Tunnel
Every great invention of the century—or every grand undertaking that defines an age—is first dismissed by the people of its own time as so much empty nonsense.
In that light, the Provincial Governor’s reaction was perfectly realistic and entirely reasonable.
“What in heaven’s name do you mean, bore a road straight through a mountain? You’re telling me that’s even possible?”
“Honestly, even back in the late Joseon period they were already digging tunnels for siege warfare. Why is everyone making such a fuss about punching a hole through a mountain…?”
Just look at the Romance of the Three Kingdoms—Zhuge Liang dug tunnels left and right when he was trying to take Jincheng, didn’t he?
Hwi-yeom found everyone’s reaction more baffling than anything else, but the Provincial Governor’s position remained rock-solid.
“You little fool. Digging a tunnel through earth and boring a hole through a mountain are not the same thing. With a tunnel you can pick a spot without rock and just dig where the soil is soft. But when you start carving into a mountain, even if you hit dirt at first, you’re bound to run into bedrock sooner or later. How do you propose to dig through that?”
“Ah, so that’s the issue.”
Okay, message received. Hwi-yeom nodded.
“Let’s say our Sichuan Dang Family’s extraordinary rock-breaking techniques somehow solve that problem. If we can actually bore through the mountains, you wouldn’t oppose it then, would you?”
He had no intention of revealing the true nature of black powder to the authorities.
“Hmm… You want to open roads connecting every city in Sichuan with Seongdo as the hub… roads that pierce straight through the mountains instead of winding around them…”
The Provincial Governor stroked his chin and asked one more question.
“One last confirmation. You’re certain those tunnels won’t collapse? If a landslide brings one down, it could turn into a very serious affair. An ordinary landslide is an act of heaven. But if a tunnel you built collapses and people are harmed, that becomes the Dang Family’s fault.”
“Have no fear. You’ve seen the aqueducts we built, haven’t you? As long as we carry out periodic maintenance, they won’t collapse unless someone deliberately wrecks them.”
When Hwi-yeom stated it so flatly, the Provincial Governor finally nodded.
“Well, if it’s truly safe, I have no reason to stop you. I still can’t give you any government laborers, though.”
“The Dang Family will handle everything ourselves. You’ll look the other way that far, yes?”
“Fine.”
Apparently deciding he had nothing to lose, the Provincial Governor stamped his official seal on the “Sichuan Province Mountain Road Construction Plan” submitted by Hwieon Comprehensive Construction.
The core points of the plan were as follows:
1. The Sichuan Dang Family intends to construct roads linking city to city. The work will be financed entirely from the private assets of Hwieon Comprehensive Finance. No government laborers will be provided.
2. Should the construction cause landslides, excessive logging, or any similar problem, the project will be ordered to halt immediately.
3. In exchange for assuming full responsibility for the entire project, the Sichuan Dang Family may levy reasonable tolls on the completed roads. Taxes will be assessed on the revenue collected.
4. This project, however, requires review by the Sichuan Provincial Military Command. Should the Command object, the work may not proceed unilaterally.
It was exactly the outcome Hwi-yeom had expected. Road construction was intimately tied to military movement, so of course the Military Command would be involved.
With the Provincial Governor’s seal in hand, Hwi-yeom next visited the Provincial Military Command yamen and met the Regional Military Commander who held military authority over Sichuan Province.
“Roads of this sort can create serious security problems. If foreign enemies invade, those mountain tunnels become ready-made avenues of attack. With Sichuan’s rugged terrain we can hold ten thousand men with a thousand, yet—”
“Hahaha! Truly, Commander, your military insight is unmatched in the realm! This ignorant fellow has had his eyes opened today. Oh, by the way, this is nothing much—I just felt awkward coming empty-handed, so I picked up a paperweight from the market. It would look splendid on your desk.”
The Commander glanced into the wooden box Hwi-yeom offered and saw the “paperweights” nestled inside—each one seemingly saying, Hello? I’m a toad. I know how to repay favors properly. Usually paid in advance. He snapped the lid shut at once.
His face flushed with a mixture of fury and embarrassment, and his voice rose.
