Chapter 117
Chapter 117
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 117
Chapter Title: The Crab's Game: Reforged (2)
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Yi Geum was keeping a close eye on Kim Unhaeng's Noron Chundang faction.
It wasn't the suspicious kind of attention.
In Yi Geum's eyes, it looked like a fledgling who couldn't join the traditional Noron powerhouse families had scraped together every connection he had—no matter how tenuous—to curry favor with the king's Tangpyeong policy and rise through the ranks on royal favor alone.
And to Yi Geum, that was a very good sign.
'The Tangpyeong policy is showing results.'
There was already precedent among the Soron faction.
After the Lee In-jwa Rebellion, the Soron (and Nam-in) remnants with nowhere to go had either hidden in the wilderness like Junron Yun Ji or kept their mouths shut on factional politics and stuck to practical duties, like Wanron Park Mun-su and Jo Jae-ho.
But a faction like that had no reason to exist in the first place. Without ideology, what was the point of a faction?
And that was precisely Yi Geum's ideal world.
Loyalty and morality were defined by the king. Ministers were there to assist him, not to set the nation's ideology alongside the king.
All that talk of "choosing the king" was arrogant enough to make him want to vomit just thinking about it.
Yi Geum wanted to demote the Noron—especially the Namdang (non-Cheoksin) wing—into thorough technocrats as well.
It was a hope that had remained impossible until his death in the original history.
But now, there was the "blueprint" of Kim Unhaeng's Chundang, and on top of that, the "trigger" of the gunpowder theft from Mokcheon.
'It's possible. The court I want is definitely within reach. It's still weak and crude, but isn't Kim Unhaeng proving it?'
Of course, as king, Yi Geum could take far more forceful measures than Kim Unhaeng.
Pins treason on the Noron and turn them into another Soron mess. The entire court would become like Chundang.
Yi Geum knew better than anyone that the Noron had no reason to rebel. They were the victors, after all.
But no rebellion in all of East and West history had ever had a "reason."
Yi Geum personally poured himself a cup of omija tea.
As tea fit for a king, it was of such high quality that a sharp soju-like aroma rose from it.
'When the time comes...'
Once he'd crushed all the factional parties, no one would be left to stop whatever the king did.
At that point, he could finally achieve the last lifelong goal he'd had to put off due to his ministers.
The purge of the crown prince.
That would complete the two words symbolizing Yi Geum's life: "Tangpyeong" and "punishment basket."
After the Mun clan incident, the crown prince gathering political forces looked extremely dangerous.
Yi Geum would have killed him eventually even without overt political moves, but that excuse gave him moral justification.
With the royal grandson, Yongdu-gun, and even Hophi as backups, there was no need to worry about succession anymore. The crown prince's role was done.
Savoring the aroma of the omija tea, Yi Geum tossed it back in one gulp. It was a motion frowned upon in the tea ceremony.
And so, the third player—and the strongest—in this game joined the fray.
The edict Yi Geum issued that autumn appeared, at first glance, to be the usual Soron protection policy.
"After I entered the palace for an audience, I soon had a dream. The wife of a Soron scholar appeared, weeping, and begged me to stop the Noron from massacring the Soron. To her, I replied:
'The state is none other than this Joseon, founded by our ancestors[國家惟我祖宗朝鮮]. This is a family matter. I shall handle it appropriately.'
Upon waking, I realized: How could those words have come from me? Clearly, our ancestors spoke them through me in the dream."
Excluding the shift from individual to clan, it was a Joseon remix of the famous line attributed to Louis XIV about half a century earlier.
This was the part that ruffled the ministers' feathers.
As Kim Unhaeng had thought, this country didn't belong to the Jeonju Yi clan. It belonged to the yangban.
Noron Deputy Minister of Personnel Yi Ik-bo stepped forward.
"The sage merely yields to what comes[物來順應]—"
The rest would have been something like, "How can we heed prophecies of things that haven't even happened yet?"
But even in the royal presence, Yi Ik-bo had to swallow his words rudely.
He'd realized his mistake.
Joseon's ministers had wielded prophetic interpretations masterfully for centuries.
If they thundered at the king that "the heavens have spoken," they had to accept it when the king countered with "I dreamed it."
The king's chosen tool, the "dream," wasn't a flimsy excuse—it was a deus ex machina.
And sure enough, the king's stern rebuke came down.
"I issued the edict with tears in my eyes, yet you aren't moved—instead, you dare quote those four characters at me? 'Yield to what comes'? Does that mean you'll turn rebellious when the powerful families do?"
In the most aggressive interpretation, it could mean, "Are you telling me not to defy the Noron?" And right now, the king was as aggressive as it got.
Yi Ik-bo panicked and collected himself.
The king couldn't kill a Noron heavy like him. Just take the scolding. Exile was possible, but his colleagues would get him out soon enough...
That was Yi Ik-bo's second mistake. He'd overlooked one thing.
The king's petty imagination.
