Chapter 128
Chapter 128
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 128
Chapter Title: The Crab Sauce's Counterattack (2)
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Even if it weren't the dead of winter but the height of summer, the psychological chill enveloping the interrogation hall would have been utterly unaffected.
His gaze fixed on Shin Chiwoon, Yi Geum scanned the surroundings with a kind of clairvoyance.
The first figure that came to mind was Kim Unhaeng, standing not far away.
Yi Geum was impressed by the efforts of the ministers who had quelled this rebellion, but not to the point of being deeply moved.
That was only natural. Hadn't Yi Sun-sin done as much?
Yi Geum had no intention of being a king inferior to King Seonjo; his subordinates couldn't afford to be lesser than Yi Sun-sin either. That was why he had rebuked Park Mun-su, saying Yi Sun-sin had done it, so why couldn't you?
Thus, Kim Unhaeng's standing hadn't dramatically improved. He was still just the flashy young upstart Yi Geum had always pegged him for.
But in this moment, Kim Unhaeng's contribution shone brightly.
The rebellion would have been suppressed without him, but capturing this audacious traitor hiding in a Dutch ship alive had handed them the label of traitors selling out the country—something they couldn't have achieved otherwise.
This was crucially important.
The core issue in the longstanding Noron-Soron divide had always been King Gyeongjong. The Dutch hadn't even existed in the picture.
The Soron faction had united under the banner of "loyal retainers for Gyeongjong," and Yi Geum had countered with "choked by my brother's grace," fighting in the same ring.
Whether the Noron called Gyeongjong impotent or not, on the surface, it was a contest of loyalty toward Gyeongjong and the royal bloodline that formed the game's key pivot.
But if the opponent handed them the weakness of being national traitors on a silver platter, everything changed.
Yi Geum and the Soron now held a perfectly righteous superior-inferior dynamic in terms of justification.
So Yi Geum didn't wail in despair.
On the contrary, he felt like laughing.
Without twitching a finger, Yi Geum spoke.
"Don't raise your voice like that."
The guards around Shin Chiwoon tensed their grips.
They thought the king, like Yeonsangun, would order them to smash the noisy wretch's mouth. Honestly, even Shin Chiwoon couldn't complain if he got the "Kim Cheoseon" treatment this time.
But Yi Geum issued no such order.
"The words of a traitor who's spent thirty years clinging to crab legs and yapping are beneath notice. Is that all the justification you have—that lowly side dish? How tiresome. Such nonsense never even reached my ears. Talk of ganjang gejang or raw crab is no more than the cawing of crows and squeaking of rats; I've never once lent it an ear."
Park Mun-su caught a familiar whiff in the king's rhetoric.
'That brazenness...'
Yi Geum spoke just like Kim Unhaeng.
"Thus, from the Gapjin year until now, I've never once hesitated to eat ganjang gejang. This is my unshakeable integrity, with nothing to be ashamed of before Heaven or my royal brother."
Shin Chiwoon's face twisted as if a soy-marinated crab had leaped up and snapped at his nose with its claws.
"What... did you say?"
The counterattack of the crab sauce.
Kim Unhaeng had been too young to know, and Shin Chiwoon had been a mere junior official at the time, so they were oblivious—but the veteran senior ministers remembered.
Yi Geum had indeed sought out ganjang gejang himself.
Not long after the Lee In-jwa rebellion ended, Yi Geum—then in poor health—had sent an official dispatch to a coastal village.
<Procure purple crab sauce [紫蟹醬] for medicinal use.>
Purple crab sauce referred not to the common freshwater crab variety but to sauce made from large sea crabs.
It was summer then, not the season for fermenting crab sauce, yet Heungok County Magistrate Kim Gwangak (near modern-day Tongcheon in Gangwon Province) scoured the coast and somehow procured it.
He might have grasped the implicit threat: fail, and you'd learn what happened to others who ate it. In any case, it turned misfortune to fortune; posthumously, under King Jeongjo, Kim Gwangak was honored as a loyal subject.
It wasn't unnatural at all. Had Yi Geum suspiciously refused ganjang gejang to an excessive degree, it would have fueled even more suspicion. Even if not ill, he had to eat it deliberately.
That's why Shin Chiwoon had tried differentiating himself by claiming he hadn't eaten it. In the original history, King Yeongjo's needless wailing here only amplified the doubts.
