Birth of the Hwalbindang
"You bastards! What the hell were you doing all night?!"
The next morning at breakfast, the Fort Lord's furious roar made me turn my head. Several bandits, officers among them, knelt battered from head to toe, taking a thorough tongue-lashing with their bodies a complete mess.
"Fort Lord, please go easy on them. The boys just couldn't hold back all that overflowing bloodlust in the middle of the night, that's all."
One green-haired officer stepped in to stop the Fort Lord, who already had a blade drawn and looked ready to cut the men down.
What on earth had happened that they were talking about killing them or not?
"If Green Forest bloodlust overflows, you raid the overseer?! You don't know raiding civilian homes brings the government troops down on us? Are you trying to ruin Black Tiger Fort on purpose? Are you in with these dogs too?"
An overseer managed the farmlands and squeezed the common folk for taxes so viciously he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the worst tax collectors and loan sharks as one of the most hated jobs around.
They had actually gone and robbed one of those overseers. So they really had pulled off righteous banditry for real.
"They say they wore masks and hit the place fully aware of who he was. And he was a notoriously vicious overseer everyone around here knew. Even if the county magistrate wants to catch the culprits, public sentiment is so ugly he won't dare investigate properly."
"If you robbed him, you should have brought everything back! What the hell were you thinking handing it out to the village?!"
The Fort Lord jabbed an accusing finger at the kneeling men, roaring at the top of his lungs as if the sheer absurdity of the situation had driven him past fury.
"Fort Lord, how could we haul that much grain all the way back? They did manage to pocket some gold coins, so take those and cool your temper."
Other officers who had been watching stepped forward as well, insisting the men had done well and trying to calm their chief.
"Lock those bastards in the prison and don't feed them for ten days!"
Even with every officer trying to talk him down, the Fort Lord still couldn't swallow his rage. He slammed the blade he was holding into the dirt and stormed back to his quarters.
"...What a fucking asshole."
Someone beside me muttered the words under their breath as they watched him go.
"I brought some rice porridge."
One of the officers had asked me to take some porridge to the men who had just been locked up, so I went to the prison with the bowls in hand.
"Did the villagers really like it that much?"
"Heh heh heh. 'Like' doesn't even begin to cover it. If we'd been in their houses they would've spread their legs for us."
"Ooooh."
The area in front of the prison was packed with bandits eager to hear the ridiculous exploits of their comrades.
I had planned to sneak them the porridge, but with this many people around, could I even manage it?
"Hey! You bastards! Eat first and then talk!"
My worries turned out to be pointless. The bandits simply divided up the porridge I had brought and handed it through to their locked-up friends.
"Nah. Fuck it. I'm stuffed right now."
"Me too. Heh heh heh heh."
Even though the righteous-bandit crew had been beaten half to death by the Fort Lord, they still traded shining looks as if something wonderful had happened.
"You fill your bellies while you were robbing the overseer or what?"
"No. The smiling faces of the villagers filled us up."
The other bandits stared at their comrade with faces that clearly said, What the hell is this guy talking about? Then another of the imprisoned men opened his mouth to add more.
"Me too. Fuck. Every time we went out banditing before, people were scared of us and hated our guts. But the second we handed out the grain they started bawling with tears and snot flying, laughing and crying at the same time. Just looking at that was enough to fill me up."
"So this is what that feeling is like. I've had this strange fullness in my chest ever since."
Even though their whole bodies had to be screaming in pain, the smiles of pure satisfaction never left the faces of the bandits inside the prison.
"......"
The men outside stared at that sight as if something had hit them hard; none of them could find a word to say.
The atmosphere was starting to turn weird.
A strange current began to grow stronger by the day inside Black Tiger Fort.
"Hong Gildong gathered the brothers of the Hwalbindang and declared: perform righteous banditry, wring tears and snot from the rich, and the whole people will be happy! He called this the trickle-down effect! That's what he said!"
The problem was that even in this situation I still had to keep telling the story of Hong Gildong if I wanted to keep my place.
I casually tried to warn them that the tale of Hong Gildong was just a story, that copying it in real life would get them killed, but the bandits' reactions went in a completely different direction.
"Righteous banditry creates the trickle-down effect."
"Do righteous banditry and you earn respect."
"Brother Hong Gildong..."
Come on, uncles, laugh and chatter like you used to. Why are you all sitting there absorbing the meaning like this is some solemn religious service?
Once things had reached this point, more and more bandits started acting strangely.
"Why the hell are those bastards walking around in red headbands?"
"They say they're carrying on Brother Hong Gildong's will. Acting like they're the Hwalbindang or something."
"Oh? That so? Then I'm joining too."
"......"
Bandits tying on red headbands taken from the "Hong" of Hong Gildong kept multiplying.
"Have you all gone completely insane?"
"Vice-Lord, please look the other way. That grain was already rotting. What's the big deal if we handed a little of it out to the nearby villages?"
Some of the bandits even started emptying Black Tiger Fort's own stored grain into the neighboring villages.
"You bastards! This time you put on masks and robbed a loan shark? Do you actually want to die?"
