Seizing Control of the Elder Council
Hwi-yeom decided first to dismantle the grassroots network Gong Duchan controlled—the Yeowangchae loan-shark operations.
Right now the two great pillars of the Elder Council are the Banking Branch and the Cloth Branch.
Of the two, the Cloth Branch is the tougher enemy and must be left for last. Its power, built over decades on the weapon of Sichuan silk, is solid as bedrock.
But the Banking Branch is different. Banks can boom overnight—and collapse just as fast.
Remembering his previous life, watching investment banks and commercial banks that had been Wall Street blue chips go bankrupt in an instant, Hwi-yeom could think of few businesses that were higher risk, higher return than banking.
Besides, it was the Banking Branch that buried the main family in debt. All the more reason to wipe it out cleanly.
If I handle the Banking Branch properly, one of the Elder Council’s major pillars collapses, and they lose their leverage over the Patriarch’s Hall. In other words, cleaning up the rest of the Council afterward becomes far easier.
Of course he could not simply charge head-on at the banks that currently held the purse strings of all Sichuan.
So the opening move has to be the Yeowangchae.
Gong Duchan’s enterprises were banking—his in-laws’ Chahwa Bank was one of Sichuan’s three great banks, and the Seogyeong Bank he himself owned ranked among the top ten—plus the Yeowangchae high-interest lenders subordinated to them.
The Yeowangchae squeezed the common folk dry; they were no different from black-society thugs. Yet Gong Duchan had splintered the black-society operators into cellular grass-roots cells so that nothing could be traced back to him, installed figurehead bosses, and simply supplied the capital from the shadows as the real money man.
Outsiders therefore had no idea that a branch of the Sichuan Dang Family was the hidden master of loan-shark dens little better than black-society gangs.
And to get information on the Yeowangchae, you naturally need an insider.
Having finished that line of thought, he was once again buried in paperwork when footsteps approached from the far side of the room.
“Young Master, Elder Jin Cheong has been brought.”
“Good. Show him in.”
The door opened and Jin Cheong entered, looking distinctly tense.
“Ah, Elder Jin Cheong. It’s been a while.”
Hwi-yeom, who had been efficiently clearing the mountain of documents, greeted the elder as he stepped inside.
Jin Cheong stared blankly for a moment at Hwi-yeom and at the stack of papers that rose higher than the boy’s seated height, then returned the greeting.
“Jin Cheong of the Elder Council greets the Young Master. But… what on earth are all these papers?”
Instead of taking offense at the elder’s half-formal speech, Hwi-yeom gave the towering pile a casual slap and smiled.
“Money, of course. What else? Please take a seat at that side table; I’ll come over.”
“….”
Jin Cheong sat without understanding, his expression sour, his mind churning.
He could not fathom why this young snake-and-scorpion of a boy had specifically summoned him.
Did he find some weakness in the way I handle my duties?
Unable to hide his unease at the unknown intention, Jin Cheong accepted the teacup Hwi-yeom offered and simply watched the boy’s face.
Hwi-yeom spoke.
“About one of the survivors from the group that attacked me last time. He finally opened his mouth. He claims he came from an assassin hall, and that the client was none other than the Elder Council….”
Jin Cheong flinched for an instant, then gave a short laugh and raised the cup to his lips.
“Is that all? Surely the Young Master doesn’t seriously believe the words of some lowly assassin? That sort of talk is no evidence at all.”
“So the words themselves don’t matter, is that it?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Jin Cheong tried to look unconcerned, but Hwi-yeom did not miss the tiny tremor that ran through the elder’s hand.
Hwi-yeom chuckled.
“I’m glad the Elder understands that; it makes the explanation easier.”
“What?”
“You said an assassin’s words are no evidence… so I’ll put it this way.”
The smile vanished from Hwi-yeom’s face. He set the teacup down and spoke with an expression that felt almost sinister.
“The Elder’s words, and the facts themselves, don’t matter either. What matters is that the elders tried to kill me.”
“What kind of absurd logic is that?!”
Jin Cheong shouted, his face gone deathly pale. What had this child just said? He could not believe his own ears.
The declaration that he would not listen to them, combined with the attitude he was showing now, made Hwi-yeom’s will crystal clear.
He intended to pin the attempted assassination of the Young Master on the elders of the Council and purge them—regardless of the truth!
Cold sweat ran down Jin Cheong’s back at the boy’s sheer malice.
Even so he forced himself to continue.