But now was different. The king calmly dropped that dragon-scale remark right in the interrogation, turning it into proof of his integrity.
Yi Geum ate ganjang gejang. He ate raw crab. Unlike Shin Chiwoon, he hadn't slept with foreigners but had gloriously crushed the barbarians.
Everything was proper. No one fit the adage of "the gentleman walks the righteous path" better.
The Soron remnants, who had slandered the king with bizarre conspiracy theories and tried to sell the country to the Red-Haired Devils, were utterly indefensible.
The other rebels dragged in alongside Shin Chiwoon put up their own desperate struggles.
"The most heinous phrase in the prophecy is mine!"
"I only wrote your ancestors' names here to slap on my son's tab!"
But Yi Geum didn't flinch.
Kim Unhaeng sensed no tremor in Yi Geum's spirit, forged in Shin Sukju's steadfast integrity. The massive blaze swirling around Yi Geum seemed to engulf and smother the rebels' pathetic sparks.
Yi Geum adroitly guided the interrogation, twisting whatever they said into evidence bolstering his own justification.
Yun Hye—Shin Chiwoon's uncle—who had listed the personal names of Joseon's successive kings on paper was especially delectable prey.
To pin the charge of murdering the rightful king on Yi Geum, the Soron still needed the position of guardians of the ancestral shrine; they couldn't afford foolish insults to the entire royal house (i.e., the state).
"This reveals the traitors' scheme in full. What lunatic could harbor even a shred of doubt? Historians, record this exchange verbatim!"
What was originally to be compiled after the prophecy incident and exam paper forgery case—Yeongjo's "I didn't kill him!" propaganda book Cheonyiso-gam—was now being completed live in the throne room.
Yi Geum gestured with the poise of the strong.
"Execute no one yet, nor inflict further corporal punishment. There are mountains of clues left to extract on their collusion with the Red-Haired Devils and other rebels. If even one prisoner dies, I'll strictly punish the responsible office."
Shin Chiwoon and the Heungcham Party were dragged away, grinding their resentment, back to prison.
It felt a bit queasy, but since even the Soron hardliners' flailing hadn't damaged the king, the Noron now moved for their own goals.
The Noron long-cherished wish: total annihilation of the Soron.
In political strife as in war, targeting enemy leaders was par for the course.
The mark was the Soron's top surviving official, "capital evacuee" Pan Jungchubu-sa Lee Jong-seong—who had flung a memorial and fled the capital again.
"Lee Jong-seong places his faction above the nation and seeks death for it. His latest memorial only apologizes for praising the old Soron monster Lee Gwang-jwa, saying nothing of this heinous incident—revealing his true intentions fully."
As Kim Jae-ro, Kim Sang-ro, and the mighty Kim clan elders piled on Lee Jong-seong's crimes, he rushed back too late.
With the rebellion fresh, Yi Geum couldn't spare the Soron entirely. Lee Jong-seong was stripped of office and exiled beyond the capital gates, as he wished—no need to enter anymore.
But that was it.
When Noron ministers' sights shifted to Park Mun-su, Yi Geum slammed on the brakes.
"The nation's punishments demand greater caution the graver the matter. Let not the word 'satisfaction' (快) guide your hearts, ministers."
He then reiterated his torture ban—which he'd ignored himself. The Noron ministers were driven mad.
But the Noron's true madness was just beginning.
Yi Geum's aims had never been limited to quelling the rebellion.
Using Yun Ji's uprising as pretext, he sought to crush not just the Soron but the Noron too, achieving perfect evenhandedness as absolute monarch.
And the seeds he'd sown bore fruit now.
Training Commandant Kim Seong-eung's report arrived.
"Appropriate Yun Ji's lowly soldiers beheaded rebel leaders Yun Ji and Park Chan-sin and surrendered; the rebels' final stronghold, Sangdang Fortress in Cheongju, has fallen. Captured Chungcheong Military Commander Choi Jin-hae and former Deputy Minister Lee Ik-bo were safely rescued."
Originally, Yun Ji had planned to execute them in a final spasm, but his men betrayed him first.
"Sangdang Fortress was built by Won Gyun, and in the Musin year, rebel general Park Jong-won offered it up; rebels hunkered there were doomed from the start."
Yi Geum, attributing victory not to Kim Seong-eung's merit but to heavenly logic and earning the commandant seething resentment yet again, got to his point.
