Karmic Retribution
Beijing.
In the Forbidden City itself—a veritable den of demons teeming with countless powerful ministers and favorites—debating who held the greatest power after the Emperor was a truly arduous task.
The Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, called one man under Heaven and above ten thousand, would seem the most likely candidate. Yet there were others whose strength did not yield to his in the slightest.
And among those monsters, the name that rose first to every tongue was the Grand Director Eunuch—the head of the Eastern Depot.
The eyes and ears of the imperial house, its hidden blade, loyal only to the Emperor, the man closest to the throne—he rarely showed his face for ordinary affairs.
Thus, whenever something major erupted within the Eastern Depot, the highest person one could actually meet was the man one rank below him:
the Seal-Bearing Eunuch.
The eunuch who held the official seal in his palm—and since that seal meant authority, power itself, the title alone told you how high he stood.
Before him, even the Punishment Chiliarch of the Eastern Depot could only tremble like a rabbit before a starving tiger.
Yang Bu of the Yunnan Provincial Administration Commission, the Punishment Chiliarch, could not begin to understand why his superior’s superior—the Seal-Bearing Eunuch—had summoned him in person, or why his own immediate superior, the Punishment Eunuch, was already prostrate on the floor, shaking so hard his entire body rattled.
Crunch.
A memorial crumpled in the Seal-Bearing Eunuch’s hand.
Veins stood out on the back of that hand, yet a gentle smile rested on his face, making the whole picture only more grotesque. He asked,
“Do you know why I called you here?”
“Y-yes! I have committed a capital crime.”
Who would believe that the man trembling and bowing like a sick puppy before him was the infamous Punishment Eunuch of the Eastern Depot—the very executor of imperial chastisement?
True to a title that meant “the one who holds punishment in his palm,” the Punishment Eunuch’s work was the interrogation—by torture—of those who rebelled against the Emperor or endangered the empire. In other words, he manufactured truth through agony.
It was no exaggeration to say every official in the realm feared him most of all.
And yet that same Punishment Eunuch was now pouring cold sweat like a waterfall, seized by the terror of death.
The Punishment Chiliarch instinctively understood that the crumpled memorial in the Seal-Bearing Eunuch’s grip was the cause.
Could it be… that letter that arrived a few days ago?
He had eyes and ears of his own.
When he first heard that a memorial from a retired high official had reached the Seal-Bearing Eunuch’s hand, he thought little of it. Even when he learned it concerned the Yunnan Provincial Administrator and the taking of bribes, he still did not worry much.
That sort of thing, he had told himself, was merely the custom everyone practiced.
But what in the world was this situation now?
As the Punishment Chiliarch scrambled desperately to grasp what was happening, the Seal-Bearing Eunuch’s deceptively mild voice drifted into his ears.
“Oh? You’ve committed a capital crime, have you?”
The Seal-Bearing Eunuch said,
“Wrong. You have committed a crime that even death cannot repay.”
“…!!”
The Punishment Eunuch’s back, already stiff as stone, gave a violent twitch.
Still without so much as a glance at the Punishment Chiliarch, the Seal-Bearing Eunuch looked down at the other man’s spine and continued.
“The Provincial Administrator of Yunnan had a formidable backer, so his corruption and arrogance reached the heavens. And that backer, as it turns out, is the subordinate of yours currently face-down on the floor. His influence was so great he could knock birds from the sky; for the past twelve years he reigned as king of Yunnan and committed no fewer than three hundred and fifty-four illegal acts. The evidence is so clear, the legal reasoning so airtight, that I found myself applauding as I read it. As an indictment of a corrupt official, it is nothing short of a textbook.”
The cold, dripping sarcasm soaked the backs of both the Punishment Eunuch and the Punishment Chiliarch.
The moment Yunnan’s Provincial Administrator was mentioned, the Punishment Chiliarch nearly lost his mind.
What the hell did that bastard do?!
Of course he had known his adopted son was a corrupt official. He himself had taken plenty of bribes and papered over the boy’s sins. But wasn’t that what everyone did? What unknown outrage had the boy committed that it had reached even the hands of the Seal-Bearing Eunuch, the real power in the Eastern Depot?!
“This disaster happened because you failed to keep your subordinates in line. The Eastern Depot—His Majesty’s eyes and ears, his hidden sword—has been caught shielding a corrupt official and taking bribes. How is that not a disgrace? When the Grand Director Eunuch received my report, he lamented that he no longer had the face to look upon the Dragon Countenance. Tell me—how am I supposed to report this to His Majesty?”
“This lowly one failed to restrain his underling… I will atone with my life—”
The Punishment Eunuch, who had been silent, began to apologize in a voice that shook, but the Seal-Bearing Eunuch cut him off cold.
“If your death alone would settle it, I would already have taken it.”
In a voice soft as silk, the Seal-Bearing Eunuch spoke of horrors.
