The Price of Tax Evasion Is Total Seizure

Thud, thud, thud, thud—!

Tearing through the early morning mist, the heavy footfalls of over three hundred regular soldiers shook the earth. Thirty elite armored guards, clad in flawless scale armor, led the vanguard. Behind them marched three hundred constables bearing spears and shields, radiating a palpable thirst for battle. Our destination was the massive estate of the Yang family, the in-laws of the Chief State Councillor.

"Halt!"

At my hand signal, the troops stopped in perfect unison before the estate's main gates. Just as Jincheol had briefed me last night, private soldiers armed with bows and spears kept watch atop a high wall that stood at least three meters tall. Flustered by the sudden arrival of government forces, the guards nervously notched arrows to their bowstrings and aimed down at us.

"W-who goes there, bringing armed soldiers onto private property? Do you truly not know that this is the estate of the Chief State Councillor's in-laws?!" shouted a man atop the wall, seemingly the captain of the private guards.

I scoffed. Remaining astride my horse, I held King Sejong's crimson royal decree high in the air.

"I am Kim Jinseong, the Right Assistant Minister of Taxation! By royal decree, I am here to execute a warrant of seizure and search upon this estate for the crimes of tax evasion and harboring illegal private forces! Open the gates immediately!"

"A r-royal decree...?! We cannot open these gates without direct orders from the Master!"

"Is that so? Then we have no choice." I gestured with my chin toward Jincheol and the armored guards at the front. "Break it down."

"Understood, brother!" Jincheol grinned, leaping down from his horse. Resting his heavy sword over his shoulder, he strode confidently toward the main gates.

"Loose! Loose your arrows! Do not let them touch the gates!" the guard captain screamed in panic.

Jincheol didn't even blink. Instead, the thirty elite armored guards deployed behind me raised their massive shields in unison, forming an iron wall over his head.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

The volley of arrows struck the sturdy shields and bounced off harmlessly. Taking advantage of the cover, Jincheol reached the gates. Drawing a deep breath from his core, he gripped his heavy sword with both hands.

CRASH—!

Jincheol's massive blade slammed into the heavy wooden crossbar of the gate. With a thunderous roar, the thick oak doors shattered and collapsed inward. A dozen private guards who had been bracing against the doors were swept up in the splintering debris, screaming as they were thrown to the ground.

"Advance! Anyone who draws a blade is to be deemed a traitor defying a royal decree. Behead them on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spot!"

The moment my command fell, the soldiers surged through the splintered gates.

"Eek! S-spare me!"

"Drop your weapons!"

At the end of the day, these guards were merely hired thugs and mercenaries. Faced with the cold steel of the elite armored guards—true killing machines—the estate's defenders threw down their weapons in terror and prostrated themselves on the ground. A disorganized mob, no matter the numbers, meant nothing before the absolute authority of the state.

Amidst the chaos in the courtyard, the estate owner, Yang, rushed out in his fine silk robes, his face pale with rage. "W-what is the meaning of this lawlessness?! How dare you trespass here! I will send a letter to the Chief State Councillor in Hanyang this instant and have your head!"

"Let's audit your ledgers before you send any letters," I said, casually dismounting and walking toward him. Behind me, Gaetdong-i dropped a heavy bundle onto the ground—the loot we had seized from the merchant inn last night.

"W-what is that?"

"These are the transaction ledgers we seized last night from the merchant inn you do business with. We spent the night cross-referencing them." I nodded to Gaetdong-i. He pulled a summarized accounting document from his robes and began to read it aloud, clear and precise.

"Over the past year, this estate purchased one hundred bags of salt, five hundred plowshares, and one thousand sickles! Calculating backward from these figures, it is certain that this estate harbors at least one thousand laborers—not the three hundred registered slaves reported to the government—and conceals over ten thousand majigi of unregistered land!"

"...!"

Yang's face drained of all color. The dirty secrets they had hidden so meticulously were laid bare by nothing more than their purchase history of salt and ironware.

"Y-you bastards...! How dare you present the ramblings of mere merchants as evidence! Our family possesses no such land, nor do we have such slaves!"

Seeing him deny it to the bitter end, I chuckled. "Jincheol."

"Yes, brother."

Having completed a thorough reconnaissance the night before, Jincheol led ten armored guards toward the rear of the grand main house. With a powerful kick, he shattered a cleverly disguised false wall.

