Homework Inspection
The next day, Hui-yeom sought out the Metallurgy Department of the Innovation Hall to inspect the homework he had left them.
"You returned safely, I see."
"And you sound terribly disappointed about that, Manager Han?"
"Not at all. It's just that after throwing a man into living hell and then strolling back looking this refreshed, it rather gets under my skin."
"Ah, so you've finally stopped filtering what you say in front of me. An excellent development."
"And if I don't like it, will you fire me?"
"If you don't like it, I work you harder. Who retires someone for their own good? Don't talk nonsense."
"…"
Having neatly shot down Han Cheol's grumbling about the mountain of homework dumped on him, Hui-yeom began reviewing the completed assignments.
The tasks Hui-yeom had left with the Metallurgy Department were as follows:
A steam engine more convenient to operate and suitable for commercial use.
Research into trains powered by steam engines, and the railways to carry them.
A practical, usable coil spring.
Beautiful, practical weapons and objects from the Guyaja-je brand, to be gifted to influential figures across the land.
In truth, six months would not have been generous for researching even one of these alone.
But the Metallurgy Department under Han Cheol had done it.
How? By grinding their lives into the work.
"Here, we've prepared a small-scale model. This way, please."
"Alright."
The Innovation Hall had grown so large it had spilled past the family's northern rear wall and into the hills. On a rough, tree-cleared mountainside, a miniature diorama modeled after the terrain of Sichuan had been set up, and Hui-yeom smiled when he saw it.
"Ohh~ Now this is clever."
"That's Han Cheol for you. Han Cheol."
"I know. Excellent work. You've laid railway tracks across Sichuan."
But to Hui-yeom's eye, the layout of the rails looked a little odd. He studied it a moment and found the reason at once.
No tunnels, so they've looped around every mountain. That way the construction costs skyrocket and the whole thing gets more dangerous.
Sure enough, Han Cheol raised the point himself.
"About this steam locomotive you conceptualized for us, Young Master.
Running it inside a city or across flat ground is one thing, but using it the way you described—linking counties, crossing between cities—there are some… rather serious practical problems, aren't there?"
"I know exactly what's wrong. Laying the track costs a fortune, the curves slow everything down, fuel efficiency is worse than expected, and if you load it heavy it tips over."
"If you already know all that…"
"I already have the solution, so set it aside for now. Let's just watch the model run."
"No—then give us the answer from the start."
"If you only swallow the bait I hand you without any trial and error, the part of your brain that thinks for itself goes soft. Manager Han, you don't teach your craftsmen that way, do you?"
"Urgh…"
With nothing left to say, Han Cheol gestured to a researcher, who lit the firebox of the tender on the model train sitting on the rails.
"It'll take a little while for the water to boil."
"Fine."
A short time later the water boiled, and the model train began to move.
Watching it run, Hui-yeom nodded.
"Good. Now I'll tell you the solution."
"Yes?"
"We go through the mountains."
"Pardon?"
Han Cheol whipped his head around with a look that said, Have you finally lost it? Hui-yeom grinned.
"We bore mountain tunnels. It's possible."
"What do you mean, possible…"
"I said it is. You don't trust me? Who am I?"
"A madman. A madman for work."
"Wow. Cursing me right to my face in a situation like this."
"But you're also the madman who turns every mad idea into reality. When the Young Master talks like this, it usually means there's a real chance it works…"
"Not a chance—it will work. A family that builds aqueducts can't manage this?"
"That isn't the problem. Boring through a mountain is the problem. Even the Foolish Old Man who moved the mountains took three generations. You know that story?"
"Don't worry. Our Laughing Explosive Dragon will blast the mountains open for us."
"What?"
Han Cheol blinked like a calf. By the standards of this age he was a craftsman of the first rank, an extraordinary man in his own right—which meant he could feel the sheer force of a small idea. As a member of the same Innovation Hall, he could hardly be ignorant that Dang Unhwa had developed black powder. And yet the thought of using it to bore through mountains had never occurred to him.
It was not that his intelligence was lacking. It was that conceiving something for the first time was a Columbus's-egg sort of feat.
Once someone thinks of it, it seems like nothing. Until someone does, no one thinks of it at all.
"I don't like explaining things twice, so call the Construction Manager."
"Yes."
