Chapter 116
No matter what anyone says, the center of Joseon is Hanyang.
Joseon’s precious goods inevitably gather in Hanyang, pass through it, and only then spread throughout the country.
In that sense, Hanyang can be considered the heart that keeps Joseon’s money circulating.
However, Hanyang now has one major problem that must be solved.
“Father-in-law, have you never thought that Hanyang is too shabby for a capital city?”
My father-in-law tilted his head.
He looked as though he did not know how to answer.
It seemed I had blurted that out without any context.
Then my father-in-law’s expression suddenly darkened.
He seemed to think I was saying this because I felt sorry for Hanyang’s appearance, which had yet to recover even though reconstruction work had begun after the fire...
When I thought of how more than a thousand people had died and thousands of homes had been reduced entirely to ashes by the fire, I too was filled with sorrow, but...
That was not what I wanted to talk about now.
Gyeoul had said this.
She told me that even the refugees who had lost not only their homes but also their families were grateful to me for throwing myself into the fire to put it out.
I, too, had suffered through a painful period while struggling with trauma after experiencing the Great Hanyang Fire, but I judged that the right thing to do was to escape from it as quickly as possible and work hard for Joseon, so I had tried to restore my physical and mental health.
As a result, I had now nearly recovered my normal physical and mental condition.
“The population passed one hundred thousand long ago and is growing so rapidly that it looks ready to surpass two hundred thousand and then three hundred thousand before long, yet the sijeon is far too small in comparison.”
“Is that so? You may think that, son-in-law, but I think it is fine as it is... Isn’t Unjong-ga always a place where people and goods gather like clouds? Even now, whenever I receive and read the ledgers my son sends me each month, I feel dizzy. The volume and value of the goods being traded are simply enormous.”
“I hear that after investing heavily in shipping and making a killing, your monthly net income reaches three thousand seom of white rice. That means you earn thirty-six thousand seom of white rice a year, so I agree that it is a dizzying figure even just to hear about.”
In Korea, people commonly use the expression “billionaire.”
Someone with ten billion dollars, or roughly more than one trillion won, is called a very wealthy person or a magnate.
In Joseon, the equivalent expression is manseokgun, meaning someone who harvests ten thousand seom of white rice every year.
My father-in-law was earning the combined income of three or four such manseokgun, so he must have felt truly dizzy.
At this point, it would not be an exaggeration to call my father-in-law Joseon’s chaebol.
After hearing me, my father-in-law burst out laughing.
“You must be the only person in all Joseon who says Jongno’s sijeon is too small. And now someone like you is telling me he feels dizzy after hearing how much I earn each month? I’m the one who feels more flustered.”
“The State Council handles hundreds of thousands of seom of white rice without a second thought, but that is state money, so it does not feel particularly meaningful to me. However, hearing that you earn so much money leaves me dizzy, yet I still cannot quite grasp it. Building warehouses to store all that white rice must be quite a task too.”
Korea once had an unjust law called the kinship-property exemption.
Even when relatives committed financial crimes such as fraud, theft, or embezzlement against one another, they were completely exempt from criminal punishment.
Thus, even if one’s mother, father, or cousin ran off with one’s cash, punishment was either impossible or the sentence could be reduced at the judge’s whim.
However, when this system was created, the law was not unjust; socially, it was considered entirely natural.
In an era when patriarchy was strong—or, more precisely, when people believed that a family’s property was shared by all its members—it was considered natural for the head of the family to handle crimes involving family property.
In Joseon, being expelled from one’s family was enough to make social activity itself impossible.
Because of this social background, my father-in-law and I were extremely closely connected, meaning that his money was effectively money I could use as much as I wanted, so long as I asked his permission.
If I ever fell into trouble, it would naturally be money spent on me as well.
Conversely, if my father-in-law fell into trouble and needed every last bit of our household’s wealth, I would have a duty to hand it all over too.
My father-in-law snorted with laughter when he heard me.
