Your Majesty, You Are Bankrupt

Twilight had settled deeply over Gyeongbokgung Palace. Following behind the military officer of the Royal Guard, my steps felt as heavy as lead. Having spent a whole day rolling on the cold floor of the prison cell and enduring the terrifying interrogation room of the State Tribunal, Kim Jinseong's frail body was already screaming past its limits.

Sigh, I just want to wash up and go to sleep.

But I was in no position to complain. The place I was heading to was the very heart of Joseon: Sajeongjeon, the King's executive office.

"You may enter."

The heavy wooden doors creaked open, revealing the interior of the hall, illuminated by the flickering glow of dozens of beeswax candles. A suffocating silence hung in the air, accompanied by the sharp, pungent scent of old paper and ink.

The moment I crossed the threshold, I threw myself flat on the floor and bowed my head low. In my past life, I hadn't so much as blinked when facing the chairmen of the nation's top conglomerates, but the aura radiating from true, absolute authority was on an entirely different level.

Carefully raising my head to steal a glance at the high seat, I was utterly astonished.

...That man is King Sejong?

The benevolent, warm-faced grandfather I knew from the ten-thousand-won bill was nowhere to be found.

The year was 1434, the sixteenth year of King Sejong's reign. He was currently thirty-seven years old. This was not the frail, sickly king of his later years, but a monarch at the absolute zenith of his intellect, political prowess, and physical strength—a fully realized sovereign who utterly dominated his ministers.

Furthermore, as if proving the historical records of his extreme meat-heavy diet, his broad shoulders and thick frame beneath the scarlet royal robe were as imposing as any elite warrior of the Royal Guard.

Looking up from a mountain of official reports, the thirty-seven-year-old king pierced me with eyes as sharp and intelligent as a tiger's. He was, quite literally, Joseon's greatest budget-breaker and an extreme workaholic.

"Are you Kim Jinseong, the Junior Secretary of the Ministry of Taxation?"

"Y-yes, Your Majesty. I am Junior Secretary Kim Jinseong."

Sejong rested his chin on his hand, staring down at me for what felt like an eternity. Just as a cold sweat began to trickle down my spine from the oppressive silence, he tossed a bundle of papers onto his desk with a dull thud. It was the very double-entry balance sheet I had handed to the magistrate at the State Tribunal earlier that afternoon.

"I have examined countless records from the Ministry of Taxation, yet I have never seen a ledger as bizarre as this." Sejong's deep, resonant voice echoed through Sajeongjeon.

"You have drawn straight horizontal and vertical lines, filling them with strange symbols. Yet, astonishingly, the whereabouts of tens of thousands of catties of copper and the flow of silver ingots can be understood at a single glance. Did you devise this method of calculation yourself?"

I took a brief, quiet breath. Claiming this as my own invention would only invite trouble—especially before this notoriously scholarly monarch, who would relentlessly interrogate me on everything from its underlying principles to its core philosophy. Bowing my head as low as possible, I answered with practiced humility.

"...No, Your Majesty. How could a mere low-ranking official like myself dare to invent such a miraculous method of calculation?"

"Oh? Then from whom did you learn it?"

"It is a secret art used by the wealthy merchants of the Western Regions, in a land far beyond ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Middle Kingdom called Arabia."

"The Western Regions!"

In an instant, Sejong's eyes flashed. This was no longer the mere curiosity of a king looking at a subordinate who had caught an embezzler. It was the sudden flare of his trademark intellectual thirst, ignited by the encounter with unknown knowledge, new science, and practical learning.

Sejong leaned forward eagerly from his seat, his voice urgent. "Did you say the merchants of the Western Regions beyond the Ming Dynasty? The very foreigners who cross vast deserts and treacherous seas to amass immense wealth? Is this the method they employ?"

"Indeed, Your Majesty. When those Western merchants conduct transactions worth thousands of taels across tens of thousands of miles, they do not write long, winding paragraphs with brushes as we do in Joseon. Instead, they use those strange symbols you saw—the numerals of the West—to meticulously divide and record incoming assets on one side and outgoing expenses on the other."

"Dividing left and right..."

"Yes, Your Majesty. It is called cross-verification. If a single number on one side is altered, the other side of the ledger will inevitably fail to balance."

"Cross-verification... Dividing left and right so they lock together like the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gears of a carriage wheel? And that is how even the slightest error or embezzlement is caught?"

"Precisely, Your Majesty. For numbers never lie. The Western method of bookkeeping leaves behind nothing but the absolute truth."