“If the Young Master wishes to frame people, you might manage one or two. But you cannot kill every branch-family elder with that false story. The remaining elders of the Council will never sit still for such tyranny!”
After all, how many branch families held stakes in the Sichuan Dang Family, and how many elders sat on the Council? Could the Patriarch’s Hall really chop off all their heads without a shred of physical evidence?
If the main family tried to frame them and strike, the elders would not simply sit and wait to die.
“Young Master, even if you kill me, the other elders will never remain silent!”
Jin Cheong’s body trembled, yet he answered with what dignity he could muster.
Hwi-yeom, however, continued to press him with the same smiling face.
“Elder Jin Cheong. Do you truly believe that if you die the other elders will avenge you or protect your family?”
“Of course they wou—”
“You already know that not long ago I accepted Ma Jeonggu’s faction.”
“That is…”
The tense elder’s body gave another involuntary shudder.
“Surely not…!”
“They told some very interesting stories. It seems the branch families of our main house have rather complicated circumstances of their own….”
At Hwi-yeom’s words Jin Cheong’s eyes flew wide.
Those bastards sold the branch families’ secrets?!
The branch lines of the Dang Family had joined forces against the main line decades ago. After decades of eating from the same pot, people naturally learned one another’s scandals and weak points whether they wanted to or not—like country neighbors who knew exactly how many spoons each household owned.
And among those secrets were some that would prove quite fatal if they ever reached the main family.
“Think carefully. Why did Elder Ma Jeonggu and the Ironworks Branch betray the Council? Because they were abandoned, weren’t they? Can you guarantee the same thing won’t happen again?”
“……!”
“If I take the secrets of the Elder Council I’ve learned and apply them to the right people at the right moments, I could kill a few troublesome elders and the rest would keep their mouths shut. Don’t you think?”
Just as Hwi-yeom said, cracks were already showing inside the Council.
During the recent ironworks affair Hong Ilgon had believed discarding Ma Jeonggu’s faction was the best move available. Yet as a result an atmosphere of quiet mutual suspicion and wariness had taken root among the elders themselves.
The elders will abandon anyone the moment it serves their interests. And the Patriarch’s Hall’s threat to kill us is no empty bluff. They already killed Jong Ri-hyeok, didn’t they?
There was no room for thoughts like “but he’s still an elder of the family,” or “but we’ve shared so many years together.”
Dang Un-sang had killed Jong Ri-hyeok with merciless brutality, and from that day the lesson had been burned into every elder’s mind:
Given the chance—perhaps even right this moment—they might kill me.
The moment that realization struck, Elder Jin Cheong’s face turned ashen.
Seeing it, Hwi-yeom asked softly.
“Elder Jin Cheong, there is one thing I wish to ask you.”
“W-what is it?”
“Do you want to live?”
“─────!”
Words died in his throat.
If it had been only his own life he might have been afraid yet still struck back. But recalling what had happened to Jong Ri-hyeok, the Young Master’s question clearly hung the lives of every member of his household in the balance.
Hwi-yeom picked up a high-quality document folder of silk-backed paper and set it on the table.
Written across it in red seal ink were the words:
The instant he read the characters, Jin Cheong’s breathing turned ragged.
Hwi-yeom interlaced his fingers under his chin with the expression of a cat watching with interest as a cornered mouse thrashes.
“The original purpose of the Elder Council is to assist the Patriarch and to oversee the various miscellaneous affairs that a martial family like the Dang Clan finds difficult to handle openly… In plain language, the money-making businesses that those stuffy Confucian scholars find too dirty to touch.
“Even a martial clan, under the Confucian order of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants that rules the Central Plains, becomes an object of ridicule the moment it openly reaches for commerce….”
“….”
“That is why our Patriarch’s Hall left the Elder Council alone. We needed handy laborers to take care of the awkward work.”
“….”
“But when those laborers forget their place and dare to aim at their master’s life… isn’t it only natural to get rid of them?”
The soft voice clung like sticky poison and burned against the ear.
Was the reason he could scarcely breathe the sheer desolation of those words, or those green eyes that looked at a person as though he were an insect?
Jin Cheong realized he was shrinking under Hwi-yeom’s killing intent.
A twelve-year-old child already radiating such dense killing intent… what kind of venomous heart is this…
Yet he could not simply keep his mouth shut. He had to say something.
Jin Cheong was struggling to force his stiffened tongue into speech when—
“…Well, that much is Father’s view as Patriarch. My own thoughts are a little different.”
