Riding the Tiger
Around the time Amcheonjonza was meeting with the Chairman of the Supreme Operations Committee—
In the bustling heart of Luoyang, Sang-gwan Nan-hwa, former representative of Daseonrang, stifled a small yawn behind the sheer face veil that hid her features. Her beauty alone drew far too much attention if left uncovered; the veil was a necessity.
“You must be exhausted. Would it not be better to return to Wongak Pavilion and rest, even for a little while…?”
“No,” Sang-gwan Nan-hwa shook her head at the words of I-ryeong, one of Yeon So-hyeon’s maids. “I managed to close my eyes for a while now and then while we were traveling by carriage. I’m still fine.”
Those snatches of rest had each lasted little more than a quarter-hour at best.
“Besides… it really is the Sword Family, isn’t it?” she said, offering a gentle smile to the worried I-ryeong and deftly changing the subject. “Even the most trivial goods—there isn’t a single place where the Sword Family’s name is missing.”
I-ryeong’s gaze followed the pair of chopsticks Sang-gwan Nan-hwa had picked up from the display.
“An excellent choice indeed!” A clerk who had been hovering nearby slipped in at once. “As you can tell from the pattern carved into them, these are black-bamboo chopsticks made by the famous Ojeoksan Combined Workshop—renowned even here in Luoyang!”
The clerk grew animated, spittle flying as he praised the luxury item. “Surely you know that the largest shareholder of the Ojeoksan Combined Workshop is the Sword Family itself? Which means the Sword Family’s name is a guarantee of quality for these very chopsticks…”
Even something as ordinary as a single pair of chopsticks bore the Sword Family’s touch. Sang-gwan Nan-hwa set them back down and turned away.
“And it doesn’t stop there,” I-ryeong said with a shrug. Her eyes drifted toward the open window. “The buildings that make up this entire shopping street all belong to the Sword Family.”
Sang-gwan Nan-hwa followed her gaze outside. Countless people thronged the night streets, painted in the glow of multicolored lanterns. Four- and five-story buildings, lavishly ornamented, stretched endlessly into the distance. Wealth overflowed from every corner.
And beyond that? Beyond the limits of sight, and still farther beyond—everything lay under the dominion of the Luoyang Sword Family’s influence. The sheer scale of it left Sang-gwan Nan-hwa momentarily dizzy.
“…So it’s true what they say. Luoyang is no different from the Sword Family’s own fief.”
As a merchant she had long known the peerless renown of the greatest house under heaven. She had known the name of Luoyang, that vast metropolis boasting a population of millions without precedent. Yet every moment of seeing it with her own eyes filled her with fresh wonder.
“But,” I-ryeong stepped closer, a bitter smile on her lips. Her gaze had settled on the beggars packed into every shadowed alley. “…The brighter the light, the darker the shadow, they say.”
Her words carried a gloom as heavy as the black clouds hanging low over the sky.
On a quiet hillside near the Luoyang Sword Family estate.
“We must not stop,” the Chairman said, seated upon a small boulder. “The main house right now is like a carriage racing down a steep slope.”
The old man’s eyes turned toward the dizzying descent below. “Whatever the reason—if this growth ever comes to a halt, every last person who has been content to pick up the scraps falling from that growth will rise up without exception.”
Put the brakes on a runaway carriage and the only result is a catastrophic overturn. Though the Luoyang Sword Family had lost its master, it had endured without splintering into factions solely because of year after year of relentless growth.
“…The reason the Sword Family has not yet torn itself apart, inside and out, is because the Supreme Operations Committee and you yourself have managed the main house so well.”
“No.” The Chairman immediately rejected Amcheonjonza’s flattering words. “As you well know, that is not the case…”
He lifted clouded eyes to Amcheonjonza’s mask; his face looked older than ever. “The new Supreme Councilors may believe it is their own ability, the Committee’s achievement—but…”
Months earlier, First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon had stood before the Supreme Operations Committee. He had come to end his seclusion, yet that conversation had contained the very seed of what the Chairman now wished to say.
“First Young Master! I understand your anger and resentment, but this Council has proven its ability with outstanding results until now! So please trust us…!”
Her words had been true. Under the Supreme Operations Committee system the Sword Family had grown at a terrifying pace every year. Yet Yeon So-hyeon had been unable to hold back his laughter—a great, booming laugh.
“You have proven your ability…?”
“The achievements the Supreme Operations Committee claims are a lie,” the Chairman stated flatly. “Every success since the Family Head’s absence—that steep growth—has nothing to do with the Committee.”