“Word has it this matter has already climbed the walls of the Censorate and the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Without a certain benefactor who chose to warn me, we would have been struck blind. Wouldn’t that have been entertaining? The mighty Eastern Depot branded throughout the capital as a pack of useless cripples who cannot even clean their own house, the guardians of corrupt officials. Worse—our own Punishment Chiliarch nearly dragged out in chains by the Censorate and the Embroidered Uniform Guard.”
“….”
“And do you know who that benefactor is? Lord Bang Un. He once served as Judicial Commissioner of Henan Circuit, and before that of Hebei Circuit—key posts both. Immediately before retirement he even held, nominally at least, the office of Supervising Censor in the Censorate. No one understands the strictness of Central Plains law better than he; he spent his entire life guarding the Great Jing Code in Henan and Hebei—the heart and breast of the realm—and in Beijing, its very heart. And now that man is sighing, asking whether His Majesty’s order does not properly reach Yunnan, asking how the Eastern Depot, which ought to be His Majesty’s eyes and ears, could so unspeakably cover those eyes and ears. Even now, a single memorial from him could turn the Censorate upside down. Yet for the sake of a small old friendship with me, he sent the letter to my desk instead. Even a brain the size of a bean ought to grasp what that means.”
Sssssss—.
The blood drained from the Punishment Chiliarch’s entire body. Only now did the situation become clear, and his whole frame began to shake beyond control.
Even if the post of Supervising Censor of the Censorate had been largely honorary just before retirement, a man who had held the Judicial Commissionerships of both Henan and Hebei—the core of those offices—was a giant entitled to full retired-official courtesy even in private audience with the head of the Censorate or the Grand Director Eunuch himself.
And such a man had filed a direct indictment? Over a mere Provincial Administrator quietly lining his pockets in some Yunnan backwater?
Something is wrong!
The Punishment Chiliarch immediately raised his head and began slamming his forehead into the floor. The wet thuds of bone on stone filled the room; blood from his split brow soaked the boards, yet he did not stop.
“Kill this lowly one! This is the work of my idiot son—I will end it with my own hands!”
Only then did the Seal-Bearing Eunuch, who had been flaying the Punishment Eunuch while ignoring the Chiliarch entirely, turn his gaze upon him for the first time.
“Is that so? And by what means?”
“All of it was my son’s unilateral act, unrelated to the Eastern Depot! The Depot received no reports and covered nothing up!”
“Punishment Chiliarch.”
“Yes!”
“How did someone so naïve ever climb as high as Chiliarch? Did you cut your brains off along with your manhood, hmm?”
The Seal-Bearing Eunuch clicked his tongue in pure disgust.
“There are things that can be buried by playing dumb and things that cannot. The Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Censorate already know. You think it ends that easily? Hmm?”
“….”
“No need for long talk.”
The Seal-Bearing Eunuch shook his head.
“Both of you, get out. And if a workable plan is not on my desk within half a day, the two of you will live long enough—limbs intact—to watch your three clans pickled into fermented fish paste.”
Under that terrifying warning and the order to leave, the Punishment Eunuch and the Punishment Chiliarch barely managed to stumble out of the Seal-Bearing Eunuch’s office.
Seeing sparks fly from the Punishment Eunuch’s eyes, the Chiliarch hastily said,
“I will take my own life. I will die, burn every related document, destroy the evidence, and finish this!”
“That will not be enough.”
The Punishment Eunuch answered.
“Inventory every asset you own and cough it all up. In place of the son who amassed wealth through corruption, the father will return everything he possesses to the empire. Only that much may keep the calamity from reaching your bloodline.”
“…Yes.”
In the space of half a quarter-hour the Punishment Chiliarch’s face seemed to have aged several decades.
Eunuchs were not without attachment to family. Precisely because they knew they could never bear fruit of their own, they clung all the more fiercely to such bonds. Had he not, even after castration, taken an adopted son and cherished him like flesh and blood?
That had ruined the boy—worse, had turned him into a monster. Now it was time to settle the karmic debt.
Yet there was no need to feel wronged. The Punishment Chiliarch himself had known of his son’s deeds, covered them up, and pocketed the profits; beyond that he had committed countless other evils as a corrupt official in his own right.
As the old saying goes: only when the upper waters are clear do the lower waters run clear.
Exactly half a day later, the grim news arrived at the Eastern Depot, the Censorate, and the Embroidered Uniform Guard: the Punishment Chiliarch had taken his own life, leaving a will that returned his entire fortune to the national treasury.
For the first time in a long while the Grand Director Eunuch himself visited the Censorate and the Embroidered Uniform Guard, holding closed-door negotiations with the Supervising Censor and the Commander. The Eastern Depot yielded something; the Censorate and the Guard gained something. Thanks to that, the Depot’s dirty laundry never erupted into an official scandal and was quietly buried.
But what was settled was only the affair inside Beijing’s political circles.