Boring mountains and laying rail through them was Construction's job. Summoned by Hui-yeom, Construction Manager Gwak Do arrived with a sour face and offered his greeting.
"Young Master, I came a long way, but if you're about to dump more work on me, I'm lying down right here."
"Okay, these people are really…"
As Hui-yeom muttered that he might just throw them all into a genuine work hell, Han Cheol broke into a cold sweat and glared at Gwak Do, who hurriedly bowed his head.
"The Construction Department got off easy—I never even gave you homework, did I?"
"Easy?! Do you have any idea how much work Construction has had?! The expanded Innovation Hall, the agricultural co-op buildings, the newspaper offices! Do buildings just sprout like bamboo shoots whenever it rains?!"
As Gwak Do began to snarl with enough force to foam at the mouth, Hui-yeom smiled.
"I almost gave you homework for that, too. Looks like you got away with freeloading."
"You little—"
"Want to try saying that while looking at Manager Han here?"
"…"
Gwak Do took one look at Han Cheol's face—a face that would have made an Egyptian pharaoh inside a pyramid say, Brother, you do not look well. I've warmed a place for you; lie down and rest. Shall I lend you some bandages?—and his mouth sealed itself as neatly as if mummy wrappings had wound around it.
Hui-yeom spoke with a smile.
"Anyway, I called you because I intend to place a major construction order with your department."
"What kind of order?"
"We're going to bore through mountains and lay railway lines through them."
"You lunatic!!"
"Listen first and then have your fit. The Young Master's authority is in the dirt right now."
"You! You're the one who turned me into a monster!!"
"Judging by the way you're talking, you're still human. Try listening like a person!"
"Grrrr!! Arrrgh!!"
"Aigoo, all that praise—you're making me blush."
Gwak Do foamed and raved for roughly the time it takes to drink a cup of tea before he finally calmed down.
He listened seriously to Hui-yeom's explanation, then let out a long, deep sigh.
"This is insane."
"Can't be done? That doesn't sound right."
"That's the problem. If it were pure insanity I'd curse you out properly, but my damn brain keeps whispering that it actually makes sense."
"You've already cursed me out plenty, so what's with the sudden delicacy…"
"Anyway, from a Construction Manager's standpoint, I judge it possible—on the premise that this black powder of yours can actually do what you claim."
With cement, rebar, and craftsmen experienced enough to build multi-kilometer, four-tier aqueducts on a massive scale, boring through a few mountains of Hui-yeom's choosing and making tunnels was within their capability.
The real problems were cost and permits.
"The budget is going to be enormous. Will this even make money? Why are we building it in the first place?"
"Part of it is for profit. But actually it's the opposite—we're doing it to release profit."
"What?"
"What kind of nonsense is that, Young Master?"
"If you make your money in a region and don't return anything to that region, something always goes wrong. The world is full of people who get sick with envy the moment they see wealth piling up in someone else's storehouse.
Honestly, building aqueducts, laying water and sewage lines, paving roads—yes, those make money, but we didn't do them for the money. They were public-interest projects to raise our influence in Sichuan Province.
Without them we never would have gotten this close to the Provincial Administration, and the State-run Ironworks would have stayed a pipe dream. They'd have stripped us of the technology and the craftsmen, and we wouldn't even have gotten a spoon in the pot."
"Come now—everyone in Sichuan knows His Excellency the Provincial Commissioner treats the Young Master like a grandson. How can you say—"
"Grandson, my foot. We're 'his grandson' because we make him money and give him face. If we'd only looked after the Sacheondang Family and nothing else, we'd have been your grandson.
For the last thirty-three years, was my father not a friend's son? Why the sudden affection now? That's how the world's heart works, so don't get any strange expectations."
"…Sometimes when I look at the Young Master, I feel I've lived my whole life in vain."
"I've just gotten mud on me a little early, so don't start blaming yourself again. Political thinking is for strange people to begin with."
Hui-yeom gave a short laugh.
"We're about to rake in serious money again from Yunnan and Sichuan—tea, rubber, the works. If all of it only pours into the Sacheondang Family's coffers, the high officials get uncomfortable and the local economy doesn't thrive either.
At times like this you launch a big project, scatter money to both provincial offices, and scatter money into the local community.
And once it's built, the railway will keep delivering convenience and cash for a long time."
"Understood."
"Good. That settles the train and railway matter… What about the coil springs and the gift-grade Damascus weapons?"