Just as banning beatings in the military led to twisted abuses short of actual striking, in this land of weak military and strong bureaucracy, "as long as you don't chop off the head, it's not tyranny" bred endless creative punishments.
"Arrest Yi Ik-bo and exile him to Jeonui County (modern-day Yeongi-myeon, Sejong City), but march him there at double speed—two days' journey in one!"
Yi Geum had invented Joseon's first-ever double-time exile option: forced double-march escort. The order rang out severely.
Yi Ik-bo hadn't even hit fifty yet, but in Joseon, that was middle-aged. Forcing him to nearly run an already grueling road guaranteed the punishment's effect.
And it didn't end there.
Yi Geum appointed his favored minister Yi Ji-eok as the new Deputy Minister of Personnel.
This new appointee, Yi Ji-eok, was External Uncle to Chancellor Chae Je-gong—that is, a Nam-in figure.
The Noron-dominated Ministry of Personnel dragged its feet on delivering the appointment, rebelling once more.
Yi Geum had the Ministry's junior secretary dragged in, stripped of his official robes, and dressed in military uniform. The edict went out immediately.
The courtiers dismissed it as the king's usual vigorous tantrum.
Unable to truly purge the Noron, he was venting stress with such antics. They could tolerate that much.
No one paid attention amid the commotion to the fact that Jeonui County neighbored the now-gunpowder-less Mokcheon County—and was also near Georyong Mountain, hotbed of Joseon's seditious ideologies.
Whatever Yi Geum's intentions, the move looked like Soron protection and Nam-in elevation.
For the Lee In-jwa rebels buried deep in the ocean depths, it was a chance to finally catch their breath.
And Yi Geum was just waiting for them to bite, lunging out of the water in panic.
With his claws ready to seize their necks.
After meeting Yi Ha-jing, Magistrate Shin Chi-un returned to Kimhae, but as expected, he had zero interest in governing the county.
As a result, Kimhae County was on the brink of collapse.
Local magistrates in Joseon neglecting their duties wasn't exactly rare.
But when Jinju Magistrate Im Gyeong-gwan, who'd run similar lax policies, got hauled to Seoul for bankrupting the taxes, Kimhae's clerks sounded the alarm.
Unless it was a clerk-orchestrated crime, clerks suffered the most from a magistrate's misdeeds.
Think of desks, phones, and computers during a raid. Magistrates got fired or exiled; clerks got beaten to death.
So the clerks urged him: "The mood from above seems off, so at least pretend to work."
But Shin Chi-un displayed an even more aristocratic flair, a step beyond lowly folk.
To him, deep in paranoid delusion, this was clearly a conspiracy.
So he abandoned work entirely and started investigating how Im Gyeong-gwan had been caught.
Nearby magistrates, assuming the ousted former minister Shin Chi-un would return to court now that Yi Geum had swapped the deputy minister for a Nam-in, cooperated readily.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Shin Chi-un's hunch was spot on.
"The Jeolla Inspector sent up a report?"
Needless to say, Jeolla Inspector Jo Un-gyu had no business meddling in Gyeongsang's Jinju or Kimhae's grain taxes.
The implication was clear.
His Naju comrades were coming under suspicion.
He could feel the crab claw's teeth tickling his nape, one by one. Shin Chi-un broke out in a mental shellfish allergy.
Then one clerk cautiously spoke up.
"Sir, forgive me, but with no other way to fill the relief granary, we must resort to expedients."
Shin Chi-un was irritated. This was why you couldn't deal with commoners. Who cared about a few bushels of grain right now?
But snapping would only arouse suspicion. Pretending calm, he asked,
"What is it?"
"It's not something to report openly, but the Gyeongsang coast has been rowdy lately. With Waegwan's long market banned, many Tsushima Japanese without livelihoods have colluded with our coastal vagrants."
It was the smuggling era Kim Unhaeng had sparked with Japan.
Shin Chi-un knew the lay of the land, so he waited silently for the clerk's next words.
"Among the goods they bring, there are valuables aplenty. And the smuggling captains mostly trade grain for them—so if we seize both sides and fill the national treasury, there'll be no reprimands."
Shin Chi-un had zero interest in a plan Kim Unhaeng would cheer.
Commoners might not get it, but this was a political crime. Filling the warehouse or not, he'd be dragged to Seoul.
"What nonsense is this? Filling the granary by robbery? Where in the world is there a magistrate who does that?!"
The Kimhae clerks didn't know Kim Unhaeng's achievements, so no one countered with "right here."
That bought Shin Chi-un a moment—and inspiration flashed through his mind.
Yi Ha-jing and Yun Ji had spoken of Cheongoseong.
And as Yi Ha-jing had told Kim Unhaeng, Cheongoseong was a star that had fallen during the Imjin War.
"No, wait. Forget the relief grain for now—isn't it our duty to catch those smuggling captains crossing the border? Gather the constables for defense duty. Get me an interpreter too. I'll lead the raid on the Japanese myself."
The clerks sighed in relief. The magistrate had finally come to his senses.
They couldn't officially suggest seizing smuggler goods. This was proper official conduct.