Crash!

As the fake wall crumbled, it revealed a secret passage stretching deep into the mountainside, along with the heavily locked iron doors of a massive underground warehouse.

"N-no...!" Yang shrieked in despair, collapsing to his knees.

Jincheol sliced through the padlock with a single stroke of his sword and flung the iron doors open. "Brother! We found it!" he shouted, his voice laced with excitement.

I walked over slowly and peered inside.

"...Wow."

Even I found myself momentarily breathless. Inside the underground vault, thousands of sacks of premium white rice—stolen from the state's tax revenues—were piled high like mountains. That wasn't all. In one corner sat a massive hoard of silver ingots stamped with the seal of the Ming imperial court, alongside stacked crates overflowing with all manner of luxury goods. This was the physical manifestation of the corruption that was draining Joseon's treasury dry.

"M-My Lord...! Just the silver piled over there must be worth tens of thousands of yang!" Gaetdong-i muttered, swallowing hard.

I quickly calculated 1% of this hoard in my head as my commission. It was hard to suppress the grin tugging at the corners of my mouth. Looking down at the dazed, defeated Yang on the ground, I smiled warmly.

"The end of proven tax evasion is always the same: total asset seizure."

I raised my hand high, facing the three hundred constables behind me. "By royal decree! Load every single grain of rice and every shard of silver in that warehouse onto the carts!"

"Yes, My Lord!"

The constables dispersed into the warehouse with zeal.

It was then that Jincheol, who had been searching the depths of the vault, called out to me urgently. "Brother! You need to see this. There are some suspicious chests piled high behind the rice sacks."

Approaching Jincheol, I saw dozens of long wooden crates covered in a thick layer of dust, hidden away in the shadows. Jincheol smashed the lid of one chest with his sword.

"...!"

The three of us gasped simultaneously as we looked inside. It wasn't farming tools or silk. Every single chest was packed to the brim with heavy, reddish metal ingots.

"I-Isn't this copper? Why is there so much copper in an estate warehouse...?" Jincheol mused, picking up one of the ingots in confusion.

As Gaetdong-i closely inspected the bottom of the ingot, his face suddenly turned as white as a sheet.

"M-My Lord! Look at these copper ingots. This isn't scrap metal melted down in some local smithy. Look at this official seal stamped clearly on the bottom... It is the mark of the Hanyang Type Casting Office!"

"What? The Type Casting Office?"

A cold chill ran down my spine. The very incident that had greeted me the moment I woke up in this unfamiliar land of Joseon—the conspiracy where the former Right Assistant Minister of Taxation tried to frame me and have me executed. Why on earth were the tens of thousands of catties of missing copper from the Type Casting Office sitting in a secret warehouse in the valleys of Chungcheong Province?

"My Lord! There is a lacquered box hidden beneath the chests!"

Gaetdong-i quickly opened the lacquered box and pulled out a thick, secret ledger. Inside, alongside the name of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Daedong Merchant Group—the powerful syndicate that dominated Hanyang—was a detailed record of the financial flow showing how they had smuggled the copper and laundered the proceeds into Ming silver ingots.

"Well, look at this. They weren't just exporting copper to Ming," I muttered, tossing the heavy ingot back into the chest with a cold laugh. "I came to raid the Chief State Councillor's in-laws, and ended up catching the true mastermind behind the copper embezzlement scandal that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠almost cost me my neck."

I had thought this was a simple case of tax evasion, but the scale of the game had just expanded exponentially. This was a textbook case of collusion between politicians and merchants—a massive monopoly syndicate in Hanyang embezzling state-owned copper to amass astronomical wealth in exchange for funneling slush funds to the high officials.

The budget King Sejong had demanded. The second target from whom I would squeeze those astronomical funds. The moment had arrived where Hanyang's greatest merchant group, the parasites monopolizing the market and eating away at the state budget, was perfectly linked to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this crime.

"How interesting."

I turned to the constables waiting behind me. "Load every single copper chest in that warehouse onto the carts as well! We are shipping them to Hanyang!"

"Yes, Assistant Minister!"

Hundreds of carts were loaded with the seized spoils, worth over one hundred thousand yang, alongside the massive piles of copper.

"Now, shall we go choke the life out of those merchants who dared to frame me?"