"Choi Jin-hae merely lost as a general, so his guilt and punishment are clear; but Lee Ik-bo's case—raising righteous militia only to be captured—is highly suspicious. Send him up immediately."
Yi Geum wanted neither the dead ringleaders nor the rank-and-file.
He sought the two survivors providentially rescued: Choi Jin-hae and Lee Ik-bo.
Choi Jin-hae was a fellow clansman sharing Musuri DNA, while Lee Ik-bo—the Noron former deputy minister—had ample reason to resent the king from his turbo exile.
Heaven itself was aiding him, it seemed.
Kim Unhaeng had cursed his Musuri nephew for blood-tainted antics, but even Musuri kin could be useful depending on the wielder.
Unlike Kim Unhaeng, Yi Geum—whose lowly mother hadn't defined him—believed blood didn't dictate destiny.
After days of "work," the investigation results with Chungcheong Military Commander's testimony dropped, shocking the court.
"Former Deputy Minister Lee Ik-bo, exiled to Jeonui County, nursed petty grudges without reflecting on his crimes and colluded with rebels; the gunpowder vanishing from Mokcheon and bandits marching on Chungcheong were all his doing."
"Choi Jin-hae testifies that during the Geumgang battle, Lee Ik-bo and his men suddenly shouted defeat, fled, and attacked our lines, causing loss—we must scrutinize and punish. Interrogate Lee Ik-bo harshly and uncover his crimes!"
Any Noron defending Lee Ik-bo would share Lee Jong-seong's guilt: placing faction above nation, a chilling charge.
Moreover, Lee Ik-bo's kin included current top Noron Chief State Councillor Lee Cheon-bo.
Lee Cheon-bo, rife with scandals even within Noron, couldn't escape unscathed—and with the Chief State Councillor implicated, the branches would spread.
Desperate Soron ally Lee Cheol-bo's clan groveled with a second toilet-tax offering, even seeming to denounce his own Noron brothers as suspicious to the king.
This was the "counterstrike weapon" Yi Geum had stockpiled with resolve through pain when Jang Yong-yeong had made a fool of him at Gyeongbok Palace.
And that weapon punched a hole in the Noron dam.
Unless plugged soon, the torrent would widen the breach and could collapse everything.
Kill the Soron who rebelled.
Implicate and devastate the Noron too.
Then dispose of the loathsome son, raise the grandson into a sage, and seat him on the throne. This Joseon would stand on the bedrock of Yi Geum's ideal paradise.
A world where all aristocratic clans bowed as equal slaves before the monarch.
For an aspiring enlightened despot like Yi Geum, it was enough to stir sexual excitement.
So Yi Geum, after ages, grabbed his royal robe and visited a palace lady's quarters.
It was Musuri, whom he'd lately dressed in victory robes and frequented. Half to find a mother figure like Lady Mun, half to test ministers' backlash with similar indulgence.
But with the rebellion fostering a reign of terror, no one dared remonstrate if the king boozed or chased skirts mid-fast. This was the king's majesty.
After intercourse unbelievable for an old man, as Yi Geum lay askew, his eyes caught a curious object: a doll rare in Joseon.
"What is that?"
Musuri replied with humble delight.
"A trifling plaything, but lately popular in the capital; my family brought one as a talisman for blessings."
Come to think of it, Yi Geum had heard. Public officials gathered at Wangsimni claimed it was made with Western techniques.
Taking it, Yi Geum examined the doll closely.
For the thrifty king who'd lifelong banned (others') luxury, it should have irked him.
Yet he didn't order it burned.
The doll jerking dumbly in the king's hand seemed a symbol.
He was the king.
And this land's myriad subjects danced to his tune like marionettes.
Yi Geum smiled and gripped the doll tight.
Like modern cases, Joseon's security probes didn't wrap in one go.
But with the king's strict no-kill order, the Royal Guard had to retire venerable consultants like caning and starvation.
Enter the Chun-sik-gap.
Detonating on soft body parts like lips inflicted pain rivaling flogging, and it was supposedly healthy too—perfect.
"You scum, think we won't make you talk? Someone saw you scheming with Yun Gwang-cheol on the porch last fall!"
"I don't even know who Yun Gwang-cheol is!"
"Hey, crank the Chun-sik-gap!"
"Yes, sir!"
The guard spun the handle and thrust the copper wire; fully charged tens of thousands of volts of static zapped the prisoner's face.