“How did you know I happened to need a paperweight just now?! Ahem. Upon further reflection… is not the most critical factor in warfare the ability to move with speed? If the Sichuan Dang Family opens roads through the remote mountains, our Gyeong troops and warhorses will travel the highlands with ease. The Son of Heaven’s army will be able to strike outward in every direction and crush foreign invaders. Proceed without worry.”
“Aigoo~ Exactly! With a brilliant general like you guarding our Sichuan Province, we can all rest easy!”
In the time it took to draw a single deep breath, the Commander had flipped his military doctrine like a pancake. Hwi-yeom collected the resounding stamp of his seal and headed straight back toward Yunnan.
There was, of course, a little friction along the way.
“You’ll have to walk over my corpse first!”
Elder Bak Chang-eon, who had thought Hwi-yeom’s return might finally free him from work hell, sprawled bodily across the threshold of Hwi-yeom’s office. Unwilling to commit the unfilial act of literally trampling an old man, Hwi-yeom simply hopped lightly over him, slipped out the door, and flashed a sunny smile.
“I’ll bring you a souvenir on the way back.”
“You rotten brat!! Why now of all times?! Would it kill you to clear the backlog first?!”
“Better to hit Yunnan while they’re still hungry so we can drive the price down!”
At those words Bak Chang-eon stretched a hand toward Hwi-yeom’s retreating back, then let his head fall in defeat.
“…Summon the Elders’ Council.”
I refuse to die alone.
Where had the sage-like Elder Bak Chang-eon gone? The Sichuan Dang Family, which had only just begun to taste a little peace, started buzzing with noise again.
Meanwhile, compared to the previous Yunnan trip when they had hauled grain, this journey—traveling light with nothing but bodies and contracts—was swift and comfortable. Because they had not brought the Dokwadae swarming around them as before, they ran into an unexpected encounter just before reaching Yunnan Province.
“Hand over everything you’ve got!”
“We’ve been ambushed by wild mountain bandits!”
“?”
An unwelcome meeting, to be sure.
“Kehehehe, that woman’s a looker. Tonight you’ll keep my bed war—”
Bang!
“The chief’s dead!!”
“Hidden weapons! Run!”
“Honestly, just look at the clothes and figure it out.”
True to form, the bandits had tried to paw at Dang Su-jeong and thereby earned the distinction of receiving the first lead-bullet cranial implants in the history of the jianghu. Even if this was before modern communications and even if Yunnan lay beyond the Dang Family’s usual reach, how could a pack of bandits fail to recognize the distinctive deep-green robes of the Sichuan Dang Family? At that point they deserved to die as third-rate trash.
Then again, recognizing the robes probably would not have changed their fate much.
“It’s a little disappointing that it turns into an ordinary dagger once the magazine’s empty, but until then this thing is fantastic.”
“Right?”
“Once you get used to this, throwing hidden weapons by hand feels pointless. The power-to-internal-energy ratio is unmatched.”
“What about loading black powder instead of explosive poison?”
“Useless. Didn’t you see the misfire just now?”
“Hmm. So black powder still doesn’t work well with flintlock mechanisms instead of matchlocks… Thanks, Auntie.”
Thus, engraving the selfless sacrifice of bandits who had donated their entire bodies to the advancement of human science deep in their hearts, they arrived in Yunnan Province.
The Yunnan Provincial Governor examined the contract Hwi-yeom presented with the expression of a man who had just been handed an outrageously expensive bar tab he had no memory of signing.
“…What kind of absurd nonsense is this?”
And after Hwi-yeom walked him through the same explanations that had worked on the Sichuan Provincial Governor and Military Commander,
“Let Sichuan try it first. If clear results appear, Yunnan will grant permission as well.”
“I happen to have promissory notes here—ten-year repayment at two-tenths interest, intended to rescue unfortunate small merchants and peasant households on the brink of bankruptcy because of Yunnan’s locust plague…”
“Yunnan and Sichuan are hardly strangers. All right, where do I stamp?”
Through a process that reconfirmed the eternal truth that sincerity reaches every heart,
“You want to open a road between Yunnan and Sichuan? By boring through mountains? Then if western nomads or those western heretics from the last great war invade and corner us, we could call Sichuan’s troops as reinforcements, couldn’t we?”