Hwi-yeom suddenly gave a light laugh that dispelled the tension and walked slowly behind Jin Cheong.
The elder sat frozen like a frog that has just heard a great snake glide past its back.
“If we purge every elder, no matter how flourishing the main family’s businesses may be, it will do us no good. We lose people, you see. People! The most precious resource of all is capable people—what a waste, what a tragedy would that be?”
“…What do you want from me?”
“No need to keep circling. I’ll speak bluntly, Elder Jin Cheong.”
Hwi-yeom smiled white.
“I am going to smash Gong Duchan. I haven’t decided yet whether to kill him or spare him, but I intend to destroy the businesses that form his foundation.”
“….”
“There’s his in-laws’ Chahwa Bank, of course, but I also know he secretly controls the Yeowangchae of Sichuan.”
“That is…”
“Hand over the information on the Yeowangchae dens Gong Duchan holds.”
In the end it was the same as telling him to betray Gong Duchan and drive the man into a dead end.
Jin Cheong felt uneasy, yet he was also curious what he himself might gain from the bargain.
Was it simply a threat—cooperate and I won’t kill you? Or was the boy offering him the same kind of opportunity he had given Bak Chang-eon and Ma Jeonggu?
“…If I take the Young Master’s hand, what do I gain?”
“…Haha.”
Hwi-yeom’s fingers lightly brushed the surface of the table. Acid poison flowed from his fingertips and began to sizzle and burn the wood.
Watching the bubbling, boiling surface of the table, Jin Cheong swallowed dryly. Hwi-yeom spoke.
“Is it not enough that I erase Elder Jin Cheong’s name from the very top of this Death Ledger?”
“….”
At those words the strength drained from Jin Cheong’s limbs.
To feel cold sweat and the dizzy sensation that his knees might give way from a single word, a single smile of a boy who was barely his great-grandson’s age…
Yet he thought of his wife and children waiting at home.
He thought of the many relatives who looked only to him.
His old body and life weighed little, but the burden he carried was anything but light.
A momentary glint appeared in Jin Cheong’s wrinkled eyes. He gritted his teeth and opened his mouth.
“The Young Master said people are the most precious resource.”
“…Oh?”
“You said you would smash Elder Gong Duchan and destroy his enterprises. If that comes to pass, the businesses he controlled will become ownerless. And if left alone, others will nibble them up piece by piece.”
“That is true.”
“I will take the Young Master’s hand. Give those vacant seats to me.”
If he said nothing he would die. Even if he spoke and merely kept his life, the family would still fall. Just as with the Ironworks Branch, Hwi-yeom intended to bring down not only Gong Duchan the man but the entire Banking Branch.
And the Young Master does not greatly care about grudges so long as something is profitable.
Had it not been the same with the Ironworks Branch before? The assassination attempt on the Young Master was most likely their doing, yet he had taken them in without hesitation and even given them opportunity.
Jin Cheong aimed for that point and stepped forward boldly.
Hwi-yeom tilted his head and said,
“Instead of begging for your life after betrayal, you ask for Gong Duchan’s place?”
“….”
Had he made a mistake?
Sweat beaded at Jin Cheong’s fingertips and his legs began to tremble—then,
“Excellent! Truly excellent! Quick on the uptake, good judgment, and even the guts and decisiveness to match!”
“…Pardon?”
“You pass.”
Hwi-yeom stepped out from behind him, returned to the front, sat at the table, and smiled.
He picked up the cooled teacup, flung the contents into the courtyard, and held the empty cup out to Jin Cheong.
“Elder Jin Cheong, rather than a vacant seat—how about a higher one?”
“…What?”
As the elder took the cup without thinking, Hwi-yeom lifted the kettle from the brazier and poured steaming tea into it.
“I am going to establish one large bank. The business will begin with small loans to ordinary commoners, replacing the existing Yeowangchae. But once construction of the State-run Ironworks begins, once the scale of Baekga-jaengsik grows further, and as we launch more enterprises, its influence will only increase. In time it will become one of the foremost banks in Sichuan—no, in the entire Central Plains. That seat I will give to you, Elder Jin Cheong.”
“I-is that true?”
“Of course.”
“I just said with my own mouth that I would betray the Elder Council. You know that a man who betrays once can betray again… do you not?”
“Well, that is not wrong. But originally, Elder Jin Cheong, what was the reason you came to betray the Council? Was it not because the Council abandoned you first?”
“……?”