Unfortunately, both the clerks and Shin Chi-un were wrong.
First, contrary to the clerks' hopes, Shin Chi-un still had no interest in Kimhae's grain taxes. What caught his eye was the foreign fleet itself.
And contrary to his assumptions, the ones most eager to come to Joseon right now weren't "Japanese."
Surprisingly, Nagasaki's Dutch chief factor David Vollen hadn't been dismissed yet.
Even the Batavia Council of the Indies found it awkward to report the incident to headquarters.
They couldn't hide the loss of an entire ship forever. Vollen's meticulous cover story—"the Dennissenbelt, peacefully surveying the Joseon coast, was captured"—had reached Batavia.
But Batavia couldn't forward that verbatim to the Amsterdam directors.
The already distrusted VOC losing a ship to Eastern natives would prompt shareholders to demand a full audit of the books.
And the VOC's performance over the past half-century? One word: fabricated from start to finish.
It was more literature than economics. The difference from adventure novels? Bigger numbers.
They'd sold stocks on cooked books, robbing Peter to pay Paul. That's where the VOC stood now.
A real audit would end careers.
The Council reached the same conclusion as modern employees embezzling for crypto: "Recover the loss, plug the hole, and cover it up!"
No more scandals allowed. They had to retrieve the Dennissenbelt.
According to Japanese witnesses Vollen relayed, it hadn't been destroyed.
Batavia sent fresh forces to reclaim it.
Forces embodied in a clear name: the 1,150-ton spiegelretourschip Gustaaf Willem, far larger than the 800-ton Dennissenbelt—and named for the great general who'd led the VOC's glory days.
They couldn't send a formal fleet without the shogunate flipping out.
So the Gustaaf Willem docking at Dejima in the fall of Yeongjo 30 was strictly a "merchant cargo ship."
On paper, at least.
And Nagasaki magistrate Matsuura Nobumasa, ever the flexible international trade handler unbound by paperwork, was having none of it.
"Bring out the captain! These madmen dare bring a warship?!"
During the ginseng war, Nobumasa had kept his post and covered shortfalls thanks to bribes from chief factor Vollen (and kickbacks from Matsuura Keisen's Kim Unhaeng deals).
He'd planned to let it slide, but this was too blatant.
Captain Jan van Ingen shrugged.
"Warship? This is a proper merchant vessel."
"You planning to sell cannons?! And what's with those soldiers?!"
"Soldiers? All I see are honest, hardworking civilian sailors."
The ~300 "civilian sailors," faces scarred and few teeth left, diligently polished muskets and cutlasses while spitting polite phlegm through the gaps.
Captain Van Ingen (the name only fueled Nobumasa's rage—"state your name!" "A person [ningen]"—mocking him?) lowered his voice.
"We're heading to Joseon to demand our ship back. We mean Japan no harm. Just armed lightly for self-defense, given that pirate den."
Nobumasa shut his mouth.
Pushing further would turn Dutch "self-defense" on Japan.
One ship couldn't conquer Japan, sure—but Yankee-style shelling still hurt, even if they needed darker hulls for it.
But gunfire and brawls in Nagasaki? Nobumasa was done, win or lose.
Seeing he'd gotten through, Van Ingen smiled humanely.
"Our chief factor says irregular traders plague the Joseon route these days. A security headache for Trade Minister (magistrate) Excellency, no? Point us at one, we'll thrash them lightly to clear the path. No issues."
He handed over a fistful of Batavia cloves.
Scholarly friendships spread like orchid fragrance.
Even from Western barbarians, Nobumasa had to concede the overpowering spice.
All four players had gathered for Kim Unhaeng's reforging—the Reforged stage.
Author's Note
1. Yi Ik-bo's exile matches history, except the original destination was Miancheon (modern Dangjin, Chungnam).
Interestingly, the Annals record him stopping mid-sentence, while the Diary of the Office of Royal Decrees says he finished. Double-time exile existed before but became a standard option under Yeongjo first—no prior records use the term.
2. As mentioned last chapter, Shin Chi-un really was Kimhae magistrate then and got hauled to Seoul around Yeongjo 30.9 after Im Gyeong-gwan, released soon for illness—but the Naju placard incident hit the next January.
Jinju's Im Gyeong-gwan had botched finances before, so plain incompetence. Shin Chi-un (who wouldn't have worked anyway) fits. But the Diary notes both arrests stemmed from Jeolla Inspector—not Gyeongsang's—reports. Suspicious, since that inspector Jo Un-gyu also preempted the Naju incident.
3. "Yankee" for Americans may derive from Dutch "Jan Kas" (earlier arrivals in NE US than English).
4. Spiegelretourschip (literal: mirror return ship) was nominally cargo but structurally warships, differing mainly in cannon count. A century earlier, sister ship Prince Willem was English-Dutch War flagship.
"Mirror [spiegel]" from ship structure; "return [retour]" for long-haul colony-to-homeland runs. The in-story Gustaaf Willem was meant for Batavia to Rammekens but detoured to NE Asia due to events.