“The last time you told His Majesty, without even giving me a hint, that you would strip our household of all its wealth to buy ships, I was going to meet you and grab you by the collar. But after hearing the whole story, I decided it was obviously a profitable venture and let it go.”
“I was rash then. Please forgive me, Father-in-law.”
“That was all in the past, wasn’t it? And thanks to you, son-in-law, I became one of the five richest men in Hanyang’s sijeon. Still, if you feel troubled about it... you can simply treat Gyeoul well.”
“Yes, I will.”
As long as I was alive, I had no intention of treating Gyeoul poorly.
That was why I had not taken a concubine all this time either.
“But why did you ask me to come out to the sijeon?”
“You will know when you follow me. Let us head toward the Han River first.”
In fact, even though it was working hours, I asked Hwang Hui for his understanding and openly took my father-in-law out for a stroll through the sijeon.
The reason was that I had something to ask my father-in-law.
I thought it would be best to explain what I needed his abilities for by showing him the task directly.
As we walked along a fairly crowded street, a merchant came rushing toward me.
Both his hands held baskets overflowing with jeolpyeon.
“Oh, my! Lord Jegeom.”
“I am a clerk in Uijeongbu now. But who are you, and what is in those baskets?”
“I am the fellow who survived because Lord Sain personally saved me a month ago. I received an immeasurable favor from you, my lord, and I did send a small token of gratitude to your home recently. But that was nowhere near enough for the benefactor who saved my life. When I recognized you passing by, I brought an entire basket of the jeolpyeon rumored to be the most delicious in our shop.”
In front of subway stations in Korea, jeolpyeon is an inexpensive snack, with a pack of eight to ten pieces selling for 2,000 won, but in Joseon, jeolpyeon was a fairly luxurious food because it was made with plenty of rice and sesame oil.
To give me something this precious by the whole basket... Yet I could not exactly refuse it either. Honestly.
“I am out on official business today, so I have no slave to carry things for me. I will just have a taste. Father-in-law, you should try one too.”
My father-in-law tasted one first, and then I did as well. It was truly savory and delicious.
I found myself continuing to pick them up and eat them without thinking.
“This is really delicious. Could you send just two baskets of jeolpyeon to our home later? If you say I sent you, I will pay you generously.”
“I could not possibly take money for something like this from the lord who saved my life.”
The rice-cake shop owner said that, bowed, and returned to his shop.
This is why Joseon truly feels like a place where people live.
The goodwill I had shown had come back to me like this.
“Hanyang is a wonderful place, Father-in-law.”
“It is not that Hanyang is wonderful. You performed a good deed, and that good deed has come back to you.”
After exchanging such pointless remarks and walking for about an hour, we could see the Han River before us.
There were only a few ferryboats and street vendors along the Han River, and not many people.
“Father-in-law, there were hardly any homes between the sijeon and here, were there?”
“That is true. Was it not because everything burned down in the recent fire? Even without that, this was originally a neighborhood where not many people lived.”
“This is an unusual place. It has an excellent location, but few people live here. Just look over there—they are even growing cabbages.”
I had heard that, among the building owners in Gangnam, surprisingly many came from families whose ancestors, grandparents, and parents had not been wealthy.
The reason was that when development began in Gangnam and land prices suddenly rose several times over, most farmers were too busy selling their fields to think of anything else...
But a few stubborn people insisted that they would farm for the rest of their lives and refused to sell their land no matter what. Later, when development caused land prices to rise hundreds of times, they sold only part of it and built high-rise buildings there.
The land here near the Han River looked exactly like that kind of land to me.
It was essential to Hanyang’s development, yet no one lived here, making it ideal for development.
“We will build a wide new road from here all the way to the sijeon. What do you think will happen if we find several more plots like this and carry out the same work?”
My father-in-law’s eyes lit up.
“If we build an icehouse on the coast of Incheon and send out boats filled with ice, then catch fish and quickly carry them here by boat... a fish market would be established here... And not only that, the meat of cows and pigs slaughtered by butchers in Pyeongan Province could also be gathered here and supplied to Hanyang.”
