The Gathering - 3
"A savings circle? Are you saying we're to buy the inn by way of a savings circle?"
I nodded at the question from one of the middle-aged men.
They're Joseon folk—I ought to give them an example they know.
"You've all heard of the ox circles back home. Farmers organized them to buy oxen for the fields—men who could never have bought an ox in a lifetime managed it by pooling what little they had. This branch circle is no different."
"But we're duckweed adrift in the Central Plains, sir. We never know what tomorrow brings—how can we commit to a savings circle? That's the business of people who trust one another, people who can afford to plan for a future."
That might hold in the homeland, perhaps. But how could anyone run a circle with men whose origins they didn't know, who might vanish any given day? That was the gist of it.
"Then allow me to guarantee that trust and that future—as head of the circle."
In their eyes, I was already a man with two buildings to his name. When the Association Leader himself—a property owner at that—stood surety, the calculus changed.
"If a leader as accomplished in business as you holds the center, that much we could believe. But wring us dry and it still wouldn't buy a building for everyone sitting in this room, would it?"
Every man gathered here did have savings on the books. But among Joseon people, a lump sum put by did not a rich man make.
"It's possible. If you follow my lead."
I'd planned for every bit of this.
"How so, if I may ask?"
"When the building is purchased, I will bear half the cost."
The seed money comes from my own purse.
"You, Leader?"
"As circle head, I shoulder half the dues. That way, while the rest of you save toward the next round, I'll be saving my half as well. Take it slowly, as the ox circles do, and every last man here can end up an innkeeper."
Time in plenty. Half the money from me. It was how to lighten the burden on the Joseon people and keep the circle alive.
"With your support, and rounds measured in months or years like the ox circles, it might truly be done. Then the first slot falls to you, Leader?"
"I'm taking the last slot. No arguments."
If I took the first slot, it would count as accepting investment. Instant failure of the trial.
"Hoho! The last slot of a savings circle—the one spot every soul avoids—and you'd take it!"
"Didn't I tell you? I said I came here to make every Hometown Association member in this room an innkeeper."
The truth was that I simply couldn't afford to be seen taking investment. But if the results were good, it all counted as goodwill, didn't it?
The Joseon men all stared at me, dumbfounded.
"And when the last slot comes round—your turn, Leader—what then? Do you simply take one inn building for yourself?"
Good question.
"I will be repaid."
"Pardon?"
"Haha. By then you'll all be men of property. Innkeepers with steady incomes—so you need only pay me back, quarter by quarter, for the dues I advanced."
By that point, repaying me would be no strain at all.
"Remarkable..."
"That's right. The Leader is the one sacrificing here."
"Once an inn of my own is in my hands, what's a paltry sum of dues!"
I watched the inn erupt into an uproar at the mere mention of the circle, and paused to gather my breath.
The franchise business had already been approved by the Mangeum Lord in the first trial. If only this circle launched successfully, I could expand the enterprise without accepting investment or playing games with money.
All I would be doing was fronting half the money to buy inns. Through the circle itself, I stood to gain nothing financially at all.
What I was really after was the very method the Mangeum Lord had sanctioned in the first trial.
Franchise revenue.
"We understand you perfectly, Leader. Since you call it a branch circle—is there anything further we ought to keep in mind?"
As the clamor died down, one man raised a hand and asked on behalf of them all.
There was indeed something to keep in mind.
Time to come clean about the poison clauses.
"As circle head, I will hold the deeds to the buildings until the circle runs its course."
"What on earth?! You mean the circle head would hold every last building himself?!"
"The buildings are yours. This is merely a safeguard, in case the circle collapses or someone absconds with the dues."
Put five human beings in a room and one of them is bound to be trash. It's not for nothing they say every quarrel is a quarrel over pooled money. If the savings circle was a tradition, then running off with the dues was practically a folk game to go with it.
I made it known that if anyone broke up the circle on a whim, the inns would be disposed of at the circle head's discretion.
"So the buildings themselves become hostages. No room for the circle to go wrong."
"Precisely."
"Back in my village we had a bastard who ran off with the dues, too."
Someone, it seemed, was recalling a bitter memory—murmurs rippled from the back of the room.
"Is there anything more we need to know?"