Amcheonjonza made no reply. As if proving the Chairman’s earlier “as you well know,” only white breath drifted from beneath the mask. The Chairman smiled faintly.
“All the Committee has done is carefully shepherd the current of growth. Never too much, never too little. Never crossing the line into excess, never falling short and stagnating.”
“The main house’s record-breaking accomplishments are, in truth, a miracle wrought by two people who are no longer here.”
Amcheonjonza slowly nodded. “The Family Head… and the Medicine Fairy.”
Why the Medicine Fairy—Yeon So-hyeon’s mother—should be named here, one might wonder. Yet the Chairman agreed without the slightest hesitation.
“Yes. Exactly so.” He looked up at the sky. “The foundation of all this growth is the joint work of the Family Head, once called the Master of the Sword, and the Grand Madame—Yak So-yu, regarded as the incarnation of the Medicine Buddha.”
The old warrior found the past in the writhing shapes of the clouds, just as he had that day. “Even now the memory of that day remains as vivid as yesterday.”
That night, too, the sky had been thickly overcast, just as it was now. Yet the rain falling in sparse drops could not stop the man once called the Sword Venerable, nor the Family Head. The two of them moved across the training ground as if dancing, blades in hand.
“Family Head.”
It was the Sword Venerable who first lowered his sword at the approaching voice. The face of Nae-won-chong-gwan, the ancient Chief Administrator of the Inner Court who had lived his entire life in loyalty—first to the previous Family Head, now to the present one—was unusually dark. Never before had the Sword Venerable seen the Chief Administrator’s expression so grim.
“…So it has finally happened.”
“It has, my lord.” Raindrops struck Nae-won-chong-gwan as he bowed deeply toward the Family Head. “The four powers that each ruled one of the four provinces south of the Yangtze have announced the formation of a single alliance.”
After the Open Port Edict, the harbors of Gangnam had seized wealth beyond imagination. Wherever a port could be built, cities sprang up overnight. Riding that explosive growth, countless factions had risen, both openly and in secret. No—there had been neither light nor dark, neither righteous nor demonic. That land, where the young Emperor’s power scarcely reached, had been little different from the Warring States era.
“And the name of the alliance?”
That era had now come to an end. The Family Head asked through the thickening rain, face hard; Nae-won-chong-gwan answered.
“Sapaecheon, my lord.”
The Family Head gave a snort of laughter. “Wordplay.”
Four lawless evil sects had gathered to form a single heaven.
“And…” Instead of answering the Family Head’s remark, Nae-won-chong-gwan continued delivering the report. “They have titled the elected leader of the alliance ‘Alliance Lord,’ and the first so appointed has, upon announcing Sapaecheon’s founding, issued his first command.”
The Sword Venerable watched the Family Head’s face harden further. The man possessed an almost uncanny intuition, and at times he revealed a side utterly unlike the born warrior he usually appeared to be.
“…He declared that every cargo passing through Gangnam would be subject to a toll.”
Yes—exactly like this.
“That is so, my lord.”
The Family Head tilted the sword still in his hand. “And goods bound for the Imperial Capital would have been exempted from that toll.”
No matter how young the Emperor, no matter how far Gangnam lay from the capital—he was still the Emperor.
“Yes, my lord.”
“As for the transport of grain, he will already have finished speaking with the Sixteen Noble Houses of the capital.”
“…That is what we anticipate, my lord.”
The soil of the northern plains, farmed for thousands of years, was already exhausted. For reasons unknown the land around Luoyang remained fertile, yet half the grain required by the north was now supplied from the south.
“If they leave cargo bound for the capital untouched and guarantee the grain headed north…” The Family Head took up the thought. “…the Imperial Court will see no reason to poke the hornet’s nest that is Sapaecheon.”
Ignoring the rainwater running down his brow, he asked, “What is the projected impact of this announcement?”
“That is…”
The Family Head shook his head. “No need to ask. It is obvious.”
Rainwater that had traced his jaw splashed free. The great majority of the overseas trade that enriched Luoyang began in the harbors of Gangnam. And Sapaecheon would not collect tolls on goods bound for the capital. Put those two facts together—
The Sword Venerable, who had listened in silence until then, spoke. “…The fall of Luoyang.”
Whether that fall came swiftly or took longer was merely a matter of timing. The outcome itself was already decided.
Even Nae-won-chong-gwan, said to be without peer in political acumen, found it hard to open his mouth. Yet the Family Head gave a short laugh. In that moment he was unmistakably smiling.
“Fall, you say?” He raised his sword. “No.”
