Reclaimed Honor, and the Return Home
The journey back from the Beast Palace deep in Yunnan’s dense jungles all the way to the Sichuan Dang Family took a long while.
Even so, they could hardly pass through Yunnan Province without meeting the Jeomchang Sect and the Yunnan Provincial Commissioner, so Hwi-yeom paid them a visit.
“You stayed in the Southern Savages longer than expected. Was it livable down there?”
“People live pretty much the same everywhere. Aside from the heat, the humidity, and the bugs, it was fine. The fruit was delicious, and the people were simple and honest.”
“Simple and honest? Those barbarians of the Southern Savages?”
At the Commissioner’s well-meaning remark, Hwi-yeom merely snorted a laugh instead of frowning.
“From the Southern Savages to here, it’s only a few mountains and forests apart. How different could it really be? Ah, though everyone there did have excellent physiques. They specialize in external martial arts, after all.”
A hunting-and-gathering economy alone shouldn’t be enough to secure food, so where on earth do they get enough protein to build those rock-hard bodies?
Of course, whenever something in this world failed to match the common sense Hwi-yeom knew, it was usually because of martial arts—so this was probably the same. He simply laughed it off.
“I-is that so…”
The Central Plains-born Yunnan Commissioner gave a small cough, apparently realizing he had been thinking with unconscious prejudice.
“Well, you’re right. By the way, I hear you’ve also agreed to sell them relief grain? Were they able to offer anything comparable to the tea monopoly rights?”
Ah, so this was the real point for him.
I already gave up some pretty generous concessions just to buy relief rice cheaply, and now the neighbors in the Southern Savages get it without any of that? I can’t stand it.
Not wanting the Commissioner to feel slighted, Hwi-yeom told the truth at once.
“We signed a contract in exchange for the sap of a special tree that grows only in the Southern Savages.”
“There was such a thing?”
“Yes. The Dang Family’s newest product will soon take the Central Plains by storm again, so feel free to look forward to it.”
“…You truly are an extraordinary man. Have you ever considered sitting for the imperial examinations and putting that talent to work for the realm…?”
“Ah, not buying. I-I mean, I don’t think I’m suited to officialdom…”
Hwi-yeom broke out in a cold sweat trying to cover the blunt rejection that had slipped out.
“More importantly, is the relief effort going well? I’ve received reports that the grain from our family has arrived, but…”
“Of course it is.”
The Commissioner smiled with full confidence.
“The people of Yunnan have regained their stability. There’s enough rice now to see them through this winter and wait for next year’s harvest.”
“I heard the grain merchants from the Central Plains came storming in?”
“Ah, those scoundrels. The Surveillance Commissioner gave them a proper thrashing.”
While Hwi-yeom had been away at the Southern Savage Beast Palace, grain merchants from Anhui Province—having heard the rumors—had rushed to Yunnan in a frenzy. They had glibly offered to sell rice at the miraculous exchange rate of one pouch of black pepper for one pouch of rice.
Black pepper was a luxury spice traded for its weight in gold, so they had literally been trying to sell rice at gold prices.
The exasperated Commissioner had let them keep talking just to see how far they would go. In the end they had demanded that he hand over Yunnan’s tea monopoly rights to their merchant houses in exchange for selling the rice at a “bargain” price of only three times the normal rate.
On top of that, they couldn’t even agree among themselves and started fighting, each trying to slip the Commissioner a bribe so he would award the tea monopoly to their own house.
The Commissioner had been so dumbfounded he hadn’t even felt like scolding them as they brawled right in front of him. He had quietly sent a local official to the Surveillance Office and brought back judicial officers.
“But even if they were detestable, didn’t the Surveillance Office lack a proper pretext to crack down on the grain merchants?”
“I dug through the ledgers myself and carefully piled up evidence of the tax evasion they had committed in collusion with the previous Commissioner, then sent it all over.”
“Ah, how satisfying.”
Those bold Anhui grain merchants—who had thought to seize the lifeline of Yunnan’s starving people, blackmail the Commissioner for a huge windfall, and even snatch the Yunnan tea monopoly—had ultimately been smashed along with the previous Commissioner.
