Cutting Tails and Water Ghosts
The banquet hall had been a raucous din of gisaeng playing their instruments and officials roaring with laughter. Amidst the noise, I spoke in a low, quiet voice. "Governor. And you, Magistrate."
At my call, their laughter died instantly. "What is it that you are both moving so busily?"
The Magistrate's face stiffened. The Governor also froze, his hand hovering over his wine cup. "Pardon? I-I have no idea what you mean... We were merely trying to welcome you, Commissioner..."
"Surely you both know exactly why I have come down to Asan." Making no effort to hide my exhaustion, I reached into my robes. With a soft thud, I tossed a royal decree stamped with the royal seal right onto the center of the banquet table.
The Governor and the Magistrate stared at it, their faces frozen in sheer terror. "Let us avoid making things difficult for one another. Even if you spend the entire night emptying your warehouses and doctoring your ledgers, I will find everything anyway."
I picked up my cup, took a slow sip of the wine, and continued. "I am sure you have heard the rumors about me."
The hunting dog of King Sejong, the one who struck down Jo Mal-saeng and utterly ruined the in-laws of Chief State Councillor Hwang Hui. The Magistrate's jaw began to tremble slightly, as if the rumors had just flashed through his mind. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
Their complexions turned visibly pale at my words. "A report has already been submitted to His Majesty. Half of the segokseon—the grain tax transport ships—that departed from the southern provinces were completely empty."
I set my cup back down on the table. "I have a long journey ahead of me. I must head to Jeolla Province next, and then sweep through Gyeongsang. Since the Governor and I are already acquainted from our previous meeting, let us make this easy on ourselves."
The moment the words left my mouth, the Magistrate cried out as if he were the most wronged man in the world. "N-No, that is not it at all! This is a misunderstanding, Commissioner! I am truly innocent!" He jumped up, waving his hands frantically.
"Has Chungcheong Province not suffered from a terrible drought this year? The heavens did not grant us rain, so our tax revenue was cut in half! It was entirely due to the poor harvest, not because we were lining our own pockets!" Veins bulged in his neck, his face twisted in an expression of sheer grievance as if he might burst into tears at any second.
"The amount collected from the people was simply less than in average years! But every single grain we did collect was packed tightly and sent to Hanyang without a single grain's discrepancy!" The excuse flowed from his mouth like water; he had clearly prepared this defense.
I stared silently at his face, then slowly poured more wine into my cup. Glug, glug. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the clear liquid splashing and filling the cup to the brim.
Bringing the cup to my lips, I replied nonchalantly, "Is that so? Then let us have a look at your ledgers."
Instantly, the Magistrate turned his sweat-drenched face toward the clerks bowing on the floor and barked, "What are you all doing standing around?! Go and fetch every single ledger from the jochang immediately!"
"Y-Yes, right away, Your Honor!" Just as the terrified clerks scrambled to flee the banquet hall, a figure sitting lazily behind me, observing the situation, suddenly poked his head forward.
"While you are at it, you might as well bring those goods you are so busily smuggling out of the government office's back gate right into this courtyard." It was Han Myeong-hoe.
The Magistrate and the Governor glared at him for his sudden intrusion, but Han Myeong-hoe did not care in the slightest, offering them a shameless grin. "Your subordinates must be working terribly hard in the dead of night. Wouldn't it be much cleaner to cross-reference those goods directly with the ledgers right here?"
The officials' faces turned ashen at his spot-on deduction. I let out a dry chuckle and glanced back at Han Myeong-hoe. "By the way, Scholar Han. Aren't you going to pay your respects to your uncle? I thought you came to see his precious newborn grandson."
Han Myeong-hoe did not even blink at my question, replying with utter playfulness. "Aigoo, Commissioner. With such a rare and entertaining spectacle unfolding right before my eyes, how could I possibly tear myself away, even for my uncle?"
He snapped his fan open, covering his mouth as his eyes crinkled with amusement. "Paying respects to relatives can wait. It won't be too late even if I go tomorrow after the sun is high in the sky."
I shook my head, dumbfounded by his sheer audacity. Just then, the Magistrate cast a cautious glance at us and asked hesitantly, "But... Commissioner, who might this gentleman beside you be? Judging by his appearance, he seems to be of noble birth, but..."
