Breaking the Cartel (5)

This world is not a fairy tale or a novel.

So it does not end with all the villains being wiped out and all the good people living happily ever after, as depicted in fairy tales and novels.

The situation I was facing now was exactly like that.

Much as I wanted to use this opportunity to wipe out every last sijeon merchant magnate, if I killed them all...

Joseon's commerce would become paralyzed in an instant.

Just as a person dies if their heart stops even briefly, the repercussions would deal an enormous blow to Joseon's economy.

Even successful companies frequently go bankrupt and suffer losses they cannot handle—or collapse altogether—because a payment for goods is delayed just once, for only a single day...

Joseon, with a population of nearly ten million, would be no different.

"Ha, my feelings are really complicated."

I had been unable to sleep at all, so I arrived at the State Council much earlier than my usual time to report for duty, and no one was here yet.

So I was voicing my complicated feelings to myself when...

A human voice suddenly came from behind me.

"What has you so troubled?"

For a moment, I thought it was a ghost.

There were still one shijin (2 hours) until the regular time to report for duty, so no one should have arrived yet, and yet I had heard a human voice.

Fortunately, the voice I heard did not belong to a ghost.

It belonged to Chief State Councillor Hwang Hui, who had passed more than 80 percent of my work onto me and acquired the sort of leisure enjoyed by a battalion command sergeant major.

"What brings you here at this early hour, Chief State Councillor?"

"I secretly made fruit punch using a great deal of the candy (sugar) my wife treasured, but she caught me and chewed me out. So I simply came to work early. By the time today's work is over, my wife's anger will have cooled down. Besides, if we finish early, I should be able to leave early too, shouldn't I?"

"I see."

As soon as I said that, Hwang Hui began complaining as though he had been treated unfairly.

"Kim Sain, you'll understand when you reach my age. Eating is the only great pleasure left. And here I am, unable even to retire in my old age, being tormented by work. I made fruit punch with sugar to forget my troubles, and she gets angry over that. Does that make any sense?"

In Joseon, sugar was considered extremely precious.

At this point in the early Joseon period, it was so difficult to obtain that even the king had trouble finding it no matter how desperately he tried.

When Queen Soheon said she wanted to taste sugar just before she died, Sejong and Munjong badgered their officials for it, yet it was still so rare that they could not obtain any.

But after I revitalized trade with Jeju Island (the sale of goods looted by Japanese pirates), sugar became fairly common.

Before that, with a little exaggeration, it could not be obtained even by offering an equal weight of silver. Now, however, it had become quite easy to acquire.

The price had fallen to about one sack of rice per doe of sugar.

Moreover, because the early Joseon period still retained Goryeo's influence, women's rights were fairly strong, and people did not hold the belief that men were heaven while women were inferior, as we commonly imagine.

Women had the right to inherit property through partition, and a principal wife could not be ignored without reason. Depending on the circumstances, she could even nag her husband.

"Why are you looking at me like that? You may think I have it easy and simply work at my leisure, but the Right State Councillor and I are always racking our brains over state affairs. I was even going to take sick leave yesterday..."

"I didn't say anything, Chief State Councillor."

Hwang Hui looked at me and sighed.

"As for me, what brought Kim Sain to work so early?"

"I heard about the deplorable things the sijeon merchants have been doing through my father-in-law. I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about how to deal with it."

In truth, I had already roughly sketched out how to deal with those bastards.

As soon as I heard about it, I thought I had figured out how to handle it.

I had come in early to draft a plan, get Jo Mal-saeng's or Hwang Hui's approval, and submit it to His Majesty King Sejong.

And, as when I had acted as a secret inspector, I planned to handle the matter in a way that would not officially come to light.

"They say even lifting a sheet of paper is easier with two people, don't they? No matter how brilliant a talent Kim Sain may be, there are limits to what one person can do alone. Besides, the Chief State Councillor's position is less about taking the initiative than about listening to the other officials' difficulties and opinions and organizing them. That is the more important duty."

"Then may I ask your advice, Chief State Councillor?"

"Of course. Say whatever you like."

Hwang Hui looked relieved, as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

So, you do have some awareness that you're dumping everything on me except the truly important tasks.

"The thing is..."

