The Merchant King's Audience
Three Emperors. Four Kings. Five Lords.
The founding of the new nation had not been the work of the Emperor's vassals alone. Countless others had joined their strength to the cause, and so the Emperor repaid his subjects' labors with ranks of merit. For those outside the court, he established a hierarchy of contribution and guaranteed them privileges accordingly.
The Three Emperors. Three men who had labored for the founding with effort equal to the Emperor's own were granted privileges second only to the throne. They were Namgung Jo, the Heaven-Piercing Sword Emperor of the Namgung Clan; Moyong Seong, the Northern Dipper Fist Emperor of the Moyong Clan; and Jang Seoryong, the Radiant Star Emperor.
The Emperor had allowed them to share equally in a portion of the imperial privileges. But the Radiant Star Emperor of the Myeonggyo had later become a target of purges and fled to Xinjiang. Namgung Jo of the Namgung Clan had died of illness some years past, leaving Moyong Seong of the Moyong Clan the sole remaining active figure among the Three Emperors of the new nation.
The Four Kings were four men granted authority equal to that of the imperial princes of the blood. Paeng Jin-yang, the Hot-blooded Saber King of the Hebei Paeng Family; Yeong Il, the White Dragon Beggar King of the Beggars' Guild; Myeonghyeon Satae, the Heavenly Sword King of the Emei Sect; and at their head stood Go Danjun, the Donghwa Merchant King.
Among the Emperor's kin, the princes who governed the provinces held the right to enter the imperial palace freely. Go Danjun, the Donghwa Merchant King, had used that privilege and was already within the palace walls.
The moment Danjun received Ak Jun's report by carrier pigeon, he made for the imperial palace. He knew a report of the same content would already have reached the court. Danjun feared that Jinmyung's actions might have ruffled the Emperor's temper, and so he had come to the palace to protect his family.
Guided by a eunuch, Danjun stepped into the Emperor's garden. Rare and precious flowers from every corner of the realm had been gathered there, and at their center stood the Emperor himself. A table had been laid with assorted sweets and tea; the Emperor had been waiting for him. At a gesture, Danjun took the seat across from the Emperor.
"Danjun. It has been a long while. I was just growing restless — have you come to keep me company over tea?"
"Your servant is overwhelmed by Your Majesty's grace."
At the Emperor's command, Danjun shared idle talk over tea. He spoke of the upheavals he had witnessed during the turmoil in Goryeo, and the Emperor listened with laughter.
"So, then. What worry brings you to seek me out?"
The Emperor had laughed long at Danjun's stories, then asked with a deliberately loosened expression. Danjun knew full well that the look was feigned.
"My grandson, in a fit of youthful folly, has followed his betrothed up Mt. Hua. I am in the midst of summoning him home so that such a thing never happens again. I came to beg punishment, lest he have somehow hindered Your Majesty's designs…"
"Your grandson? Ah… that child from back then?"
The Emperor rose from the table and walked among the flowers blooming in the garden. Danjun felt a chill of dread at the Emperor's pretense of ignorance.
Danjun knew the Emperor better than anyone alive. They had been comrades-in-arms, trading partners, and once Danjun's superior. Because of that, unlike others, Danjun knew the Emperor's many faces. Yet across every face Danjun had ever seen, one quality never changed.
Thoroughness. There was no chance the Emperor was unaware of the Mt. Hua Sword Discourse or of Jinmyung's movements. That he still feigned ignorance before Danjun meant he had already reached a decision regarding the boy. Danjun turned over in his mind what he would have to offer up to keep Jinmyung safe.
"The reason I once favored you was that rational nature of yours. But there are times it leaves me rather disappointed."
The Emperor spoke while caressing a single blossom with one hand.
"Ten years ago, I struck a bargain with your house. That you should worry so now — is it that you do not trust me?"
"It is only that I have grown old and weary, fretting over even small matters. Rebuke this servant for his foolishness."
When Danjun named himself a subject, the Emperor turned back to him with a smile.
"Come to think of it, you must already be seventy… Unthinkable in the old country. You have lived a long life indeed. You and I both…"
"Your Majesty remains in the prime of vigor."
"Haha. You really have grown old. To hear such words from you, who were always so cold — it is more amusing than anything that happened in Goryeo… or Joseon, as they call it now."
Danjun noticed that the Emperor was addressing him as he had during the war. Perhaps, he thought, the Emperor might yet forgive Jinmyung.
"Look at this garden. Finer than any other under heaven."
The garden held the rarest flowers of the realm. Strangely, blossoms of the south and trees of the north grew side by side.
"It is like the Peach Blossom Spring itself."
"Indeed. Is this not the world we once dreamed of? And if one flower among them sheds its petals onto another's leaves… would I take that as a fault?"