The moment the question was asked, Han Myeong-hoe cleared his throat excitedly and folded his fan, preparing to launch into a grand self-introduction. But before he could utter a single word, I cut him off. "Just someone I know."
A look of deep disappointment instantly washed over Han Myeong-hoe's face, which had been brimming with anticipation. Slumping his shoulders in a sulk, he retreated a step backward.
I averted my gaze from him and stared straight at the frozen Magistrate. "Magistrate. Do not waste time trying to play tricks. Bring every single cart at the back gate here, just as he said."
My final blow drained whatever color was left from the Magistrate's face. His last-ditch effort to smuggle the carts away had been completely thwarted. "Ugh..." He let out a low groan, biting his lip in frustration.
His eyes darted around frantically, searching for any loophole, before finally landing on the royal decree resting in the middle of the table. He did not possess the courage to openly defy a royal command. Ultimately, he closed his eyes in defeat. "...Bring the carts from the back gate to the courtyard immediately."
At the Magistrate's despairing shout, the clerks scrambled out of the banquet hall in a panic. Before long, they returned to the courtyard, panting heavily and drenched in sweat. "The ledgers and the carts! We have brought them, Magistrate!"
Their arms and backs were piled high with thick stacks of ledgers, and behind them, several heavy wooden carts covered in straw rattled into the center of the courtyard. The once-boisterous banquet had ground to a complete halt. The sweet, alluring songs of the gisaeng and the rowdy clinking of wine cups had long since ceased. A heavy, suffocating tension hung over the dark courtyard of the government office.
I slowly rose from my seat, picked up a stack of ledgers, and tossed them toward Gaetdong-i, who was standing behind me. "Gaetdong-i." "Yes, Commissioner!"
Gaetdong-i caught the ledgers out of the air, plopped down onto the ground, and immediately flipped open the first page. His eyes began to dither back and forth at a frantic pace, scanning the numbers written on the paper.
With the ledger spread across his lap, Gaetdong-i pulled a small stack of paper and an ink-dipped brush from his robes. He rapidly scanned the Hanja characters in the ledger and began writing on his own paper without a moment's hesitation. He drew a long, bold cross right down the middle of the page, then filled both sides with strange, squiggly symbols never before seen in the land of Joseon.
"Good heavens, what is he doing?" "Those aren't characters. It looks like he's drawing some sort of talisman..." The local gentry and wealthy landowners, who had been holding their breath and watching, craned their necks and whispered among themselves. The Magistrate and the Governor also furrowed their brows deeply, staring at the tip of Gaetdong-i's brush.
There was no way they could comprehend the layout of double-entry bookkeeping—which recorded the flow of incoming and outgoing funds on opposite sides of a ledger—or the Arabic numerals he was writing so fluidly, both of which I had personally taught him.
Taking advantage of their distraction, I strolled casually toward the carts sitting in the middle of the yard. Circling them slowly, I tapped the straw covering the cargo with the tip of my fan and spoke.
"Magistrate. The tax grain that should rightfully be loaded onto the jounseon and heading up to Hanyang... Why is it sitting on carts in your courtyard in the dead of night instead of being on a ship?"
At my voice, the Magistrate's shoulders flinched violently. "T-That is..." He couldn't find the words, his lips trembling uncontrollably.
I tilted my head as if genuinely puzzled. "You claimed that tax revenues were desperately low due to the drought. If so, you should have loaded every single grain onto the ships as quickly as possible to send to Hanyang. Was the rice meant for the capital planning to take a detour through the mountains instead?"
The Magistrate's face went from pale to a deathly, ashen gray. Beside him, the Governor stopped fanning himself and swallowed hard.
Just then, Gaetdong-i scratched his head over the ledger on his lap, looked up, and called out to me. "Um, Commissioner." "What is it?" "This ledger doesn't add up."
Gaetdong-i glanced at the Magistrate before reporting cautiously. "It clearly states here that the collected tax grain was cut in half due to the drought. Yet, the wages paid to the laborers who transported it to the jochang are exactly the same as in normal, non-famine years."
The Magistrate's face stiffened even further. Though hesitant, Gaetdong-i continued clearly. "If the sacks of rice were halved, then the number of people pulling the carts should have been halved as well to make sense. But since the transport wages remain unchanged... the numbers do not match at all."
The Magistrate's jaw began to rattle. His lips parted and closed like a fish out of water as he searched for an excuse, but no sound came out.
