Hwi-eon Academy
Hwi-eon Academy was an educational facility established by the Hwi-eon Conglomerate to train the talent who would one day work for it.
Rather than construct an entirely new building, Dang Hui-yeom renovated one of the villas formerly owned by Gong Duchan and converted it into a school.
Hwi-eon Academy could accommodate three hundred students at a time. Hui-yeom divided them into three classes of one hundred, sorted by age and academic achievement.
The Fundamentals Class took in children and those with no grounding in scholarship at all, teaching basic mathematics, engineering, and language.
The Advanced Class was for those who already possessed a foundation; there they learned how to apply what they knew.
The Practical Class drilled students hard in drafting actual documents, accounting practice, and architectural and civil engineering design.
Unless something unusual intervened, every student entered through the Fundamentals Class, then sat promotion examinations to advance into the Advanced and Practical courses. In the Practical Class, only those who passed the graduation examination were allowed to leave.
Graduates, ranked by their results, could step straight into middle-management posts in the Hwi-eon Conglomerate’s subsidiaries—trading houses, construction, finance, and Baekga-jaengsik.
Because the time from admission to graduation varied for every student, there was no mass promotion of an entire class the way modern schools operated. A prodigy might finish in the shortest span of three years; a slower learner might remain enrolled for ten.
Anyone who still had not graduated after ten years faced a simple choice. One option was to repay in full every scholarship received over those ten years—room and board in the dormitory, meals, textbooks, and tuition included. The other was to work off the debt at whatever menial jobs the Dang Family arranged—certainly not the fine positions reserved for proper graduates, but the various odd tasks the clan required.
The rule existed solely to prevent people from enrolling, then idling away the years without ever finishing.
Moreover, every student who studied at Hwi-eon Academy was required, after graduation, to have a portion of their monthly salary deducted until the tuition debt was cleared—though outstanding performers had the entire debt forgiven.
Local society’s reaction to this educational system ran roughly as follows.
“Wait—they feed you, house you, and teach you for free?”
“In a famine year people still sell their kids as slaves just to have one less mouth to feed, and now this falls into our laps? What kind of windfall is this?”
“No, no—it’s all debt. You have to study well, make something of yourself later, and pay it back.”
“Well, you still need to study if you want to succeed, don’t you? People like us, complete illiterates—were we ever going to educate our children? Studying costs money.”
“If you get in there, you can study. You can become somebody important.”
“And once you graduate, the Hwi-eon Conglomerate puts you in a solid position? What could possibly be better than that?!”
In Sichuan Province the Sichuan Dang Family’s standing already rivaled that of the government offices themselves.
Who had laid a water main the long distance from the Yangtze outside the province all the way into Sichuan, so that clear water gushed from a single tap? Who was still expanding the fountains inside the city walls even now? The Sichuan Dang Family.
Who had paved the roads, dug the canals, and reinforced the moats so that the streets no longer turned to mud even in the summer rains? The Sichuan Dang Family.
Who had made it possible to order food delivered to your own door? Who had built not only the delivery trade but the once-in-a-generation State-run Ironworks in partnership with the authorities, creating countless jobs for the people of Sichuan? Who had founded a new bank and driven interest rates down? Who had driven out the vicious loan sharks of Yeowangchae?
The Dang Family! All of it—every last achievement—had been accomplished by the Sichuan Dang Family in less than a decade.
In the hundred years since the founding of the Jing dynasty, countless provincial commissioners and local magistrates had passed through this land and failed to do what the Dang Family had done. Even if the motive had been the clan’s own profit, those projects had been bound up with the public good, and that very fact had become the Dang Family’s mienzi—its face, its social reputation.
In Hui-yeom’s own terms, the Sichuan Dang Family had built its brand image.
When the Sichuan Dang Family spoke, the people of Sichuan would think three times even before refusing a cup of lye.
Applicants poured in like clouds.
The selection process went like this.
“Let’s see… next applicant… Baek Jung-sik of Number 3 East Road, Fountain District Fifteen?”
“Yes, sir!”
Of course the Jing kingdom possessed nothing resembling modern street addresses. Hui-yeom had already prepared a clever workaround for that problem.
During the planning stage of the waterworks, when the sites for the public fountains were being chosen, he had decided to space the fountains at regular intervals throughout Seongdo, like the intersecting points of a go board.
“Is it really necessary to install this many fountains? They’re convenient, I grant you, but it seems excessive….”
The Provincial Administration Commissioner had been sour at first; more fountains meant more construction costs.
Hui-yeom explained the deeper purpose of the placement and won him over.
“If people are to have equal access to the drinking fountains, spacing them at regular intervals is the most efficient method, isn’t it? While we’re at it, Your Excellency can treat the whole thing as a street-reorganization project.”
“Street reorganization?”
The commissioner’s expression brightened. A well-ordered street grid meant clear addresses, and clear addresses, together with accurate household registers, were the indispensable foundation of proper tax collection.
Truth is, our delivery runners have been suffering terribly because of this address problem.
They had been forced to make do with stopgaps such as setting up water-purification stations at intervals. Once the fountains were used to reorganize the streets the way Hui-yeom intended, address management would become far simpler.
With fountains laid out across the city like the points of a go board, each fountain became the center of a district divided into east, west, south, and north; every house within that district received a sequential number. That system became Seongdo’s official street-name address system.
The commissioner was so delighted he made it official on the spot. Naturally it also made life far easier for Baekga-jaengsik’s delivery men.
Using those addresses, and the paved roads the Dang Family had already laid, the delivery runners conducted the first round of interviews on the basis of the personal dossiers they had prepared in advance.
