Re-Socialization of the Butchers (3)

Joseon is a nation for the people of Joseon.

Those people of Joseon—their citizens—ought to respect and obey Joseon's laws and order.

But these bastards called butchers are people who rejected Joseon's laws and institutions simply because they were prevented from practicing their chosen livelihood.

They are throwing a tantrum with their entire bodies, insisting that they do not want to be people of Joseon because Joseon does not guarantee their interests.

Still, there is a reason things have reached this point: the policy of reforming the butchers itself was utterly nonsensical. I believe that is more than sufficient grounds for leniency.

So everything has to be overhauled.

I mean being prepared to tear up everything except my wife and children.

"Do they not plainly live in Joseon? Yet I do not understand why you say they are not people of Joseon."

"Chief State Councillor, the people of Joseon must be those who respect and uphold Joseon's laws and institutions. But those who violate them by committing treason, setting fires and stealing, murdering people, and assaulting women are people who have broken Joseon's laws and institutions, while also defying Your Majesty's solemn royal commands.“

If I had not been discussing policy concerning the butchers, I would have been harshly condemned with cries of, “What nonsense are you talking about?”

The butchers are a minority when viewed across Joseon as a whole, yet they are a group that commits an enormous number of serious crimes.

They even recently set fire to Hanyang and nearly burned down Jongmyo and Changgyeonggung.

Since these men refuse to obey the laws of the country and live however they please, causing enormous harm to the state and its people, no one would dare step forward to object even if someone said they were unqualified to be citizens of Joseon.

"That is true. Even so, His Majesty said that the duty of a gentleman was to embrace even foolish people who had never learned the Way of the Gentleman with a parent's heart and make it possible for them to live like human beings. He said he would embrace them one more time. The official abolition of the Ugeumryeong and permission for them to operate butcher shops were also intended to turn the new baekjeong into citizens of Joseon."

His Majesty King Sejong made a truly enormous decision by partially permitting the butchers to slaughter cattle and allowing them to live as butchers in butcher shops.

That was because the Ugeumryeong officially remained in force until Joseon itself collapsed, and the policy toward the butchers remained in this wretched state until the reign of Jungjong.

No, actually, Sejo made things even worse than they had been under Sejong, so saying that would be unfair to His Majesty King Sejong.

In any case, this policy of assimilating the butchers into Joseon would later contribute greatly to the creation of the infamous criminal Im Kkeok-jeong and his violent-crime band.

After all, the state had strangled the butchers by taking away all their livelihoods and subjecting them to every kind of tax exploitation through a bizarre policy.

But this time, all of that was changing. It was an enormous transformation.

"You have also decided to provide them with even more support than before."

The moment I heard that, I felt as if my vision had suddenly gone white.

The situation was already one in which even cutting all possible support would not be enough, and now they were going to provide these people with even more support? That was tantamount to killing them outright.

"Previously, we gave them half a gyeol of wasteland or neglected fields, but now we will give them a full gyeol. In addition, we will provide them with food to live on while they clear their fields, and we intend to halve the annual taxes of the people who teach them how to farm. That is how we will support those who take up farming. For those who wish to raise livestock, we will generously provide old grain to feed the livestock they already possess, and for those who wish to open butcher shops, we will find suitable places where they can do so."

It was madness enough to make my head spin just listening to it.

If these fellows were veterans or war heroes wounded in battle, the people would understand and help them.

Joseon has little in the way of veterans' benefits or military honor, but...

There had been people who died while serving in the military or hunting tigers, so everyone would understand and let such privileges pass if they were granted to people who had performed great deeds for the country.

But if the people learned that the state was lavishing all that on lowly creatures who had spent their entire lives slaughtering cattle while doing nothing for them, they would be pleased indeed, wouldn't they?

"My lord, you absolutely must not do that."

"What was the biggest reason the butchers failed to adapt to life in Joseon? It was because they had no way to make a living, was it not? If we establish a foundation that allows them to support themselves, will that not solve the problem? His Majesty has made a great decision this time."

The butchers are like a private transferred from another company after behaving like an utterly useless soldier there.

And every soldier in the company knows that fact.

But imagine that the company commander decided to make the transferred soldier get along with his comrades by showering him with privileges.

The transferred private would find training difficult, so during marches the squad leader and other squad members would divide up his pack and carry it for him. And because he supposedly needed frequent leave for the sake of his mental health, they would collect the squad members' leave days and give them all to him.

On top of that, he would receive three times a sergeant's pay and no one else's.

If things were handled that way, the likelihood of the transferred soldier causing trouble would certainly decrease, since military life had become easier for him.

And if there were no chance of the matter becoming public or reaching the media, the other soldiers would be furious, but they would endure it while thinking of their parents.

