The Choice Is Yours Alone, Your Majesty
A perfect checkmate.
In their desperate bid to cover up their paper embezzlement, they had degenerated into armed robbers caught red-handed, raiding someone else's private property in the dead of night.
The eyes of the Gungigam officials, pale and trembling with fear, suddenly turned vicious, like rats cornered in a trap.
The leader's bloodshot eyes darted rapidly across the deserted riverbank shrouded in thick sea fog, noting that my only guard was Jincheol.
"Transfer of ownership? Don't make me laugh!" the civil official shrieked in desperation, violently drawing the sword at his waist. "If we kill you both here and throw you into the river, that's the end of it! Attack!"
"Kill them!"
At his frantic command, dozens of thugs surged toward me all at once, brandishing gleaming swords and axes.
Sensing the murderous intent, Han Myeong-hoe flinched and took a step back. At that exact moment, Jincheol stepped in front of me, his hand gripping the hilt of his heavy sword.
I calmly snapped open my tightly closed fan with an easy flick of my wrist and murmured softly.
"It would be a shame if there were no witnesses."
No sooner had the words left my mouth than hundreds of torches erupted into light, piercing through the dense sea fog.
Pouring out to surround the warehouse in dense layers were the Gyeomsabok—King Sejong's elite royal guards—whom I had stationed outside the palace gates since yesterday in anticipation of this moment.
"By royal decree! Bind every last one of these traitors who have plundered the state treasury!" the commander of the Gyeomsabok roared.
"H-Hieeeek...!"
As gleaming spearheads completely cut off all avenues of escape, the once-boisterous thugs couldn't even muster a scream. They threw down their weapons and prostrated themselves flat on the muddy ground.
The situation was resolved in an instant.
I looked down coldly at the trembling civil official face-down in the dirt, then gave a calm nod to the approaching Gyeomsabok commander.
"You have done well. Escort these men to the Uigeumbu and have them imprisoned."
"But what of the copper ingots and goods inside the warehouse, Assistant Minister?"
"Transfer them all to the Ministry of Taxation. They are evidence of the embezzlement of state funds."
While the guards bound the criminals in single file with arrest ropes and dragged them away, Han Myeong-hoe stepped forward and stopped in front of me.
In the eyes of the twenty-year-old youth, the affectation of mature wisdom he had been putting on until moments ago was entirely gone, replaced by a profound sense of awe.
"My lord, you employ a truly bizarre art of war."
"An art of war? It was merely a shallow trick."
"Luring the enemy, buying the warehouse in advance to block their retreat using the law, and then the sudden arrival of the soldiers... It was highly impressive."
Han Myeong-hoe caressed the wooden block tucked inside his robes, staring at me with eyes that gleamed with a strange intensity.
"I never imagined such a strategy could exist. My heart was pounding so hard earlier I thought it might burst. I doubt I will be able to focus on my studies for some time."
I fanned myself with a feigned look of indifference and dismissed him.
"If the show is over, you should head back. The night is still long for me."
Despite my dismissal, Han Myeong-hoe did not easily turn to leave. Instead, his eyes—uncannily clear and sharp, completely at odds with his youthful face—gleamed in the darkness.
"...Since you bid me leave, I shall take my departure." Han Myeong-hoe spoke slowly, his lips curling into a wide smirk as he stared intently at my face. "Until we meet again, Assistant Minister."
"..."
Without waiting for my reply, he turned and strode into the sea fog. I stood there in silence, tapping my closed fan against my palm, watching his imposing, broad-shouldered figure dissolve completely into the thick mist.
"Brother, what are you looking at so intently? Are you feeling unwell?" Jincheol asked from beside me, his voice laced with concern.
I stopped tapping the fan and shook my head slightly. I pushed aside the chaotic thoughts that had flooded my mind upon meeting the historical Han Myeong-hoe. I still had work to do.
"It is nothing. Let us return to the palace. I must audience with His Majesty."
Late at night, inside the Pyeonjeon.
Though it was the dead of night and the palace was as silent as a grave, a faint candlelight still flickered behind the paper screens of the executive chamber.
Joseon's sovereign, King Sejong, remained seated on his throne even at this late hour, his eyes never straying from his books.
"Let him in."
A brief permission followed the eunuch's announcement.
Taking the heavy wooden chest of documents that Jincheol had carried on his back, I stepped carefully into the Pyeonjeon.
"Forgive my intrusion at such an ungodly hour, Your Majesty."
As I bowed respectfully, King Sejong closed the book he was reading and looked down at me. His eyes were heavy with fatigue, yet they burned with an intense, piercing light.
