Great Fire of Hanyang (6)

To put it plainly, this Great Fire of Hanyang was far larger in scale than the Great Fire of Hanyang in the original history.

This fire burned 18 percent of Hanyang, and the estimated death toll reached 1,200.

From what I heard, if Queen Soheon and I had not responded desperately, the damage would have been twice as great.

Others praised me, saying that I had handled things exceptionally well and had no reason whatsoever to feel guilty, but I had seen that horrific scene with my own eyes...

‘Of course I feel guilty.’

I came to understand all too well why firefighters sometimes suffer from PTSD.

“Do you truly intend to torture them personally, Lord Jegum? You must not. This is no ordinary horrific and cruel business; how could someone as esteemed as you do such a thing yourself?”

It is not as though I approve of torture, either.

Twisting a man's legs until his shinbones are exposed, or piling several millstones onto his thighs to crush and shatter the bones in his legs, is unspeakably cruel.

Well, in a case like this, they are doing it to bastards who genuinely deserve to die, so even “cruel deeds” would naturally be permissible...

Even I oppose using torture like this in ordinary investigations.

Because once investigations accompanied by torture become the norm, captives will make false confessions out of fear of torture... and before long, truly innocent people may end up being killed.

There was a decisive reason torture was eventually abolished in investigations, and it was not because of human-rights concerns: it was because the statements obtained through torture so often turned out to be complete nonsense.

“Then are you people lowly?”

The jailer tilted his head at my words.

“Are you not the ones who step forward to do the bloody, horrific work that others hate?”

“Yes, that is so...”

“That is truly noble work. While putting out the fire this time, I saw countless people burned to death. It was a sight too terrible to look at. You say you torture criminals, but are you not torturing people while facing such a harsh sight for the sake of the country?”

There is only one reason people look unfavorably on men like the torturer Noh Deok-sul.

It is because the people he tortured were not heinous criminals like serial killers, but admirable people who had fought for independence.

Honestly, if he had tortured serial killers or demons of the age, he would not have been cursed quite so much.

"The people you torture are those who have committed treason, violated the bonds of human relations, or, as in this case, committed arson. They are people who deserve whatever happens to them."

If you think about it, treason is not all that different from the budding suicide terrorists of al-Qaeda.

A crime against the bonds of human relations refers to someone who kills or beats his own parents, and by Joseon's standards, it is considered an even graver crime than serial murder.

In fact, even by modern standards, public opinion would be split over whether to beat a parent who had habitually abused their family, so there is no point asking what Joseon would think.

"What you do is by no means lowly. Therefore, for the sake of Jongmyo, the state, and the people, I too am willing to get blood on my hands."

If we failed to uncover all the information related to this gang, incidents like this could happen again in the future.

In fact, there is even a record that another fire broke out the day after the Great Fire of Hanyang.

"Before we begin the torture, I heard that the Hanseong Pan-yun Daegam is being held somewhere here?"

"He is here."

Hanseong Pan-yun Min Jeon looked so wretched that it was painful to look at him.

Unless he had incurred Sejong and Yi Bang-won's displeasure without actually committing treason, it seemed he had received torture that was not normally inflicted on a yangban.

Even though the Min clan had lost its influence after Min Mugu and Min Mujil were purged, it was still a great family too powerful to be casually branded traitors.

It seemed they had tortured him without applying the charge of treason, and only to the point where he would neither die nor be left disabled...

‘If I leave him alone, he will simply be beheaded.’

In fact, at court right now, His Majesty King Sejong was hounding the ministers, saying that Joseon would fall unless they resolved the butchers’ problem, while wearing a black dragon robe and holding Yi Bang-won’s iron mace.

The Naegeumwi and Gyeomsabok warriors working at Gyeongbokgung had even donned armor instead of their usual everyday cheollik robes.

"Hanseong Pan-yun Daegam."

Min Jeon had been lying collapsed and groaning, but when he heard my voice, he crawled toward the prison bars as fast as he could.

"Kim Jegum, please, I beg you... Save me. I am really going to die if this continues. It was all my fault. I truly did wrong, so please..."

I knew that the man had been suffering from overwork, and that he had made his own efforts to devise safety measures.

Still, if he lost his head, I had to admit I would have felt somewhat aggrieved.

Besides, this was exactly when funds were needed to help those who had lost their homes in the fire and were starving.

"Do you want to live?"

"Please, just save me. I really did wrong. Please save me."

"There is a way. Tell His Majesty right now that you will offer him all your property, and you will be released within three days."