"Your Majesty, this servant is overwhelmed by your grace…"
"Overwhelmed, nonsense. If you leave, with whom am I to share old memories? Do you mean to sell me off and then pretend not to know me?"
"Your Majesty, this servant shall await your summons at any time."
"Yes, yes. Hurry home and hold your seventieth birthday feast with your family. Is that not a joyous occasion?"
At the Emperor's dismissal, Danjun withdrew with repeated expressions of gratitude. Once Danjun was gone, the Emperor caressed the bud of the flower he had been looking down upon.
When even the eunuchs had been sent away, a man in crimson silk robes approached the Emperor. He knelt at the Emperor's side and waited for the command.
"Has Danjun left the palace?"
"Yes. Preparations are complete. But… shall we cancel the plan?"
The Emperor remained lost in thought, still stroking the blossom. After a moment, he lifted the hand that had been caressing the flower. The bud tore free; its petals scattered on the air.
The Emperor brushed off his hand and looked up at the sky. Then, struck by a sudden thought, he asked:
"The report said the boy has learned martial arts… Has the analysis of that art been completed?"
"It is a martial art that diverges entirely from existing schools, so analysis remains difficult. But judging by his record thus far, it will not amount to much."
"That I should not know how a flower blooming in my own garden came to bloom — that is not what I desire."
"I shall take measures."
Danjun left the imperial palace and boarded his carriage. Inside waited Go Eunseong, his eldest son and the merchant group's managing head, along with Chief Manager Ak Sun.
"How did it go?"
Eunseong asked, tapping the carriage floor with his right foot. Danjun rested a hand on his son's knee.
"You'll drive your luck away. Let that leg rest."
Eunseong stilled his leg at Danjun's words. Still restless, he began biting his nails.
Danjun did not reproach him. Born in the midst of war, Eunseong was acutely sensitive to the currents around him. That made him somewhat timid at times, but it also meant he often read a situation and secured advantageous deals.
Only after confirming the carriage had put distance between itself and the palace did Danjun speak.
"His Majesty did not take great offense."
At those words, Eunseong and Ak Sun both exhaled in relief.
"You lot — the floor of this carriage is going to give way."
"It has passed safety inspections any number of times. You need not worry."
Chief Manager Ak Sun thumped his chest as he spoke. Danjun ordered Ak Sun to have them leave Nanjing at once.
Nanjing was the capital of the new nation, the most prosperous city in the Martial World. Yet somehow Danjun had never taken to the place.
"Come to think of it — has the ship that left for Joseon not returned by now?"
"You mean the fleet we borrowed from the Hwangbo Clan? It should have arrived by the time we reach Yantai."
Yantai was a port city in Shandong Province and the birthplace of the Donghwa Merchant Group. After the group had grown, they had moved their base to Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong — but Danjun wished to hold his seventieth birthday feast in Yantai.
"And where is the boy now?"
"It seems he stopped at Shaolin on the way back. So I sent word for him to come straight to Yantai."
Danjun peered into Eunseong's face. Under that scrutinizing look, Eunseong touched his own cheek.
"Is there something on my face?"
"Returning home after ten years, and you summon him not to the house but somewhere else — is that not too harsh?"
"That boy has been a merchant since ten years ago."
Danjun wished for his family to be merchants, just as he himself had been. And those of his family he wished to become merchants, he had all dispatched somewhere other than home.
Danjun had left his homeland as a merchant and wandered the Central Plains. Through the turbulent years of war he had traveled from place to place, building a merchant's renown. He wanted his family to leave home and stand on their own as merchants, just as he had. That was why he had sent them out across the land.
To a merchant, homeland did not matter. Wherever one could make money was as good as home. That was Danjun's creed — just as he himself, even after winning wealth and fame as a merchant, had never returned to his homeland, only gazing across the sea with longing. And yet with Jinmyung alone, he had always shown a softer side.
What Jinmyung had shown that day in the bargain had not been the Emperor's memory alone. Danjun closed his eyes, recalling that day, letting the sway of the carriage serve as a lullaby.
Something about the Emperor had struck him as odd. The Emperor Danjun knew was a thorough man — not one so soft. The Emperor had spoken of growing old himself, but the look in his eyes had been no different from wartime.
Danjun did not let his guard down. If it came to it, he was prepared to offer up his own neck to keep his family safe. Once the birthday feast was over, he expected the Emperor would summon him again. Until then, he would have to prepare thoroughly.
Yet against that resolve, closing his eyes brought a release of tension and a heavy drowsiness. Even for Danjun, the greatest merchant under heaven, an audience with the Emperor was exhausting work.
Soon Danjun surrendered to sleep, and Eunseong and Ak Sun fell silent for his sake. Each turned to ledgers and letters. The carriage rolled quietly on toward Yantai.