“Yes. All kinds of local specialties would be traded right here. Then people who cannot even find land to farm as tenants and have no clear way to make a living would flock here and try to work as porters, at least.”
“Hanyang’s population would grow like mad. Even now, the Hansungbu keeps saying Hanyang’s population is increasing too quickly, and the Chief State Councillor, who also serves as Hansung magistrate, keeps crying out in distress... If things go as you say, Hanyang’s population will grow even faster than it is now, and the Chief State Councillor will collapse from overwork.”
That was merely a minor side effect of the country’s development.
This absolutely had nothing to do with taking revenge on Hwang Hui and Jo Mal-saeng after they subtly dumped on me the task of writing ‘feedback’ on every document they approved,
and then tried to do nothing but stamp their seals.
These days, despite His Majesty King Sejong piling a mountain of work on them, those two old men took a two-hour break during work under the pretext of lunchtime, then chatted over tea under the excuse that they were discussing important state affairs.
They did so after dumping the work they were supposed to handle on me.
“Now, as for these intervening plots, we will build various workshops here. We plan to sell the goods produced here throughout the country using water transport.”
I did not have a steam engine, but I did have a way to spread factory-style handicraft production.
If we could mass-produce and cheaply supply high-quality farm tools, as well as sell various household goods and implements...
“...... Wouldn’t Joseon become truly wealthy?”
My father-in-law nodded.
“That would be an excellent thing. And if we bought up a great deal of land here ahead of everyone else... we could also make a substantial private profit.”
“Exactly, Father-in-law. Now, the thing is, I am terribly busy with work.”
My father-in-law’s face instantly stiffened.
Had he gotten a bad feeling about this?
“You will need to help us redevelop this part of Hanyang, Father-in-law.”
My father-in-law broke into a cold sweat and shook his head.
Judging only by his expression, one would think someone was chasing him with a knife.
Good heavens, anyone watching might get the wrong idea.
I was merely giving my father-in-law a chance to use his abilities and devote himself to the country.
“No! I am going to stay in the Ministry of Revenue. The Minister of Revenue said that if I continued working there like this, he would promote me to a junior court official within five years. I will not go to the State Council. I would rather go serve in the provinces than go to the State Council. Take some young, energetic fellow instead of a worn-out old man like me. There is a fellow named Kim Bubongsa in the Ministry of Revenue. He is young, but he is very good at his work. So it would be much better to take him instead of an old man like me. I would be perfectly happy to keep working in the Ministry of Revenue like this and slowly rise through the ranks.”
“Didn’t you say last time that you wanted to become a senior court official?”
“Ah, now that I think about it, I have been feeling ill since earlier. I was going to request sick leave, but I was so overwhelmed with work that I never got around to it. I really ought to submit that sick leave request quickly. And tomorrow, I should call a physician and...”
I knew the name of that illness and its symptoms.
At work or school, one suddenly starts feeling sick and even seems to develop a fever.
Then, after announcing that one is leaving early, the instant one steps outside the building...
the fever suddenly disappears, and all the pain vanishes.
The illness is called ‘I-don’t-want-to-work disease.’
“I will send you some red ginseng and deer antler.”
Then I handed my father-in-law the appointment slip that had already passed seogyeong (the personnel vetting procedure).
“Congratulations on your promotion to a senior eighth-rank recording secretary in Uijeongbu, Father-in-law.”
I would take responsibility for helping my father-in-law rise to the rank of senior official.
I had heard recently that he continued diligently reading the Four Books and Three Classics after work...
So I ought to help him build his career, at least.
After all, it was good for the country and good for my father-in-law.
How happy must he have been to sit there with his mouth hanging open, unable even to speak?
“I, your son-in-law, will do everything in my power to help you achieve the lofty dream you have cherished, Father-in-law. So keep trusting only me from now on.”