"Does the Fort Lord not even know what the trickle-down effect is? Wring every last tear and drop of snot out of a rich man's face and the people become happy! Are you seriously losing your mind just because one vicious rich bastard cried a little?"
Bandits who were genuinely performing righteous banditry started to increase for real.
Why is everyone acting like this? I'm going to lose my mind too.
Despite my feelings, the righteous-bandit activities of Black Tiger Fort only grew more energetic day by day. And the harder the new Fort Lord and a few of his officers tried to punish those actions, the uglier the atmosphere became.
Once half of Black Tiger Fort was wearing red headbands and resentment had piled up layer upon layer, the incident finally exploded.
"Fort Lord! This is wrong!"
The men of Black Tiger Fort had returned from their work. In the middle of them, an officer with deep green hair and a red headband jabbed a finger at the Fort Lord and started arguing.
"What the fuck is this bastard saying?"
"They were traveling merchants! Poor traveling merchants who only had a single escort! Just because they couldn't pay the toll you slaughtered every last one of them?! What exactly are you trying to do?!"
"You idiot. Those bastards didn't have anywhere to get money from anyway."
The Fort Lord spoke as if killing them all was only natural since they wouldn't even be able to pay ransom.
"No! Fort Lord! Are we so broke that we have to squeeze money out of poor people like that? Are we living hand-to-mouth, making just enough today to eat today?"
The officer raised his voice, face full of pure disbelief.
"Did this bastard suddenly eat something wrong? You weren't talking like this a little while ago."
He had eaten something wrong, all right. He had swallowed a meal called ideology. And from the sound of it, slaughtering poor traveling merchants wasn't something that had only started today.
"Grr! Back then we didn't know any other way! If we need money we should hit the corrupt officials nearby, or the overseer bastards! Even if we're Green Forest men we still have to keep a line we don't cross!"
"Has this bastard really lost his mind? Touch the government? You don't know the rule of non-interference with the authorities? You want us all to die together?"
"We can just put on masks and rob them! If we do it your way, Fort Lord, we'll never win the hearts of the people!"
"Hearts of the people? This bastard listened to Hong Gildong stories and went insane. Hey! I'm the Hong Gildong of the Central Plains, so shut your mouth while I'm still being nice and follow me."
"Grrraaah! The Fort Lord is no Brother Hong Gildong!"
The officer's neck flushed scarlet as he shouted, looking exactly like someone whose favorite character had just been blasphemed.
"This bastard keeps crawling higher and higher."
"I'd rather... the previous Fort Lord was better! The previous Fort Lord may not have been Brother Hong Gildong, but he was at least at the level of Hong Gildong's loyal retainers! Kuhurk!"
Whoa. A person can actually fly like that. The Black Tiger Fort Lord drove a fist straight into the gut of the officer who had dared mention the previous chief.
"You dare defend that son of a bitch in front of me!!! I've looked the other way and looked the other way, and this bastard still—! Do you want to die?!"
"Kuhurk! Kuhurk!"
The violence was so one-sided I wanted to look away.
"Well, you bastard? Feeling a little ready to reflect now?"
The Black Tiger Fort Lord grabbed the fallen officer by the hair and hauled him up as he spoke.
"Ptooey! The Fort Lord is... no Hong Gildong. He's just another filthy corrupt official!"
The officer spat blood and saliva into the Fort Lord's face.
"You son of a bitch. This won't do."
Crack. The Fort Lord simply snapped the officer's neck. Every single bandit wearing a red headband stared with mouths hanging open in pure shock.
"What are you all gawking at?! Clear the corpse!"
The Green Forest men reluctantly obeyed the Fort Lord's order, but their faces were twisted with rage.
That evening.
A huge number of Black Tiger Fort bandits packed themselves into one of the lodgings. Their hair colors differed, but every last one of them wore a red headband and a face full of simmering fury.
I wasn't even wearing a red headband. Why the hell did they drag me here?
"Killing that good man... Fort Lord. Fucking bastard."
"Those dogs who stick to the Fort Lord and scrape up money with him—what the hell do they think is going to happen after this?"
"They just aren't thinking. At this rate how are we any different from ordinary bandit packs?"
You guys are a bandit pack.
The bandits gathered in the lodging tore into the Fort Lord and his close aides, pouring out their grievances.
I sat there like an employee forced to attend a company gathering he wanted no part of, just filling a seat, when a strange conversation drifted in from beside me.
"Those Okcheon Escort Agency bastards, you know. They said negotiations with Okcheon Heobu fell through because they can't use that money. So the Fort Lord ordered them all killed tomorrow evening."
"Really kill them? Don't they realize that means war with the escort agency?"
"He says we have to make an example. If we're following the Fort Lord's orders what choice do we have? We wipe them all out."
I'm part of that Okcheon Escort Agency party, you know.
This was bad. Suddenly my remaining lifespan had dropped under twenty-four hours.
Of course, if luck held I might still survive as the automatic Hong Gildong story playback machine. But if the Fort Lord decided I was the source of all the division inside Black Tiger Fort, I would die right along with them tomorrow.