"I have just received an urgent report from the commander of the Gyeomsabok. He tells me you rounded up all the Gungigam scoundrels at Mapo Wharf and threw them into prison? And that you even recovered the twenty thousand geun of copper that had supposedly vanished into thin air."
"Yes, Your Majesty. We ambushed them just as they were about to smuggle the copper away by boat, capturing them all in one fell swoop."
"You have done well. However..."
A faint smile played on Sejong's lips. Indeed, he was a king with an almost supernatural intuition.
"Knowing your temperament, you would not have come to disturb my slumber in the middle of the night merely to report that you found some copper."
Smiling in return, I carefully placed the heavy chest I carried onto the table before the royal dais.
"I am deeply humbled by Your Majesty's keen insight. In truth, I have brought back something far more valuable than copper."
"What is this?"
"These are the true secret ledgers, hidden in the deepest recesses of the Daedong Merchant Group's private vault."
Of course, while I was rounding up the thugs at the wharf, Lady Lee had seized control of the Daedong Merchant Group's main headquarters, swept up all the key evidence, and swiftly sent them to me—a perfect spoil of war.
Sejong's eyebrow twitched at my shameless reply. Rising from his throne, he opened the chest and picked up the ledger resting on top.
As he flipped through the pages, his gaze instantly turned razor-sharp. Within those pages lay the naked trajectory of numbers—how the low-ranking officials of the Gungigam had embezzled the copper, which brokers the dirty money had passed through, and whose pockets it had ultimately lined.
"...Is this not the merchant group's illicit transaction ledger?" Sejong looked back and forth between the ledger and me in disbelief.
"Even a formal government search failed to turn up these ledgers. How on earth have you already laid hands on this evidence?"
I clasped my hands behind my back with a deliberate air of leisure and replied.
"Had we followed the laws of the Uigeumbu or the Saheonbu and gone through standard administrative procedures, they would have surely burned these ledgers and cut their tails. No matter how urgent a royal decree may be, the wheels of government bureaucracy turn far too slowly."
"Then how?"
"Therefore, I had my wife buy up all the debt documents of the Daedong Merchant Group that were being dumped on the market for a pittance... and this morning, we bought out the entire merchant group."
"...What?!"
Sejong's eyes widened to the size of saucers.
"What did you just say? You bought the merchant group of criminals whose assets should have been confiscated by the state treasury?!"
"Yes, Your Majesty. With their chief merchants exiled, it was a mere hollow shell drowning in debt. In exchange for writing off those massive debts, we acquired all of their remaining assets and trade routes."
I added, driving the nail home to the stunned king.
"Thanks to that, we were able to retrieve these ledgers before they could be destroyed or smuggled away, so that they may be presented whole to Your Majesty."
Sejong seemed utterly speechless, his gaze blankly shifting between my face and the ledgers on the table.
"You insolent wretch...!"
Sejong finally pushed himself up, gripping the armrests of his throne in sheer disbelief. His voice trembled with unmistakable anger.
"In the end, does this not mean you have intercepted assets destined for the state treasury to line the pockets of your own family?! This is a blatant abuse of power and an act of deception!"
I did not even flinch before the sovereign's wrath. Instead, I let my lips curl into a relaxed smile and pulled another thin booklet from my robes, presenting it to the throne.
"Your Majesty, I merely used the activity funds you graciously bestowed upon me to purchase the entire trap. Before you punish me, I beg of you to look at this."
Sejong snatched the booklet from my hands with a suspicious glare and flipped it open. It was a secret covenant of the merchant group.
I whispered in a low, confidential tone to Sejong, whose eyes were now glued to the document.
"As specified therein, seventy percent of all future profits generated by the Daedong Merchant Group will be secretly deposited directly into Your Majesty's Naetanggeum every single month."
"...!"
As Sejong read down the page, his pupils shook violently, as if struck by an earthquake. "What did you say...?"
"Using the silver ingots Your Majesty granted me as activity funds, I have acquired and presented to you the largest merchant network in all of Joseon."
I bowed deeply and respectfully, delivering the final, decisive blow.
"Whether it be supporting the scientific endeavors of Jang Hogun—which you have delayed out of concern for the ministers' reactions—or securing military funds to pioneer the frozen northern borders... with the shadow funds gathered from this merchant group, Your Majesty may now pursue whatever you desire, to your heart's content, without ever having to look over your shoulder."
I lowered my posture even further, politely offering him a perfect way out.
"Of course, if Your Majesty ultimately cannot condone my irreverent and unorthodox methods... I shall return every right and asset of the Daedong Merchant Group to the state treasury the moment dawn breaks tomorrow. And I shall gladly accept whatever punishment you deem fit."
Slowly, I raised my head, looking straight into the violently trembling eyes of the sovereign as I added softly:
"The choice is yours alone, Your Majesty."