"Gaaack!"
"If your numb body's craving a hundred rounds of Chun-sik-gap, keep stonewalling!"
"I-I'll talk!"
Roughly like that.
But Shin Chiwoon needed no fancy Chun-sik-gap.
He was already possessed by the Six Martyred Ministers.
Survival was hopeless anyway. Might as well drag as many hated Noron to the afterlife.
The Royal Guard's careless slip—"Aren't you linked to Lee Ik-bo?"—sparked volumes of inference for Shin Chiwoon.
'Cunning tyrant. Using this to crush the Noron too...'
Shin Chiwoon approved. He'd name Noron without torture.
But heavyweights like Left State Councillor Kim Sang-ro, Supreme Council Vice-Chair Kim Jae-ro, or Central Council Vice-Chair Won Gyeongha were tough.
Everyone tracked such top ministers' movements. Even if he claimed collusion, suspicions would clear fast.
As Shin Chiwoon pondered, Board of Punishments and Royal Guard Chief Hong Sang-han appeared with guards.
Judging one Chun-sik-gap insufficient for such a venomous tongue that spewed atrocities before the king, he'd rushed three new ones from the Armory.
Hong Sang-han spoke with gravitas.
"Subordinates say you plotted with former Naju Governor Lee Ha-jing in the capital; confess truthfully, and no needless suffering."
Hoon-guk Mid-Army Commander Jo Dong-jeong—known to have died by thugs—was posthumously outed as rebel.
While demolishing his house into a pond of nails, they unearthed a body near the outhouse.
Lee Ha-jing: bitten by maggots, staggered in shock and pain, slipped, fell in, and vanished.
With Lee Ha-jing's name already cited as traitor multiple times, the court promptly gibbeted his rotten corpse—not dismemberment execution, but privy-split corpse quartering.
The Royal Guard, reporting on Lee Ha-jing, had come asking after Shin Chiwoon's name surfaced.
In that instant, two hazy intel bits fused in Shin Chiwoon's mind.
Lee Ha-jing had shared the Chun-sik-gap inventor's tale with him. And that man had foiled their grand plan on Ganghwa Island.
Kim Unhaeng assumed Lee Ha-jing wouldn't blab to fellow Heungcham about him, given positions.
He was right—except for one man outside Seoul Heungcham: Shin Chiwoon.
Kim Unhaeng knew Lee Ha-jing had met Shin Chiwoon and suspected, but too many eyes on Ganghwa for risky execution. Park Mun-su aside, the op head Shin Min disliked Kim Unhaeng.
Post-first interrogation, surveillance tightened, poisoning unfeasible. Without certainty, even Kim Unhaeng held off.
And Murphy's Law held true in Joseon.
Shin Chiwoon smiled through cracked lips.
He could settle his minor grudge alongside grand revenge.
"Just as you say, I did plot with Lee Ha-jing in the capital. He told me a rising Noron star, Kim Unhaeng, staunchly refused ganjang gejang. He said if we raised troops and struck the capital, that man would respond from within."
Author's Note
1. Kim Gwangak's deed isn't recorded contemporaneously (perhaps due to guilt over ordering the crab sauce), but appears in the Jeongjo Annals. Other commendation nominees reported cutting flesh from their thighs to feed sick parents, but Jeongjo dismissed it as cliché and honored his grandfather's crab sauce deliverer instead.
2. Lee Jong-seong did suffer dismissal and exile for exactly that reason, though he'll return soon.
Also, Yeongjo's torture mitigation orders flip-flopped as needed; in Yun Hye's case today, ministers urged going slow after he bit his tongue from rushed torture, only for the king to explode in rage.
3. Static electricity has negligible harm due to ultra-short contact time, but even everyday sparks approach tens of thousands of volts.
4. To avoid confusion, major officials' factions in-story:
Kim Sang-ro, Kim Jae-ro, Won Gyeongha, etc.: Noron Southern Faction
Hong Bong-han, Hong Sang-han, etc.: Noron Northern Faction (Anti-Soron)
Lee Cheon-bo, Lee Ik-bo: Noron Eastern Faction (Crown Prince moderates)
Lee Jong-seong, Jo Jae-ho, Park Mun-su, Lee Cheol-bo: Soron Hardliners (Evenhanded faction)
May not match history exactly; factions simplified for plot—thanks for understanding.