"The circle carries one condition: each round opens a branch of my business. And a branch pays the franchise fee and every associated cost in full."
I had my shop hands distribute to each man present the franchise cost documents—drawn up through long deliberation between Lim Hayeon and me.
"You're telling us to pay a sum this large?"
"Isn't this condition too harsh?!"
Knew they'd balk.
Every inn opened took half its capital straight out of my pocket.
Unlike Jeon Gilsan, who had paid every last expense from his own purse from one to ten, the costs these franchisees would bear were far heavier.
"Most of it will be paid through the circle dues. As for the costs of running the business—weighed against the profits, they're more than manageable."
I had no intention of going on scraping together half the dues forever, you see.
The upfront franchise fee, the assorted costs, and the money raked in each month would lighten my share bit by bit.
"But this is simply too..."
"Leader."
A bent-backed old man raised a hand that carried a faint smell of fish.
"Old Man Kim. Speak your mind."
"This old man fled his homeland because he could not bear life as a tenant farmer, and drifted all the way here to Wuhan. And the way I see it, these conditions look for all the world like an order to tenant-farm all over again."
Knew that comparison was coming.
I stiffened my expression, let a flash of anger show, and opened my mouth.
"Since when did tenant farming mean feeding off land of one's own? Name me the tenant farmer who could take the money that buys a handspan of earth and turn it into land that feeds him for life!"
"Th-that's true. Forgive me—this old man spoke out of turn."
Don't you dare shred my goodwill into malice. The moment I drew that line clean, old Kim flinched and sank back into his seat.
"The terms are good, just as the Leader says, but..."
"Friend, if we pay this money, what do we eat?"
"Nobody but the Leader can run the food delivery business—of course it'll keep thriving!"
"Even so, friend..."
Every face wore doubt. With this much money at stake, I'd have to give them certainty.
I had no intention whatsoever of losing out on this circle.
The initial outlay would be large, yes—but I would earn it back through the franchise fees, and in the end I would recover even the dues I had paid.
And even once the buildings passed into other Joseon hands, the franchise contracts would hold. Which meant I would have a growing roster of employees who made me money, year after year.
I had expected the pushback.
They gained the advantage of becoming property owners, true—but from where they sat, the arrangement must have looked like slavery with a contract.
I had to dissolve that anxiety. Time to repackage the intentions of one Kang Yunho yet again, and hammer home only the benefits that would flow to them.
"Old Man Kim."
"Yes?"
"I'm told you were driven from place to place for being Joseon, and ended up selling fish from a street stall in some back corner where folk rarely pass."
I would begin by holding up the circumstances of the Joseon men gathered here.
"The earnings leave much to be desired, but I understand they suffice to live on."
"Master Choi, the escort."
"Yes, Leader? Though I'm no longer an escort, so..."
"I know. I heard you broke your leg on an escort run, were cut loose by the bureau, and now—lame, and black-haired into the bargain—no place will take you."
"Fortunately, I've managed to set a little money aside."
"And I know well how hard many of you here labor."
I looked out over the Joseon men, holding up their plight—how they toiled without rest and still struggled.
"The Samgu brothers working the docks say the same. Our Joseon people arrive before anyone else and leave last of all. Uncle Lee there in front is one of them."
"These days I work the docks unloading ships you arranged for us, Leader. Thank you, truly."
Uncle Lee bowed his head to me.
"A while back, the Samgu brothers came and told me the dock work was thanks to me, and offered to kick up a share of their wages. I refused them flat, on the spot. What came after, Uncle Lee knows well."
"Thanks to you, Leader, Joseon wages have risen, and some days we even have wine and meat."
I nodded, then let the silence stretch, my eyes passing over the crowd.
Kang Yunho's goodwill. Their Leader was a man who stood for the Joseon people. I held my tongue while those certainties took root in their minds.
"Why did we forsake our beloved homeland for the Central Plains—and not just anywhere in them, but this far corner, Wuhan?"
Now, to cast out the question.
"For some, it was tyranny. For some, famine. For some, plague. The reasons we left are as many as we are—but the reason we came here is one."
I raised a single finger for all of them to see. Some would reach the conclusion at once; others would be itching to know.