“Let’s see… Young Master Baek’s ambition is to become a general? But if you graduate from our Hwi-eon Academy you won’t be taking office—you’ll be working for the Dang Family.”
“I—I hope someday to join the Dang family’s Hwa-mangdae and become its commander!”
“Oh, admirable. Let’s see… eh? It says here you’re rather timid by nature?”
“N-no, sir!”
“Yet when Chunsik slipped a fake snake made of straw rope down your back, you wet yourself and collapsed….”
“That’s not true!!”
The power of the local rumor network rivaled the investigative capacity of a twenty-first-century intelligence agency. In an age before modernity, when every neighbor’s eyes functioned as living CCTV, the information the delivery runners and their neighbors had gathered—without even realizing they were conducting “intelligence work”—was formidable.
“Hm? Until two days ago you were climbing the mountain to become a lay disciple of the Qingcheng Sect?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Why leave Qingcheng and come here?”
“To put it bluntly, isn’t the Sichuan Dang Family better than the Qingcheng Sect?”
“Honest, at least.”
“Everyone acknowledges that Qingcheng is a great orthodox sect with many excellent Taoist masters. But no matter what anyone says, I believe the center of Sichuan from now on will be the Sichuan Dang Family.”
“If the Dang Family is to single you out among so many applicants and invest in you, give me a reason.”
“If I am admitted to Hwi-eon Academy, my father will donate one hundred guan of silver as a contribution.”
“We aren’t recruiting lay disciples. A donation?”
“Of course the Dang Family is wealthy; such a sum is nothing to you. But if you reinvest that money in education, won’t it be of some small help to the classmates who will study alongside me?”
One who flaunted his father’s wealth and sought to forge a connection.
“I possess the martial bone that even Qingcheng coveted! Choose me and I will become a great strength to the Dang Family!”
“This isn’t a recruitment hall for Dang family warriors….”
“If not a warrior, then at least a guard at the main gate of the Hwi-eon Conglomerate!”
One who loudly advertised his physical robustness.
“I may not look it, but I am a shengyuan who passed the provincial examination.”
“Ah, a shengyuan has graced us with his presence. But why? A man of your standing should be preparing for the metropolitan examination and aiming for the jinshi degree, should he not?”
“It is a shameful tale, but all that ‘Confucius said, Mencius said’ never put a single grain of rice on the table. My wife’s eyes have grown far too sharp….”
“Ah… ahh….”
Even protagonists of tear-jerking stories arrived in droves. The Sakpungdae, tasked with screening them all, was being ground to dust under the workload.
At last three hundred carefully chosen disciples were selected.
Because this was the first intake, everyone might have been placed in the Fundamentals Class. Yet among the successful candidates were men already of some age—between fifteen and thirty—some who had passed the provincial examination, scholars who had studied alone for years, and merchants seasoned in the trading houses. Putting such people in the same class as absolute beginners made no sense. All of them, some fifty in number, were therefore assigned to the Advanced Class, with the understanding that they would later move up to the Practical Class or remain where they were according to their subsequent performance.
And at last the day of their matriculation arrived.
The students stood in the outdoor ceremonial ground and took part in the entrance ceremony.
From the Sichuan Provincial Administration Office the commissioner sent a sixth-rank Academic Supervisor as his proxy to read a congratulatory address.
The Family Head of the Sichuan Dang Family, Dang Un-sang, appeared in person and offered words of encouragement to the new students.
From the Elder Council, Elder Bak Chang-eon delivered the congratulatory speech in place of Hong Ilgon, the Council Head, who was absent for reasons of health.
And finally, when the man who had planned everything—Dang Hui-yeom, the Young Dragon of Foresight—ascended the platform, every student in the assembly swallowed dryly, tension crackling through the ranks.
That one… is the future of Sichuan.
Some gazed with awe.
Hmph. Just wait. Within a few years I’ll be serving at his side.
Some burned with resolve.
He doesn’t look like much.
Some still doubted his greatness. Yet as Hui-yeom stood upon the dais and quietly surveyed those below, a natural dignity rested upon him.
Dang Un-sang’s eyes lit with interest.
When did that child acquire such presence? He looks like a man who has already delivered a thousand speeches before throngs of people.
Of course, given Hui-yeom’s previous life, an entrance ceremony of this scale barely registered as an event—but his father had no way of knowing that.
Hui-yeom regarded the students in silence for a moment, then spoke.
“You possess talent.
That talent exists in prime ministers and great generals and even in complete fools—yet it is the one thing the aged no longer have. That talent is nothing other than youth.
Young people, your time is an asset and a gift that nothing else can replace. Even the mighty First Emperor, who poured the full strength of his empire into the search, could not buy back his youth. Within the time allotted to us, we can become anything.
A mere five years ago—only five years—people whispered behind our backs that the Sichuan Dang Family was no longer what it had been, that we were a setting sun. And now? Is there anyone left who dares deny that the Dang Family is a rising sun, one of the great lights that illuminate Sichuan?
Five years holds that much power. Now time and opportunity will be given to you as well. For some it may be three years; for others, ten. How you use that time will decide whether you leave this place as an obscure commoner whom no one remembers, or whether you stand tall, together with the Dang Family and the Hwi-eon Conglomerate, as a sun that lights the future of Sichuan.
I say it again: you possess talent. Do not reproach yourselves and give up merely because you learn to read and write a little later than others. Do not grow arrogant merely because today you know a little more than your fellows. Today is the day on which you are at your most worthless and foolish; from this day forward may you only improve. Thank you.”
Hui-yeom bowed his head. Thunderous applause and cheers shook the sky.
And so was born the cradle of knowledge that would one day gather the finest minds of the Central Plains—minds that not even the Hanlin Academy would later be willing to trade away.