Chapter 100
First-rate merchants lead the trends, while second-rate merchants quickly chase after them.
Third-rate merchants are the ones who, after the second-raters have made their killing and passed the burden on for a premium, end up taking on that burden and crashing.
And right now, a line of second-rate merchants is coming to the Shipbuilding Office.
"Aigoo, Master Jegeom! Please sell me a bokseon. If I just had one bokseon, it feels like this wretched fate of mine would finally turn around. Can't you do something?"
"Kim Sipjwa, don't you know that even cold water has an upper and lower level? I'm Ojwa, so I buy first, and you buy after me!"
"Elder Ojwa, there is a hierarchy among merchants, yes... but isn't this unrelated to upper and lower ranks?"
So when I reported for duty, I was immediately faced with a crowd of easy marks, no, customers.
This is ridiculous; all we did was build ships at the shipyard, and money is practically being copied.
Just looking at it makes me so pleased that a smile forms at my lips on its own.
"I can't even estimate how much money I can make off these guys."
As I watched the clumsy second-rate merchants from a slight distance, reeking of a risqué smell—no, the smell of money, I heard Jang Yeong-sil greet me from behind.
"Master Jegeom, good day."
"Oh, yes. Did you rest well yesterday too, Jang Byeoljwa?"
"Yes, thanks to you guaranteeing that I could leave on time despite how busy I was, I was able to rest well."
"I'm telling you, it's not me guaranteeing that we leave on time. That's all His Majesty's grace. Unless the country is struck by disaster, he ordered us to leave on time, and if anyone fails to obey, he gives the ministers a severe dressing-down."
According to rumor, there is a ridiculous reason King Sejong can't stand the sight of officials working overtime.
He himself is trapped by the Grand King Emeritus, the hunting demon, who shows up cackling every day when quitting time rolls around and makes him do exercises he hates, like hiking, archery, and horseback riding...
While the ministers stay behind at their offices doing their beloved overtime and reading and the like, he can't bear to watch that with his own eyes, so he banned overtime in the name of filial piety.
So the ministers were granted lives with evenings to themselves...
The reason is funny, but in the end King Sejong got healthier and the ministers escaped the hell of overwork, so all's well that ends well.
However, for King Sejong's reputation, I have no intention of telling Jang Yeong-sil this rumor.
"Also, thanks to you, my poor household finances have improved greatly. Unlike other officials, no one gives this humble servant gifts, so I could barely get by on my stipend alone. Thanks to you giving me some of the white rice that came into the Shipbuilding Office, yesterday I was finally able to let my wife and children eat chicken to their hearts' content for the first time in ages."
"Didn't I tell you to buy beef?"
"I don't know how long I'll be working at the Shipbuilding Office, and money is something you have to save while you can. Then you can even buy a little land, and that way your circumstances can improve a bit, can't they?"
"The heart of the great enterprise of making bokseon right now is Jang Byeoljwa and Magistrate Jeong (Jeong Bun), and I've forgotten to look after them properly. Next month I'll set aside around 100 seom of white rice for you, so use it as you see fit, and be sure to buy beef at least once."
In 21st-century Korea, doing something like this would land you in trouble for embezzlement right away.
But in a Joseon government office, the rule is 'every man for himself.'
Offices outside the central government—such as the military commands for the army and navy—basically had to fund themselves by whatever methods they could.
Because of that, even in the Shipbuilding Office, if I earn money through lawful means other than the funds the central government gives us, nobody complains if I use some of it freely.
So I use half of the income earned from selling bokseon to cover bonuses and various budgets, and send the rest to the Ministry of Taxation.
Personally, I've already made a fortune selling bokseon, so I'm not skimming any extra for myself.
My father-in-law invested the equivalent of 15,000 seom of white rice, sold bokseon, and made 40,000 seom worth of income through trade.
I also invested everything I had and earned 10,000 seom worth of white-rice income.
Even then, if I try to skim more, the Office of the Inspector-General and the Office of Censors won't sit still.
Lord Heo Jo will show up with his eyes blazing and keep submitting memorials until he finally succeeds in sending me into exile, saying Kim Daebung has gone too far.
Then King Sejong will send me into exile somewhere in Gyeonggi-do with tears in his eyes, and after granting me a special pardon a month later, he will call me in and whisper in my ear.
'You're Hwang Hui now. Behave like Hwang Hui.'
"If next month you don't buy beef and eat it with your family, I'll personally show up at your house with a huge load of beef. If you don't want to eat beef grilled by your superior, then you absolutely must buy some and eat it yourself."
"I'll keep that in mind, sir."
"Jang Byeoljwa, go ahead and get back to work. And if you see Magistrate Jeong, tell him to hold off for a while on expanding the shipyard, even if he wants to."
Jeong Bun, who has an unusually strong obsession with civil works, often yells that the Shipbuilding Office shipyard needs to be expanded.
'Sir, the demand for bokseon is extremely high right now, so we should take this chance to build facilities that can construct sixty ships at once!'
'Master Jegeom, with the technical skill we've accumulated so far, I'll make it extremely neat and tidy!'
But if we try to expand it any further here, the Minister of Public Works will call me over and chew me out in person.
Jang Yeong-sil left me and headed toward the side where the craftsmen were.
Then I should do my part as the Shipbuilding Office's head too. That means handing the ships over.
"Bring the merchants in one by one. Bring them in order of importance."