With the audience's attention hooked, out came the answer.
"A better life! And yet—are we living the lives we dreamed of?"
Not a soul in that room could say yes.
A persecuted people. Joseon people. Time to take what they and I shared, and forge it into kinship.
"Not long ago, constables came looking for me. They said barbarians are the sort of devils who flay the skin from a man's face—and demanded to know whether I, a black-haired barbarian, was the murderer."
"How dare they—!"
"Those Central Plains dogs!"
"What crime have we ever committed?! We came to this land for one reason only—to find a way to survive. Yet on this Central Plains soil we are criminals forever, for no reason but that we are poor black-hairs."
"That's right!"
"We work ourselves to the bone, and still we are poor. We ache at the sight of our children's torn clothes. We are exhausted, yet we must say we are fine—and that is its own misery. When the sorrow wrings tears from us in our sleep, we must swallow even those. Because that is my life. Because tomorrow I must rise again for my children."
I poured raw feeling into every word. Poverty and family—the two pillars of their lives. Shake those, and the room shakes.
"Huk—!"
"This is how we live now. But friends! At the very least—no, by any means necessary! Must we not make certain that our children, at least, never live like this?"
Every man in that room had a family.
At the word children, their hearts could not help but surge.
"...If I join your business, Leader—can my children be free of poverty?"
A father of three asked me, his eyes trembling.
"Yes. If we suffer now, our children will inherit property enough to live in plenty."
Call it a slave contract if you like. Endure it, and it's over. Sacrifice a little—you'll be earning money too. A little hardship now, and you'll own buildings.
And then your children's generation will live in happiness.
I breathed hope into them.
"..."
I could see firm resolutions flashing across the faces of the seated Joseon men.
"Why would you help us to this extent?"
To make money.
To win back Daseogak. To save Lim Hayeon.
I calmly swallowed the words leaping to my tongue, pressed a palm to my chest, and gazed at them like a man nursing some grand ambition.
"Someday, I too will have children. And I want—at the very least, on this land of Wuhan—for them to grow up watching Joseon people stand tall, never scorned here the way they are elsewhere."
Some nodded in tight-lipped agreement at my words. Others wept.
Just as a storm of emotions seemed to pass over every face, one man rose from his seat and came toward me.
"Leader!"
Then, one after another, they rose and knelt before me.
"Leader!!!"
"Have you made your decision?"
"Leader, I want to join the circle!"
"Let us join!"
"Give us this chance!"
And so the savings circle was successfully organized.
"Sorting the circle's slots is a job of its own."
My office. I murmured to myself as I looked over, yet again, the personal particulars of the circle's members spread across my bare desk.
"While you agonize over names, how about you help me clear this backlog, Boss Kang. Yoon. Ho?"
Lim Hayeon spoke with a furrowed brow from her own desk—piled high with documents, unlike my bare one.
"Haha... As the saying goes, the head of an organization isn't a seat for menial tasks. It's a seat for making decisions."
"..."
Give it a moment and she'd skewer me with her eyes.
"Fine. I'll take this much of the paperwork."
Work, then. Back to work.
"...About the branch."
"It's not urgent. The backlog comes first."
"No, not that branch—the Daseogak branch."
"Now that you mention it, a great deal of time has passed without a word."
"Do you think they don't mean to give it?"
Lim Hayeon's voice sounded oddly, faintly excited.
"It's only been days since Heo Song's funeral. Even the Mangeum Lord would hesitate to strip his murdered grandson of his assets so soon. It will take a while."
If they were handing one over anyway, I hoped they'd skip the drafty old buildings and give us something brand-new in the best location going.
"...Then what about that girl?"
"You mean Miss Jegal Hyang? Come to think of it, not one word since the marriage meeting."
We were to run the place together the moment the bookstore came through, so we'd never set a date for our next meeting.
"I-is there really any need to contact her?"
"That's true, but..."
We weren't lovers—we were contract daters. It wasn't as if we were so besotted we'd be off on outings together every day.
I supposed I could simply wait until the Mangeum Hall reached out on its own.
At that very moment, in the Mangeum Lord's estate.
"You said we'd be dating, so why haven't you contacted meeeeeee?!"
A silver-haired, blue-eyed woman was wailing.