Sejong stroked his beard, letting out a deep, admiring sigh. "Haha! Remarkable. A truly wondrous principle! Even the Minister of Taxation struck his forehead in awe upon seeing your ledger, and now I see he had every reason to do ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so."

Sejong gently ran his fingertips over my double-entry ledger as if it were a priceless treasure. To Joseon's greatest intellectual enthusiast and pragmatist, a secret Western art that enabled precise statistics and accounting must have felt like a refreshing rain after a long drought.

But the warm atmosphere was short-lived. The moment Sejong tore his eyes away from the ledger, his gaze sharpened to a razor's edge. "Since your talent for handling numbers is extraordinary and you have mastered this rare Western science, I must entrust you with a task."

Flutter! Flutter!

Sejong roughly tossed two thick scrolls onto the desk, sending them rolling toward me. "One is a requisition submitted by Hogun Jang Yeong-sil, claiming he needs more materials to complete the construction of the Jageukru and Angbuilgu. The other is a detailed request for military rations sent by Choi Yun-deok of Pyeongan Province and Kim Jong-seo of Hamgil Province to support the pioneering of the Four Counties and Six Garrisons."

Holding my breath, I carefully picked up and unrolled the scrolls. The moment I scanned the densely packed characters, I had to swallow a torrent of curses.

Are you insane? A massive R&D budget devourer alongside a military ration bill for a northern campaign? The state treasury is practically empty, and they want me to approve this budget?

Joseon's current financial state was on the brink of bankruptcy. Because of the endless projects Sejong had launched, casting the Gabinja metal type alone had consumed two hundred thousand catties of copper, leaving the state granaries so bare that even the mice had nothing to eat. And yet, they were demanding astronomical research funds and tens of thousands of bags of military rations on top of that?

"I will give you fifteen days."

"...Pardon?"

"Use that marvelous method of calculation of yours to scour every single ledger in the palace, and secure this budget within fifteen days."

My breath caught in my throat. This was the classic, ruthless pressure that conglomerate chairmen used to wring their subsidiary CEOs dry. An unspoken threat from absolute power, demanding that I squeeze blood from a stone. If I were the original, timid Kim Jinseong, I would have been shaking like a leaf, begging for my life.

But I was Kang Jinsung. If I was going to die either way, I might as well place a bet. I rolled the scrolls shut with a sharp snap and slowly raised my head. The gears in my exhausted brain began to spin with icy precision.

"Your Majesty."

"Speak. Have you found a way to secure the funds?"

"No. You are bankrupt."

"...What did you say?"

Sejong's thick eyebrows twitched. I heard the sharp, terrified gasps of the eunuchs and guards standing nearby.

Paying them no mind, I delivered the cold, hard facts. "At our current tax revenue rate, the state will default in two months. As for that northern campaign budget, I reject it entirely."

A heavy silence fell over Sajeongjeon.

"Rejected? How dare a mere secretary pass judgment on a national project."

"The Tsushima expedition and the northern expansion are deficit-ridden ventures with absolutely zero return on investment. Have you calculated the supply lines? For a single sack of rice leaving Hanyang to reach General Kim Jong-seo in Hamgil Province, the porters climbing those rugged mountain passes consume more than two sacks along the way! To deliver one sack, you must burn through three. It is like pouring water into a bottomless pit."

Sejong's eyes flashed with a murderous glare. The tension in the room grew so suffocatingly thick that it felt as though a single command would have my head rolling on the floor.

"Do you... truly dare to defy my command?" Sejong's heavy voice pressed down on me like a massive boulder.

Though the air in the hall grew heavy enough to crush me, I did not avert my gaze. Instead, the corners of my mouth curled upward as I threw down a counterproposal.

"Your Majesty, the tax reform you are pushing—the Gongbeop. The ministers of the Gwanhak Faction have fiercely opposed it for years, leaving the matter completely unresolved, have they not?"

"...And what of it?"

"There is no money in the state treasury anyway. Squeezing the blood and sweat of the common people any further is like trying to wring water from a dry squid. If you insist on proceeding with these reckless projects, then grant me absolute authority."

I finally revealed my true colors—the man who had once been feared as the Grim Reaper of the business world back at the National Tax Service.

"I will hunt down every single hidden plot of land that those corrupt, powerful clans have deliberately omitted from the registers to evade taxes. I will shake them down for every penny and secure the massive funds you require."

A declaration to legally plunder the wealth of the ruling nobility to fund the King's grand vision. The murderous glare in Sejong's fierce eyes vanished, replaced in an instant by a spark of strange amusement and sheer delight.