After all, it would be over after two years at most, and they would decide that this was better than landing in the guardhouse or suffering other disadvantages after provoking that useless soldier.

But this is not the military.

This is Joseon, where failing to belong to a farming community literally puts one's life at risk, and where abuse—even beatings—is not considered a problem.

'The butchers handle knives, so we probably couldn't beat them, but we'd ostracize them in every way imaginable.'

Ultimately, they would be unable to survive in the countryside and would end up becoming a band of thieves or some other kind of criminal.

It is absolutely not because King Sejong, Hwang Hui, and the other officials of Joseon are incompetent that they failed to anticipate this situation.

Unlike Joseon, a status-based society, even lawmakers in a twenty-first-century democratic country who had once lived as ordinary citizens get roundly cursed because they do not know how much it costs to take a single bus ride.

'That is why they say lawmakers have been memorizing bus fares these days.'

In the same way, being born into the privileged class and living in Joseon had made it impossible for them to understand what the people felt.

As someone who understood that feeling, all I could do was try to stop him, foaming at the mouth.

"Chief State Councillor, absolutely not. That method is absolutely unacceptable."

"What do you mean?"

"What His Majesty is trying to do is no different from placing someone who passed the civil service examination through eumseo in the Saheonbu, always giving him the highest possible performance rating so that he is promoted faster than everyone else, and showing him favoritism."

Hwang Hui's brow furrowed.

But I had no choice.

This was the best way to make Hwang Hui, who did not understand the lives of the people, understand this problem.

"Have you ever seen someone who passed the examination through eumseo treated like a person in a government office?"

"...... Almost never."

There are almost no people in Joseon's history who entered office through eumseo and rose all the way to the rank of dangsang official.

Even Kim Jwa-geun, the head of the Andong Kim clan, received a sixth-rank post through eumseo but did not dare enter government service.

It says everything that he could enter office only after passing the state examination, which was practically no different from a rigged exam.

Thinking about it that way, Hwang Su-sin was truly an exceptional fellow: although his father was the Chief State Councillor, he entered through eumseo, was treated like a person, and was now a junior eighth-rank official building his career as Deputy Envoy at the Waegwan in Jeongui Prefecture.

Judging solely by practical ability, he was probably far more capable than Kim Jong-seo, whose daily routine was watching Hwang Hui's expression from that corner over there.

If he had not been that capable, then no matter how powerful his father Hwang Hui was, he would never have been treated like a person.

"Those who passed through eumseo generally are not even considered worthy of the myeonsinrye."

"You surely are not talking about my son..."

"Although Deputy Envoy Hwang passed through eumseo, he risked his life and rendered great service to the country, so of course he is an exception. Is that not why His Majesty entrusted him with the important post of Deputy Envoy at the Waegwan? Now, to continue: just as someone who passed through eumseo is not treated like a person, if the new baekjeong have done nothing for the country yet receive land and food, do you think the people will look kindly upon them?"

"...... Now that I think about it, I would be extremely displeased as well. If the new baekjeong were living with such preferential treatment while I still had not even a patch of land of my own..."

Put this way, the magistrates forcing the butchers to perform all kinds of illegal labor and extorting money from them almost seemed like a genuinely excellent policy.

The people were already furious because the state was showering enormous support on butchers newly arrived in their villages even though they had done nothing...

At least the righteous agents of justice—the clerks and magistrates—would slam them with an illegal tax bomb and briskly take away everything the butchers had earned through their own efforts, perhaps easing some of the people's pent-up anger.

'If they hadn't done that, the people might even have drawn knives against the new baekjeong.'

"But conversely, if we subjected them to extremely arduous labor for several years and let the people see them doing it, the situation would be somewhat different."

"Why is that?"

"If the people saw the new baekjeong sweating and laboring to build embankments for their villages and construct their walls, they would begin to feel sympathy for them. And if the people's lives benefited from the fruits of their labor, the people's feelings toward the new baekjeong would certainly become more generous."

The way a foreigner gets recognized as a true Korean is by serving in the military.

After being worked like a dog for two years and then discharged, his previous nationality would become completely irrelevant.

Whether he could speak Korean or not, he would be Korean.

That would be because he had been worked like a dog in exactly the same way as everyone else.

But if those butcher bastards endured backbreaking labor that provided economic benefits to the people, the effect would be several times greater.

"And we should give rice to the people who teach them how to farm, while reducing their taxes as well. Then they will naturally assimilate."

"Re-educating the butchers will be the Right State Councillor's responsibility."

Hwang Hui made it clear that Right State Councillor Jo Mal-saeng would be in charge of the matter, then ordered me to do exactly as I pleased.

A few days later, I gathered all the butchers living near Hanyang and spoke to them.

"You have two choices."

I really hate complicated things.

"Become citizens of Joseon, or die here and now."