“Was not the Elder Council formed so that you could all help one another and seize the Dang Family by pushing Uncle Dang Un-hwa forward? Then Uncle Dang Un-hwa joined my side and dashed your hopes and expectations for the future. And when the Ironworks Branch fell into danger, how did Hong Ilgon and Gong Duchan act? They discarded the Ironworks Branch without a second thought and betrayed their trust in fellow elders. When the other side first dashed your expectations and betrayed your trust, to sit still while watching that would be the foolish choice.”
Of course every one of those things had been set in motion by Hwi-yeom himself. Neither Jin Cheong nor Hwi-yeom bothered to point that out.
“That the Elder Council will collapse is already a settled fact; it is already slowly sinking. Gathering your belongings and getting out quickly is not betrayal—it is an extremely wise action.”
“I understand the Young Master’s words. Yet… is it not too heavy a responsibility you are entrusting to me…?”
Hwi-yeom had wrapped it in pleasant language, but Jin Cheong knew perfectly well he was a traitor. To place such a great charge upon a traitor left him both afraid and suspicious.
“Elder Jin Cheong, this is how I see it. For mutual trust you need justification and plausible reasons, but for that trust to last, in the end you need a relationship that continues to give each other profit. Entrusting the Dang Family’s bank to the Elder is also something I need in order to trust you. As long as there is nothing greater than becoming the master of a bank that will rank among the foremost in the Central Plains, you will have no reason to betray me.”
It was the same thing he had once said to Bak Chang-eon.
Hwi-yeom believed the same thing then and now.
In business relationships, faith and trust are options. In the end the only thing that matters is whether it is profitable or not.
Watching Jin Cheong nod heavily, Hwi-yeom grinned.
“Elder, if you are worried you might betray me, there is no need. Betraying me will prove harder than you think.”
“What do you mean by that…?”
“My eyes and ears are in more places than you might expect. And of course, do you think there is only one traitor inside the Elder Council to begin with?”
In other words, entrusting him with a great charge also meant he would be watched and monitored thoroughly enough to make it safe.
Jin Cheong felt a flicker of regret—had he made an unnecessary proposal?
Hwi-yeom smiled brightly and pushed the Death Ledger aside.
“Anyway, it seems there will be quite a lot to hear today. Do you have the time?”
The earlier chilling pressure had vanished completely; he looked once more like a cute boy.
But to Jin Cheong, Hwi-yeom was no longer a young Young Master.
Feeling like an old wolf wrapped in the coils of a long-lived viper, Jin Cheong swallowed dryly.
“…And so Elder Jin Cheong has also turned his back on the Elder Council.”
“Of course this remains a secret to the outside world—at least until the bank is established.”
“But are you not making the matter far more complicated than necessary? You already know the assassin hall was the backer. Why not use that as a pretext, strike off Hong Ilgon’s head, and swallow the remaining demoralized elders all at once? Would that not be faster?”
Hwi-yeom answered with a smile.
“Charging straight at a fierce beast caught in a net and thrusting a spear is the lowest of strategies. A cornered rat will bite the cat. We must wait until the beast has exhausted itself, until its energy and pulse are spent and it is begging to be put out of its misery. Leave it to me, Father. This son has a plan for everything.”
No matter how venomous the old men of the Sichuan Dang Family might be, they could never escape the palm of Hwi-yeom, who in the information society of the twenty-first century had climbed through every filthy scheme of power to the chairmanship of a great conglomerate.
At Hwi-yeom’s confident smile Dang Un-sang nodded.
“Since you are so certain, I will trust you completely and leave it in your hands.”
“You will not regret it.”
“I have never once regretted trusting you.”
Thus the purge of Hong Ilgon and his faction within the Elder Council was postponed.
Yet only Hong Ilgon and his group remained ignorant of the fact: the Elder Council was slowly returning to its original form—from checking the Patriarch to its proper function of assisting him.
And everything that occurred inside the Council now reached Hwi-yeom’s ears.
The factions of Ma Jeonggu and Jin Cheong, along with the elders Hwi-yeom had planted as spies, were all playing the part of faithful informants simply to survive.
The Elder Council was no longer Hwi-yeom’s enemy.
Killing them all and seizing everything is the lowest strategy. Better to dry them out slowly. After all, the reason the brush is more terrifying than the sword is exactly that, isn’t it?
Hwi-yeom grinned.
And so the plan began: to sweep the Yeowangchae from every corner of Sichuan and establish a new bank that would represent the Dang Family.