"The springs are over here."
Springs had an enormous range of uses. They were essential for firearms as well, which was why Hui-yeom had made a point of ordering them.
"Hmm. Still a bit large."
The springs the Metallurgy Department had produced were thick as a man's thumb—large, but with excellent elasticity all the same.
"You need to get these down to the thickness of a hair. Put in a little more effort."
"…Yes."
"The gift-grade Damascus weapons are excellent. I'll take them to the Sichuan Provincial Military Commander, the Yunnan Provincial Military Commander, and the Provincial Administration offices—related to the railway construction. Ah, and package a few separately and send them to Legal Affairs. We should show some sincerity to the high officials in Beijing who helped us this time."
"Understood."
"You had every right to grumble earlier. The results are outstanding."
"The boys under me are half-dead. There's a reason people call the Metallurgy Department the Widow Department."
"The Widow Department?"
"Because we turn perfectly good wives into young widows. No one ever goes home."
"Isn't that a good thing? I know full well you're all at the age where bath night at home fills you with dread. From that angle, overtime, dormitories, and midnight snacks are practically employee benefits, aren't they?"
"Young Master? Did you leave your sanity behind in Yunnan?"
"As they say—without madness, nothing is achieved. If you don't go mad for the business, you will never reach success."
"Must be nice being mad, you crazy bastard!"
"Thank you for the compliment. Ha! Ha! Ha! In that spirit, shall I give you a little more work?"
"Spare me. My mouth was wrong."
Han Cheol, who had momentarily lost his self-control at Hui-yeom's deranged remarks, seized his fleeing sanity with both hands the instant Hui-yeom said, in effect, So, one more project?
"Alright, enough joking. You've truly worked hard. I'll arrange it so the entire Metallurgy staff can keep regular hours for about two weeks—no more Widow Department talk."
"Y-you mean it?"
"Yes. You've earned that much with these results. Or would you rather take the money, forfeit regular hours, and stay up late with me pursuing the realm of absolute madness…"
"Regular hours! Thank you! Hey! You lot! You heard that! Regular hours for the next two weeks starting today!!"
Han Cheol cut Hui-yeom off with a bellow. For a moment the entire Metallurgy Hall fell silent—then,
—Wooooaaaaahhh!!!
A distant roar of cheers rolled through the whole hall, the kind that erupts from an apartment complex when Korea scores a last-minute reverse goal against Japan.
Listening to it, Hui-yeom laughed in disbelief.
"Come on, how hard have those people been working for a reaction this extreme?"
"Young Master, how can you say that? Do you know how hard they've worked?"
"You're saying that in front of me? You know perfectly well how hard I work."
"The Young Master isn't human!"
"Not content with calling me a madman, now I'm something beyond human entirely? Where does this end?"
Hui-yeom shook his head, half-amused.
"Fine. A company isn't fun unless you get to badmouth the boss a little. I always pursue open communication."
"Which means you'll give us that much more work."
"See? You already know my heart so well. Isn't that the power of open communication?"
When it comes to running his mouth, no one can beat him. I need a hammer. A hammer.
Han Cheol sighed.
Hui-yeom's gym-trainer style of management—driving people to their limit and then saying, No, that isn't your limit, more, more, more more more, the eternal "one more rep!"—was a perfect recipe for backlash and burnout.
But Hui-yeom knew exactly where people would truly break or collapse, and he modulated the pressure with precision. Every time, he soothed them with enough rest, economic reward, or social reward—like the time he buried Foreman Choi's mother-in-law's seventieth birthday in so many gifts that the man could swagger through the neighborhood with his shoulders squared.
It was like those instructors you wanted dead through the entire training camp who, once they eased up a little at the graduation ceremony, suddenly looked like angels. After being wrung dry by workloads, people were deeply moved by these occasional kindnesses and nodded to themselves: Still, there's no one like our Young Master.
And so Hui-yeom took the matter of the Sichuan mountain tunnels to the offices of the Provincial Administration.
And there—
"So what you're saying is, you want to blow up mountains in order to clear a path for something called a 'train'—a long lump of iron that moves?"
"It's a little more complicated than that, but simply put, yes."
The Provincial Commissioner looked at him with genuine concern.
"…Are you unwell?"
…It seemed there were still quite a few mountains to cross before construction could even begin.