"All my property?"

"Is that not better than being tortured like this and beheaded alongside those rebels? And if His Majesty takes your circumstances into consideration, he will leave you enough to return to your hometown and live out your days in comfort."

"I understand. Please use my property for the disaster victims. And please save me..."

Honestly, if that yangban had been beheaded, I would have felt a little troubled myself.

He had simply failed to do the job properly because he had far too many other things to do besides installing safety equipment, so killing him because that had worsened the fire damage... felt a little much.

"Take me to where the criminals are."

"Yes, sir."

Having dealt with the Hanseong Pan-yun, the only one among those imprisoned here with grounds for leniency, I could now go rough up the trash who could atone only through death.

Once I went farther into the prison, I saw more than thirty criminals locked up.

Perhaps they had not been tortured yet, because they looked fairly presentable.

"Pull out one of those who is not the leader."

"Yes, sir."

At my order, the jailer pulled out one of the arsonists, who was bound with a rope.

He probably knew he was going to die anyway, because he wore an extremely dignified expression, as if daring me to kill him.

Wow, anyone watching would think this bastard was some sort of heroic patriot standing proud even before torture.

‘It was like Yi Wan-yong doing an Ahn Jung-geun cosplay.’

Seeing this petty-thief bastard act arrogant after setting a fire that killed a huge number of people so he could make a quick score made my stomach churn.

These bastards truly must not be allowed to live.

I had already had that thought 500 times today alone. Was this the 501st?

"Why in the world did you set the fire? If you confess honestly, I will not torture you."

Confessions obtained through torture often are not particularly useful to an investigation, but when I thought of the people these bastards had burned to death, I felt I ought to torture them at least a little.

You deserve to die.

And by the most cruel method in the world at that.

"Hahaha, why did we set the fire? What a stupid question. It is true that we set the fire and looted, but if you ask why, is not all the blame the fault of you and the king you serve?"

He kept laughing like a man who had lost his mind.

I knew very well why people of that sort laughed in situations like this.

Since he was going to die anyway, he was forcing himself to laugh and pretend to be cheerful.

He was hypnotizing himself into believing that he was not afraid to die.

In his own way, he was desperately trying to leave behind at least a slightly impressive image, since he was going to die anyway.

However, truly strong people do not laugh in the face of death.

They simply accept death with composure, and, if they have time to write a will, put down the things they never managed to tell their families, and so on.

Then, so as not to show their weak side by trembling before the fear of death, they endure through sheer willpower.

‘What a load of bullshit.’

"We butchers have made a living our entire lives slaughtering cows, horses, and pigs and selling their meat. My father did the same, as did my grandfather and great-grandfather. Under Goryeo, no one objected to us living this way, but once Joseon was established, they told us, who had lived as butchers all our lives, to survive by plowing fields. How absurd is that?"

The jailers and the Uigeumbu officers near me tried to shut the man's mouth.

But I stopped them.

What he was saying was, in fact, something Joseon needed to hear.

Honestly, even if they issue cattle-slaughter bans and horse-slaughter bans, no one pays the slightest attention.

They just claim that a cow or horse has broken a leg, slaughter it without getting caught, and openly selling beef is practically tolerated anyway, so what the hell are these bans supposed to accomplish?

‘It would be better to simply lift the restrictions and raise more cattle.’

And even if these bastards could not be reformed as he said, should we not reform the butchers who had not yet committed crimes?

"Do you really think we could do farm work we had never done in our entire lives? Yes, it is true that you gave us land. But what good is giving us land? The villagers despised us as butchers, and the local magistrate dumped every kind of backbreaking task on us: make brassware and deliver it, make reed baskets and deliver them. They made our lives a living hell! We could not go on living, so we ran away! Thus we ended up living by petty theft, and everything is the fault of you and your king! Ah, now that I think about it, it is a shame."

"What do you mean?"

"Since I was setting a fire anyway, I should have made it much bigger and raped more women! There is nothing like the pleasure of forcing yourself on a woman. Do you know the pleasure of sex? Ah, of course you don't."

"Have you said everything you wanted to say?"

"I have. Kill me if you are going to."

After hearing that, I fitted the leg stocks around his thighs.

Then I twisted them together with the jailers.

I wanted to keep a bastard like this alive for the rest of his life and torture him day and night, but I could not...

Even if only for the victims' sake, I would turn his entire body into a wreck before having him executed.

"I will make you beg me to kill you quickly."