Having barely escaped the keen blade of punishment, the Punishment Eunuch of the Eastern Depot foamed at the mouth and raged like a boar with an arrow in its flank.
“Drag him in at once! I will make him understand that even death is a luxury!!”
The Chiliarch’s suicide had shielded his household; it had done nothing to cover the crimes of Yunnan’s Provincial Administrator.
The Provincial Administrator of Yunnan, waiting for the grain wagons due from the Sichuan Dang Family, was dragged out in the dead of night like a dog by Eastern Depot torturers who had suddenly stormed down from Beijing.
He had been toying with a newly acquired concubine, so he was hauled out without even covering his grotesque lower half, and could not collect his wits.
“You bastard! You know your own crimes!”
“Th-this official is innocent, Eunuch! What is this sudden disaster in the middle of the night?! Let me see my father—Father! There must be some misunderstanding!”
“Your father took his own life so that the crimes you committed would not reach the family! You worthless scrap of a man! Enough! Start by ripping out his toenails!”
“Yes, sir!”
“W-wait, what do you mean by—hiiik! No! Stay away, aaaaaagh!!!”
“Don’t let the blood flow too freely—cauterize every wound with a branding iron at once! We have a great deal of torture still to do!”
For reference, punishments in this era were carried out in public. They served to instill in the people the lesson that crime brought retribution, and in a society short on entertainment the execution of sentence itself was as good as a rare and precious spectacle.
“The Provincial Administrator’s getting punished!”
“That son of a bitch is finally getting what’s coming!”
“Let’s go watch right now!”
Yunnan’s commoners were so wildly excited that they traveled from the farthest corners of the province; the Punishment Eunuch was forced to devise ways to keep the Administrator alive as long as possible while still torturing him.
“Hmm… we’ll need to keep him alive and under torture for at least a month if it’s to serve as an example and save face above…”
“Eunuch, a representative of the Sichuan Provincial Administrator requests an audience.”
“Hm? Ah, the one who was unjustly imprisoned? Quickly, show him in at once!”
Color flooded the Punishment Eunuch’s face. Now that he knew the “rightful heir of the Dang Family” who had set this entire affair in motion was backed by Bang Un, Hyeong Seung, and Lee Chung-hyeon, even he could not afford to treat the man carelessly.
“It is an honor to meet the Punishment Eunuch. I am Hui-yeom of the Sichuan Dang Family.”
“Ohhh! Come in, come in. So, what business brings you to see this official? If there is any way I can be of help, anything at all—”
“Nothing else, really. I merely heard that Your Excellency is struggling with methods of torture and subsequent treatment.”
Hui-yeom smiled brightly.
“As it happens, our Dang Family are specialists in that very field… Might you be interested?”
“Oho?”
The Provincial Administrator’s karmic retribution was only just beginning.
Hui-yeom’s twenty-first-century sensibilities left him less than fond of those grand public tortures and executions. Yet he had no desire to simply let what had been done to him slide.
So he finished his personal revenge by introducing the family’s specialist interrogators.
With the obstructing Provincial Administrator gone, nothing remained to hinder relief work in Yunnan. Hui-yeom set the Dokwadae to the task of distributing aid.
And around the time the Provincial Administrator—reduced by relentless torture to a tattered rag that could no longer even produce a pitiful sob—finally met his death, a new Provincial Administrator arrived from Beijing.
The man newly appointed Provincial Administration Commissioner of Yunnan Circuit cast his mind back to the day, just before leaving Beijing, when he had met Seal-Bearing Eunuch Gu Hyeong-su.
—My lord, there is one thing I wish to impress upon you.
—What is it?
They had never had much contact in the ordinary course of things, yet both men shared the bond of having received kindness from Lord Bang Un, so the atmosphere was not bad.
Gu Hyeong-su said,
—In this matter, the Eastern Depot is watching with care.
—Well, of course—
—No. More carefully than that.
Gu Hyeong-su raised a finger and pointed toward Heaven. Understanding what it meant, the new Provincial Administrator’s expression hardened.
—A family that holds back the Yellow Sea and bestows relief. He is taking a very keen interest. Therefore…
Of course he had intended to do so even without being told. A man who had made “ordering the world and succoring the people” the purpose of his life could hardly fail to look with favor upon someone who had held back the Yellow Sea with his own resources, provided for his own, and still found the strength to send relief to a neighboring province.
Yet seeing the interest shown by the Eastern Depot—and by those even higher—another thought arose.
Seonji-aryong Dang Hui-yeom. What manner of man are you?
Truly a wise and virtuous capable minister? Or merely a cunning, lucky schemer who has been a little more clever and fortunate than most?
Well then… shall I take your measure?
Having settled his mind, the Provincial Administrator said to Hui-yeom,
“I’ll speak without preamble. I wish to conclude a supply contract for grain.”
Hui-yeom smiled.
“The amount already laid down as advance payment is considerable… Are you certain that will be all right?”
He had made the investment. Now it was time to collect.