He cut. The single stroke cleaved the sky; for an instant the rain ceased, and a violent wind howled across the grounds.
“It is war.”
The Master of the Sword declared war. And he won.
It was a war no one had dared guarantee victory in. The elite swordsmen of the Namgung Family—the Azure Sky Sword Corps—who had refused to open the road to Gangnam, were shattered first. The combined armies of Sapaecheon crumbled before the power of the Luoyang Sword Family led by its Head. The Alliance Lord of Sapaecheon lost his head before a hundred exchanges. The new Alliance Lord of Sapaecheon married his daughter to the Family Head of the Luoyang Sword Family and declared eternal amity. The Namgung Family, wary of the growing closeness between Sapaecheon and the Sword Family, likewise sent their own daughter to marry him. From Gangnam all the way to Luoyang, the Sword Family secured footholds in every harbor and major city and was guaranteed free commercial activity. Thereafter no one, no power, ever again dared interfere with the flow of goods bound for Luoyang.
The Chairman lowered his gaze. “That is the achievement of the Family Head now called the ‘Southern Conquest’—the doctrine of stabilizing the Gangnam region.”
To dismantle Sapaecheon would only bring another Warring States era. For the Luoyang Sword Family to rule as far as Gangnam was physically near-impossible, and no power-holder in the Central Kingdom desired such a thing.
“Thus the Family Head of the Sword Family chose to leave Sapaecheon intact, seeking the stabilization of Gangnam.”
“As precise as ever.” The Chairman nodded, finding the image of the Family Head from his memories in the man’s eldest son. “And the growth of the Luoyang Sword Family, which had nothing left to obstruct it, was magnified still further by the appearance of one person.”
“The Medicine Fairy.”
Though she had died young, her lifelong medical achievements were said by some physicians to surpass those of every previous age combined. As a result, the population centered on Luoyang—where she had chiefly worked—exploded.
“Those who would have died in earlier times no longer died. Children who would have perished at birth grew up healthy.”
The manifestation of the Medicine Buddha. There was not a shred of exaggeration in the name given to Yak So-yu. The Luoyang Sword Family—and Luoyang itself—seethed with surplus labor and surplus population.
“Thus began the golden age of the Luoyang Sword Family.”
That golden age continued even after those two people vanished. The special demand created by the northern war played its part, and the flood of destitute poor who poured in after the war also became a great engine of growth. That was why Yeon So-hyeon had mocked the new Supreme Councilors.
“You have proven your ability…?”
As the Chairman had just said: “The achievements the Supreme Operations Committee claims are a lie. The Committee has merely been struggling to operate the inheritance left by that husband and wife.”
“But even that has not been entirely successful…” The Chairman averted his eyes from Amcheonjonza’s gaze and lowered them to the ground. “The Committee never overcame the aftermath of losing those two.”
The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. “Rather, we have only been stacking stones atop a collapsing tower, forever trying to force a balance that cannot be forced…”
But what happens when that light—the sun itself—is lost entirely?
“The Luoyang Sword Family must not stop.” The Chairman repeated the words he had first spoken.
“…Yes. It must not stop.”
If growth halted, the Luoyang Sword Family would fall. And if that vast counterweight called the Luoyang Sword Family fell, the shockwaves would reach the entire Central Kingdom. The whole realm would then plunge into war to claim the empty seat. No—it would inevitably plunge into war. Yeon So-hyeon knew it.
“Sacrifice was essential, and therefore inevitable.” Amcheonjonza, who had listened quietly to the history until now, spoke. “That the destitute laborers at the Yongbongjihoe Arena construction site under the Third Young Master’s charge could no longer endure unpaid wages and starvation… that they finally rose in revolt…”
Amcheonjonza was simply stating facts. An indispensable sacrifice for the sake of growth. The Chairman—and the Supreme Operations Committee—had been doing the best they could.
Yet the Chairman could give no answer. He merely covered his face with both hands.
The present.
Yongbongjihoe Arena construction site. Deepest within the encirclement. The fortified district of the destitute laborers.
In darkness so thick one could scarcely see a step ahead, and beneath a torrential downpour, a boy walked the streets.
With every flash of lightning the nearly completed complex revealed itself. For some reason the sight looked less like a site on the verge of completion and more like ruins abandoned long ago.
The boy—First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon—lifted his head at a voice that cut through the roar of the rain.
It was a scream tangled with the wailing of many people, a cry thick with sorrow and regret.
Yeon So-hyeon walked through the downpour, toward that sound. The Supreme Operations Committee and the Chairman had done their part. Now it was his turn.