“The Sichuan Regional Military Commander himself agreed, saying, ‘Is not the most critical factor in warfare the ability to move with speed? If the Sichuan Dang Family opens roads through the remote mountains, our Gyeong troops and warhorses will travel the highlands with ease. The Son of Heaven’s army will be able to strike outward in every direction and crush foreign invaders.’”
“Is that so? Ahem. By the way, this paperweight looks like it will live a long life.”
“Isn’t the turtle the traditional symbol of a long-lived general? Hehe.”
“You’re not about to have the Dang Family Legal Affairs Division start moving, are you…?”
“Aigoo, what’s the problem? A proper paperweight has to have real weight. What could be heavier than a lump of gold? Please remain in Yunnan as long as this little turtle—nice and long.”
“Quite right. Haha.”
Watching Hwi-yeom offer relief for the people to the clean Provincial Governor and a modest token of sincerity to the slightly(?) corrupt Military Commander, Lee Jinmyeong tilted his head.
“Isn’t this just a bribe? How is this any different from the previous Yunnan Governor we ousted for corruption?”
“There’s no legal problem at all. Because the documents those two stamped in exchange for our sincerity don’t guarantee private profit for the Dang Family. On the contrary, they’re documents showing a private house spending its own fortune to advance the public good.”
“…Is that so?”
“Of course. I already checked with Legal Affairs.”
In the twenty-first century it would have been a bribe, no question. But in this era, whether a gift received by an official counted as a bribe or not was decided by a single criterion: Was it for the public good or private gain?
In this age, even if you bribed a Provincial Governor to launch a massive civil-engineering project that dug tunnels linking cities, and even if the Sichuan Dang Family made a fortune as a result, as long as the project created jobs and made life more convenient for ordinary people, from a Confucian standpoint you had practiced “governing the world and saving the people.” It was not a bribe—it was something to be praised!
True, both Regional Military Commanders had pocketed a little(?) extra income. Yet because Hwi-yeom’s construction plan looked so unrealistic, they also reasoned that stamping a seal on a project that cost them nothing and pocketing a little cash was pure profit. And they stamped those seals partly because they believed that even if the Dang Family profited, the benefit would still flow to the public good. Calling them corrupt officials or hypocrites would have been a bit unfair.
In the end, having gathered four seals the way one gathers Infinity Stones, Hwi-yeom returned to the Dang Family with the contract bearing the Family Head’s seal. Instead of snapping his fingers and vacuuming half of Sichuan’s wealth into his pocket, he began genuine preparations for construction.
“Yoooooung Maasterrrrrr—!!!”
Ah, correction: before he could start construction preparations, he first had to become a quietly obedient house spirit stuck in the inner compound for about a month, processing the mountain of backlog together with Bak Chang-eon.
For the record, Bak Chang-eon was the one who had grabbed Hwi-yeom and forced him to work… yet somehow Bak Chang-eon was also the first to collapse.
Watching the spectacle from a front-row seat, Dang Un-sang left a brief review.
“Vicious little bastard. My own son, but still a vicious little bastard.”
“No.”
“What’s the secret? If you’ve found a way to endure this kind of overwork, you shouldn’t monopolize it. Share it with the whole family so the entire Dang Family’s productivity rises.”
“I completely agree, Young Master! Good things should be shared!”
At Dang Un-sang’s words, the eyes of Bak Chang-eon—who had been lying like a corpse—blazed with fiery light. Lee Jinmyeong and every clerk in the inner compound, who had been pretending to be writing machines with no interest in the conversation, suddenly focused every nerve on their hearing.
In a silence so complete you could have heard a hair fall, Hwi-yeom spoke as if the question itself were absurd.
“Work is something you enjoy, not something you endure.”
“….”
“Think about it. You’re going to work until the day you die. The very mindset that treats work as misery is already wrong. Be grateful that you can work. Treat work as a hobby, as a lover, as the meaning of life itself, and then—”
“You workaholic lunatic!!”
The small historical achievement of Hwi-yeom advancing the concept of the workaholic by roughly four centuries passed completely unnoticed by everyone present.
After the cold winter had passed and January arrived, on the day he turned sixteen, Hwi-yeom heard something completely unexpected.
“What? Marriage?”
What on earth was this about?