In their place they met the newly arrived, hard-nosed Commissioner and judicial officers who, watching his every cue, had become as disciplined as new recruits. The merchants were beaten half-crippled with large, beautiful canes and stripped of rice equal to everything they had previously evaded in taxes.
The Commissioner snorted a laugh.
“Those disgusting insects must have calculated that Yunnan could never abandon them if it wanted a rice supply. But as long as our contract with Sichuan stands, that was nothing more than a private dream.”
“We shall serve you with all our heart and soul, valued customer.”
“I acted on trust in the Sichuan Dang Family. If you break that promise… you know what happens, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Hwi-yeom answered calmly, though a cold sweat trickled down his back.
Thanks to the invention of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, the already fertile soil of Sichuan had seen its productivity soar. Still, farming was absolutely dependent on the weather; there was never any guarantee it would always go well.
Weakening the influence of the Central Plains grain merchants is going according to plan, but making outright enemies of them would be another problem.
Hmm… later I’ll have to dangle a carrot in front of them. The timing for expanding into the Central Plains was coming up anyway.
Justice and thorough retribution felt great, but they still had to live in the same world, didn’t they?
It wasn’t because he liked the merchants. If a disaster on the scale of the Great Famine that helped cut short the Ming dynasty under Chongzhen (1627–1644) or the Guangxu Great Famine that claimed thirteen million lives under the Qing (1876–1879) ever struck, he would still need decent relations with the Central Plains grain merchants.
From their perspective I’m a mortal enemy. Hmm…
Hwi-yeom decided to keep in mind a plan for coaxing the Anhui and Central Plains grain merchants when the time came to enter the Central Plains.
Outwardly, of course, he pretended Sichuan’s own crops would be more than enough.
“No need to worry! Always with cheap, delicious produce right at the customer’s side—Sichuan Farmers’ Cooperative is here!”
“Haha, that’s reassuring.”
After rubbing his palms together just enough to soothe the Commissioner, Hwi-yeom asked,
“By the way, about the tea fields I asked you to secure—how did that go?”
“Well, I inquired among the farm households hit by the disaster who might want to switch the tea they grow, but there wasn’t much response.
“So I changed approach. There are people who need to plant new tea trees in place of the ones that withered, yet lack the money for it or enough cash to hold out until the trees mature. Under normal circumstances those freeholders would have fallen into tenant farming. I proposed to them:
“Wouldn’t you rather lease the fields to the Sichuan Dang Family free of rent? Then you can cultivate Caffa on those fields and sell it to the Dang Family.”
“Oh? Did you get any takers?”
“My reputation isn’t that bad. Am I not the incarnation of integrity who drove out a corrupt Commissioner?”
“Hahaha, of course you are!”
The scale of farmland the Commissioner had secured was far larger than expected.
He spoke with a smile, but inside he felt bitter.
Without the Dang Family’s proposal, the majority of Yunnan’s people would have lost their livelihood and been forced to live as dependents of landlords.
I will make Yunnan strong no matter what. And for that…
I must grab hold of the hem of this boy who keeps working one impossible miracle after another and never let go.
The Commissioner made that silent vow.
“It’s the green uniforms!”
“People of the Dang Family!”
“Thank you! Thank you!”
The faces of the people they met on the road were completely different from before.
Expressions were bright, and when they saw members of the Dokwadae they kept bowing as if greeting officials.
During free time at an inn where they stopped for a meal, several Dokwadae warriors were left bewildered when the owner refused to take payment.
“No, why won’t you take our money?”
“Come now, I have some decency. How could I charge people of the Dang Family? Don’t worry and eat your fill—if it’s not enough, just say so. After you saved all these people, what are a few bowls of noodles worth?”
That reaction wasn’t limited to the noodle shop.
Wherever they went, welcome and praise followed. The Dang Family warriors who had at first been puzzled slowly began to swell with pride.
“Ahh… this is it!”
“I’m truly proud to be a warrior of the Dang Family.”
Flush with high spirits, they became even more courteous and well-mannered, determined not to show any ugliness in front of the people of Yunnan.
