long stream of smoke.
And like some legendary figure from a science-fiction game franchise yet to be born, he chewed absently on the mouthpiece of his pipe and murmured under his breath.
"At last… it's come."
The letter contained a summons to Beijing and a brief outline of the venture that lay ahead.
While he puffed and thought, Yi Gyu-chan organized his mind. Then he opened the window to clear the smoke, took a small bell from his drawer, and rang it lightly.
When his secretary entered, he said,
"Call every director and section chief."
The money-bleeding white elephant was about to take flight.
Meanwhile, somewhere near Beijing.
A dozen people sat gathered in a small sealed chamber.
Every one of them carried a vaguely sinister air; none of them looked remotely above suspicion.
The man who appeared highest in rank among them spoke.
"…So, is that the end of this meeting? Increasing the number of sacrificial offerings to be shipped from Jiangsu this cycle, raising opium sales and distribution volume by another tenth, allocating additional budget and personnel for internal sowing of discord… The major items all seem to have passed, more or less?"
"No. One agenda remains. The matter of the Beijing railway."
"Ah… that."
The man at the head of the table gave a dry chuckle.
"Detonating the Emperor's toy in the Emperor's own courtyard to wound public sentiment… Hmm. Doesn't strike me as a particularly effective strategy…"
"Besides, Beijing is full of beggars. Escaping their eyes would not be easy."
A one-eyed man who looked like a wandering swordsman raised the point. A man who looked like a wealthy merchant laughed softly.
"Your news is late. Half of Beijing's Beggar's Sect—the Dirty Clothes Faction, you might say—have already been driven out of the capital."
"What? How is that possible?"
"Oh, a little prodding of the bureaucrats and a scattering of coin. Sichuan is said to be the cleanest, most livable city under heaven, without a beggar in sight. Of course the swine of Beijing would take it as a wound to their pride."
"Ho… So it really is possible to slip past the beggars' eyes and turn that train into a sea of blood?"
"In the Emperor's city of Beijing, passengers aboard a new mode of transport approved by the Emperor himself meet a tragic mass death in an accident…"
A handsome man with a sinister cast to his features laughed low in his throat.
"As a symbolic disaster capable of stirring the people to rise, it would more than suffice."
"And the date of the operation?"
"Once that train has settled in somewhat—once vigilance has grown lax and ridership is high."
"Good. Any objections? Show of hands."
"…"
"Excellent. Unanimous."
"Proceed."
"The True One returns."
"All under heaven bows."