I have to find a way out.
I rapidly assessed the situation. The bandits were full of resentment. They were seething with anger. Yet they still didn't want to disobey the Fort Lord's orders.
Why?
Because they were afraid of the Fort Lord. Because they feared the Fort Lord and his close aides. And if this state of affairs continued, I was going to die tomorrow.
Then I just have to erase that fear.
Even if I managed to live, I had no intention of spending a thousand years in this place. I was going to escape with Dang Hwarin, head to Yichang, and write books.
Erase the fear of the Fort Lord.
Sow chaos through Black Tiger Fort.
And escape.
"It's my fault."
Using Soyun Shimsanggyeol to strengthen my voice, I spoke in a low, intense tone thick with guilt, making sure every ear in the room could hear me.
"What fault are you talking about?"
That single sentence instantly silenced the noisy, scattered atmosphere and turned every gaze on me.
I rose from my seat and moved to a spot where everyone could clearly see me.
"It's my fault! Again, it's my fault! The reason things have come to this is entirely because my eyes were blind!"
Wearing an expression of deep remorse and self-reproach, I began pounding my own chest and launching into self-criticism.
"How were your eyes blind? They're open perfectly fine right now."
"Even with my eyes open I failed to see properly! I was deceived by the Fort Lord's imposing presence and called him Hong Gildong! How can I claim my eyes were not blind?"
Everyone had heard me praise the Fort Lord as Hong Gildong on the feast day. By bringing that up again I kept their attention locked on my claim of fault, then smoothly redirected the arrow of blame toward the Fort Lord himself.
"Right. What the hell kind of Hong Gildong is that Fort Lord bastard!"
"Did you hear him earlier? He claimed he was Hong Gildong! Completely insane!"
Good. Pour out all that anger at the Fort Lord just like that.
"Have any of you ever seen the Fort Lord's secret storehouse? He whines every day that he has no money, yet I saw him reveling in the mountains of gold and silver treasure piled inside! How can a man like that be called Hong Gildong?"
I painted the Fort Lord as a greedy Scrooge swimming every morning through an ocean of treasure, face twisted with avarice.
"Th-the Fort Lord has a secret storehouse?"
"I think I heard something like that once too."
"If it's true he's worse than any corrupt official!"
I actually had no idea whether it really existed. But if I was going to cast him as the axis of pure evil, I needed a justification as massive as a bioweapon, didn't I?
"The Fort Lord is no Hong Gildong! The Fort Lord and his close aides are little brats who drink the tears born of wealth as if they were wine! Exactly the kind of men Hong Gildong hated most—the Bourgeoisie!"
"The Fort Lord is a Bourgeoisie?"
At my words the seated bandits' eyes flew wide as if they had suddenly understood something profound.
"Then, Party Leader! What must we do against the Bourgeoisie?"
A green-haired officer in a red headband strode up to me, dropped to his knees, and bowed his head low as he asked.
Hold on, why am I the Party Leader? That's the kind of talk that gets people killed.
"Watch your mouth! What need do we have for a head?! Our hair colors may differ, but every one of us carries the exact same single Party inside our chests—the Hwalbindang! We are all the same people!"
Filled with righteous anger, I jabbed a finger at the man who had called me Party Leader and preached at him.
"T-truly you are the Party Leader!"
I said don't call me Party Leader. Back in Joseon whole families were wiped out for treason; I had zero desire to become the ringleader of a rebellion all the way out here.
This wouldn't do. Standing alone while I spoke must have made them treat me like the Party Leader. Time for an emergency fix.
"Rise!"
"Huh? Y-yes, sir."
I grabbed the hand of the man who had called me Party Leader and pulled him to his feet.
"Rise! You too!"
Starting with the green-haired officer I took each man's hand one by one and hauled them all upright. As I kept pulling bandits to their feet, every red headband in the lodging eventually stood.
Getting a whole room of sweaty uncles on their feet was great, but now they could barely see me.
I climbed up onto a reasonably tall cabinet, pounded my chest, and opened my mouth.
"The Fort Lord and his close aides! Their chests contain no single Party! There is no Hwalbindang inside their hearts! That is what I am saying!"
"That's right!"
"Exactly!"
"No matter how fine the words, they refuse to swallow them!"
"The Fort Lord and his close aides have already split away from us!"
I made a tearing motion with both hands, ripping something imaginary in two as I spoke.
"Then what must we do?"
I looked out at the bandits who were clearly waiting for a particular set of words.
In truth everyone already knew.
Everyone wanted to say it. But fear had kept them from uniting their voices into one, so the words had never left their mouths.
The madness called Hwalbindang that now filled Black Tiger Fort to the brim.
Just like that American teacher Joe who succeeds every single time he appears in a movie, all I had to do now was give that madness a gentle little push.
Then I would escape in the chaos.
Pounding my chest, I pulled out the words that already lived in every heart present.
"We will overthrow the Fort Lord! And we will turn Black Tiger Fort—this very Black Tiger Fort—into a true single Party! The Hwalbindang!"