Watching them quietly, the Dokwadae Commander took out his pipe, lit some tobacco, and sank into reminiscence.
Thirty-three years.
For fully thirty-three years the Dang Family had known nothing but decline.
Sichuan’s strongest martial force, its honor, and its wealth had all slipped through their fingers like sand.
The honor of having defended Sichuan had gone to Shaolin’s Thousand-Hand Living Buddha, who had delivered the finishing blow to the exhausted and wounded Demonic Cult after the Dang Family had already fallen, bleeding.
No one spoke of the Sichuan Dang Family’s sacrifice.
No one.
The people of the Dang Family had grown ever more ruthless, more distrustful of others, more selfish.
The only reason the Dang Family had managed to keep even the shell of an orthodox sect was because Dang Un-sang—who had become Family Head at a young age—had never lost the bearing of an orthodox martial artist and had silently endured those hard years.
People often cursed Dang Un-sang as an incompetent Family Head who had failed to stop the clan’s collapse and allowed the main line to be led around by the branch families on a leash.
But—
“Only because we endured the long winter could we greet the spring…”
Because Dang Un-sang had delayed the Dang Family’s fall even a little,
because he had scrambled to raise money by compromising with the branch families and somehow kept the clan alive,
because he had held together those growing narrow and bitter under the family’s hardships and, with a smiling face, made sure they never forgot the bearing of orthodox martial artists—
this day had been able to come.
The day when the people of the Dang Family could once again take pride in their clan,
the day when not only the people of Sichuan but those of other provinces as well came to revere the name of the Sichuan Dang Family.
“Grand Patriarch… are you watching?”
The Dokwadae Commander thought of his old comrade and blew a long stream of tobacco smoke toward the sky.
“You raised one hell of a son and grandsons.”
As if the drifting smoke had actually reached the heavens, a wind like long laughter blew from somewhere far away.
By the time Hwi-yeom’s party left Yunnan and returned to Sichuan, the harvest was already drawing to a close.
The people of Sichuan welcomed the Young Family Head’s return with open arms, and Dang Un-sang and Eun Seol-ran embraced Hwi-yeom tightly, savoring the joy of reunion.
Of course, not everyone was delighted by his return.
“What?”
Elder Bak Chang-eon—whose hairline had retreated a little farther in just six months—stared at Hwi-yeom with pupils that openly screamed What the hell is this nonsense? Shit, no—. Hwi-yeom stuck out his tongue cutely.
“While I was in Yunnan I picked up a few new business opportunities besides the tea monopoly…”
“…Specifically, what kind of talk?”
Where did I put my Cheongshimhwan…
Groping for his pocket while barely maintaining composure, Bak Chang-eon asked. Hwi-yeom answered,
“Ah, there’s a tree called the rubber tree whose sap we can harvest. With it I plan to mass-produce gloves, waterproof dyes, and boots and shoes.”
“…So you’re saying you’re going to build glove and shoe factories?”
“Yes.”
“……Very well.”
Bak Chang-eon finally found his Cheongshimhwan, tossed it into his mouth, and chewed hard as he spoke.
“We’ll pull some people from the Medicine Storehouse and the Medical Hall, and if we throw in the ones who just moved up to the practical track at Hwi-eon’s Training School, it should at least stop the bleeding.”
“Ah, but the scale of the business is going to be a bit large.”
“….”
“….”
“Uh, how large?”
“Uh, roughly… big enough to operate across the entire Central Plains?”
“….”
“Eheh.”
“You crazy money-grubbing bastard!! How can a person just keep starting endless work when there are no people left to do it?!”
Elder Bak Chang-eon finally exploded.
“Grab him!”
“Elder Bak has gone mad!”
People around them rushed in, panic-stricken, and clung to Bak Chang-eon’s arms and legs, but he foamed at the mouth and roared,
“Let go! Let me go! Today I will settle the grudge of one hundred seventy-two days of continuous overtime with no days off against that money-grubber!”
“Come on, with that many hours you must have raked in plenty of overtime pay—what’s there to complain about?!”
“I’ll kill you!!”
The Dang Family was peaceful today as well.