My job as the man in charge of the Shipbuilding Office is to call in the merchants and draw up contracts handing over ships at a price slightly higher than market value.
It may seem like a trivial job for a Junior Fourth Rank official to handle...
But there is a reason I go out of my way to do this.
"I am Kim Jeonsang, the steward of Lord Yeonguijeong's household."
"I see. What brings you here?"
"I came to ask whether I could reserve about five ships. I'll pay plenty, so I'd like them delivered as quickly as possible."
"The fastest I can provide is one ship that can be handed over in a month's time. To get all five, you'll have to wait at least two months. Since this is an expedited delivery, the normal price would be 3,500 seom of white rice, but can I really charge that to you, my lord? I'll let you have them for a special price of 2,800 seom."
There are people who come to buy ships even among the high and mighty, such as the Three State Councillors—the Yeonguijeong, Left State Councilor, and Right State Councilor—and the ministers of the Six Ministries, including Jo Mal-saeng.
They aren't buying ships so they can operate them themselves and make a fortune.
They want to resell them at a premium to the licensed market merchants they have close ties with.
That's why I said the original price was 3,500 seom, but I'd let them go for 2,800 seom.
In other words, I could still pocket about 700 seom of white rice.
"Thank you, Master Jegeom. I'll bring the payment to the Shipbuilding Office the day after tomorrow."
Hwang Hui's steward handed me a small silk pouch full of silver and withdrew.
As expected of someone at the level of Yeonguijeong, he can easily hand over silver as a bribe even though silver hardly ever changes hands, even in illicit trade.
'So this is what it takes to become a lifelong slave.'
I really must not end up taking bribes like Hwang Hui.
As the top official in charge of the Shipbuilding Office, I dealt with all kinds of people asking for ships.
People sent by the high officials, employees sent by merchants, and so on...
Dealing with them, I made a huge amount of money.
I distributed that money entirely at my discretion, properly according to the rank of the people working in the Shipbuilding Office.
**
The development of commerce naturally leads to an overload of work for the Ministry of Taxation.
Accordingly, an enormous amount of work came pouring down on Jo Gye-saeng, the Minister of Taxation.
But instead of annoyance or anger, a smile was on his face.
"I'm going crazy, I'm going crazy. Even though work is pouring in like mad, I can't help smiling."
Jo Gye-saeng is, unlike Jo Mal-saeng, an upright official who has never had any trouble over bribes in all his years in office.
In Joseon, being upright means that when there was room to 'help yourself,' you only did so at a level that served the national interest...
To show that kind of restraint, you have to possess patriotism for the country.
Your patriotism has to be stronger than your greed if you want to remain one of the honest, incorruptible officials.
If patriotism and greed are at a similar level, you're liable to end up like Jo Mal-saeng or Hwang Hui.
Because Jo Gye-saeng's love for the country is greater than his urge to pursue personal gain, the pile of work becomes maddeningly huge as 'good-for-the-country' tasks stack on top of more 'good-for-the-country' tasks...
'It's all for the good of the country, anyway.'
"The governor of Uiju said rice prices are down by 30 percent compared to last year, didn't he? And in Pyeongan-do and Hamgyeong-do, most of the counties reported that they don't need the relief grain the court is sending this year. Thanks to that, the grain the Ministry of Taxation had set aside for relief has lost its purpose."
The Ministry of Taxation had planned to send nearly 30,000 to 40,000 seom of grain as relief to Pyeongan-do and Hamgyeong-do this year as well.
Those regions are always plagued by chronic food shortages, so the court had to budget and keep supporting them.
But this year is an exception.
Thus, the Ministry of Taxation suddenly has 30,000 to 40,000 seom of white rice to spare.
"And according to the memorials sent by the officials in charge of the markets, commercial activity in every county across the country is booming, so the taxes collected from merchants are said to increase fourfold..."
Joseon's main taxes are, of course, the land tax from farmland and things like Bang-won rice collected under the Bang-won Law.
But the taxes collected from merchants were by no means a small amount.
Even if you simply collected roughly one-tenth of what they earned, you could gather nearly 30,000 to 40,000 seom a year.
If that amount were quadrupled, it would be at least 120,000 to 160,000 seom.
"That Kim Daebung really pulled it off."
And this is only the beginning.
"I should set up more shipyards in the Left and Right Naval Commands of Jeolla, with a structure similar to the Shipbuilding Office."
The shipyard construction can naturally be handled by Jeong Bun, the Senior Fifth Rank magistrate of the Shipbuilding Office and a civil engineering expert.
"The Ministry of Taxation I knew always only thought about how to make up for a budget that wasn't there, how to cut spending... but now that's all a thing of the past."
He gave a snort of laughter and carefully wrote down in the memorial the rough direction things should take.
Then he took the unfinished matter and went in person to find Kim Mandeok.
Because for this kind of commerce-related work, he's the best at handling it in the Ministry of Taxation.
Senior Eighth Rank Kim Mandeok, unlike Kim Daebung, stiffened all over at the Minister of Taxation's personal visit.
Jo Gye-saeng looked at him and smiled with satisfaction.
"Kim Bongsa, please don't leave the Ministry of Taxation like your son-in-law did. Let's keep working together here from now on. If you just follow me well, you'll soon be able to become a full-fledged official."
"Thank you, my lord."
Jo Gye-saeng grinned and handed the pile of work over to Kim Mandeok.
"Since I favor you so much, I've brought you a very important task. Make sure it's all finished by quitting time today."