I snapped my fan shut and looked down at the Magistrate. "You heard him. Either they paid wages for pulling empty carts, or they transported something else that wasn't recorded in the ledgers. It must be one of the two."
Their tail was stepped on far too heavily for them to hide it with such petty number tricks. "Since everything has been exposed anyway, why don't you confess? Let us stop wasting each other's precious time with pointless stubbornness."
A suffocating silence descended upon the courtyard. While the Magistrate sat slumped on the ground, gasping for air, the Governor—who had been warily reading the room—suddenly sprang to his feet. "Y-You baseborn scoundrel! How dare you lay your hands on the sacred tax grain of the state!"
The Governor pointed a trembling finger at the shivering Magistrate. It was a ruthless attempt to cut his tail to save his own skin. "Guards! Throw this traitor into prison immediately! Twist his legs on the torture chair if you must, and make him spit out where he hid the stolen goods!"
As the thunderous command fell upon the escort officers, the Magistrate, who had been groveling on the ground, snapped his head up. "Governor! Are you planning to make me take the fall for all of this?!"
Veins popped on the Magistrate's neck as he spat out his outrage. "Do you think I am mad enough to embezzle such a massive amount of taxes all by myself?! Whose pockets did the precious silk and silver from selling that stolen grain end up in?! You took half of it yourself, Governor!"
"H-He has gone mad and is spewing nonsense! Silence him immediately and take his head!" At the Governor's frantic shout, the provincial officers raised their spears in unison and advanced.
Terrified by the sudden threat of violence, the local clerks and runners of Asan, who had acted as the Magistrate's hands and feet, fell into a panic. No matter how much they shared the same spoils, clashing with the soldiers of the Governor—the highest authority in the province—was practically suicide.
Cornered as his men retreated, the Magistrate glared and shrieked like a wild animal. "You fools! If I am dragged away by them, do you think you and your families will survive? We are all going to lose our heads anyway! Draw your weapons and stop them this instant!"
At his bloodshot shout, the runners' eyes wavered violently. These were men who had spent years lining their pockets by squeezing the lifeblood out of the common people. Terrified of the punishment that awaited them, their survival instincts took over. With trembling hands, they gripped their sword hilts and raised their spears.
"S-Stand back! Step closer and we will impale you!" In an instant, the courtyard of the government office devolved into an uncontrollable chaotic mess.
The gisaeng, who had been cowering in the corner clutching their instruments, finally lost their nerve. Screaming in terror, they gathered their skirts and bolted through the open gates. The local gentry and wealthy landowners, who had been drinking merrily just moments ago, turned pale as ghosts and scrambled to their feet.
"Are you all insane?! How dare you commit such an outrage in front of His Majesty's royal decree?!" The landowners' desperate pleas fell on deaf ears; the mob had completely lost its mind.
With the Governor's provincial officers and the Asan local soldiers pointing their spears at each other, the courtyard transformed into a wretched, muddy brawl.
Screeech! Amidst the chaos, Jincheol, who had been standing silently behind me, drew his heavy sword without a moment's hesitation. He stepped firmly in front of me, radiating an aura that promised to cleave apart any spear that dared fly our way.
"Hieeeek...! Scholar Han!" Gaetdong-i shrieked, leaping backward to hide behind Han Myeong-hoe's broad back. Weapons clashed, and a bloodbath seemed imminent.
These idiots actually drew their blades? I swallowed a dry laugh, utterly dumbfounded. They could have simply surrendered the stolen goods and gone to prison, but it seemed they preferred to have their entire heads chopped off as a group.
Just as I was clicking my tongue at the sheer stupidity of these men committing what was practically high treason in front of the sovereign's royal decree—
Clang.
An incredibly out-of-place sound echoed through the courtyard, which was wound as tight as a bowstring. It was the slow, dull toll of a cattle bell, a sound no one could have anticipated.
Clang, clang.
The soldiers panting with weapons drawn, the gentry, the officials, and even my own companions all turned their heads in unison. Every gaze converged on the main gate of the government office, shrouded in the night.
Past the threshold, a yellow ox with curved horns slowly ambled into view. Riding leisurely upon its back was an elderly countryman dressed in worn hemp robes.
The old man slowly scanned the tense courtyard, where dozens of men stood with weapons pointed at one another. "Haha." A gentle chuckle escaped from beneath his bushy beard.