I told Hwang everything I had heard from Kim Mandeok about the atrocities committed by the sijeon merchants.

The so-called merchant magnates of the sijeon were trying to buy up every plot of land in Hanyang's newly developing areas and stuff all their relatives into them, intending to monopolize Hanyang's commercial sphere.

I warned him that this would amount to developing Hanyang only to hand everything to the merchant magnates and that, in the worst case, they could seize control of commerce throughout the Eight Provinces of Joseon.

I expressed my concern that, within several decades, the Joseon court might be reduced to watching the faces of Hanyang's merchant magnates.

After hearing all this, Hwang Hui furrowed his brow.

Then the harshest curse commonly used in Joseon burst from his mouth.

"You bastards possessed by the ghosts of Goryeo... You're traitorous bastards whose heads deserve to be smashed to death by a mace. Even being quartered on the spot would not be enough punishment for men like you."

I had heard that Yi Bang-won used the expression "someone possessed by the ghosts of Goryeo," but judging by the way things were now, it seemed to have become an established insult in Joseon.

The fact that even Chief State Councillor Hwang Hui used it proved as much.

"This isn't all. There is something truly serious."

"You're saying there is something worse than this?"

"I hear that a man named Kim Jang-seok, who runs the largest rice shop in Hanyang, collected money from the rice merchants and had them corner and hoard all the rice entering Hanyang through Incheon."

"...... You're saying they cornered something as essential as rice?"

Cornering and hoarding rice meant, in short, colluding to buy up every last grain.

If they did that, no rice would be supplied to Hanyang unless they chose to sell it. The price they named would become the price of rice throughout Hanyang.

The going rate was two bolts of cotton cloth for one seom of rice, but if those bastards cornered the market, then even if they demanded four or five bolts per seom, everyone would have no choice but to buy it through their tears.

"The powerful clans of the preceding Goryeo dynasty did exactly that. They monopolized everything for themselves and gave the people just enough not to starve to death. As a result, all the land throughout Goryeo became theirs. Just as the rice merchant did, the other sijeon merchants seem to be trying to do roughly the same thing."

"Yes, Chief State Councillor."

"Much as I would like to accuse them all of treason and submit a memorial asking that they be severely punished, doing so would set off an irreversible chain of events."

Hwang Hui let out a long sigh and lamented.

"It would be like burning down three thatched cottages just to catch a single rat. Moreover, Joseon's laws do not allow us to punish them."

"We could punish them even without a law, but it would be better not to set such a precedent if we can avoid it."

In a twenty-first-century rule-of-law state, even when something is obviously a crime, the accused is acquitted if there is no 'precedent' or statute providing legal grounds for punishment.

The judge grinds his teeth as he pronounces a not-guilty verdict, while the legislature creates a new law that makes the act punishable.

In Joseon, however, they could impose severe punishment for the offense of being contemptible.

'Everyone knows this is wrong, but they do it anyway.'

"In my opinion, it would be best to issue a stern warning to everyone except that rice merchant and let the matter end there."

"Yes, I agree."

"The people regard food as heaven, yet these men are playing games with food. That is no different from treason."

Handling the matter this way would be fine.

However, as long as the organization known as the sijeon dojung existed, there was no guarantee that a problem like this would not arise again in Joseon.

An organization that was so thoroughly closed and whose positions were inherited could not possibly be healthy.

"Wouldn't it be better to use this opportunity to abolish the organization known as the sijeon dojung? Then the state could manage commerce directly."

"...... We wouldn't have enough administrators."

"We could recommend several sijeon merchants who know how to write some characters (Classical Chinese) to His Majesty, have them specially appointed to office, and give them the opportunity to serve the king and country. We could also increase the number selected in the higher civil service examination."

"...... The civil service examination is already held once a year, and we select as many as 100 people each time..."

"We need to increase that number. It is for Joseon's everlasting glory."

Hwang Hui nodded, then looked at me and grinned.

"You persuade the Minister of Revenue, Kim Sain."

"How could a petty official like me..."

"...... Then you can become a high-ranking official. Excellent. I'll submit a memorial to His Majesty asking him to create a senior third-rank post in the State Council, and every problem will be solved. Yes, I've been bothered by seeing you in that blue official robe for some time, so this works out perfectly."

"I'll just go."

"Yes, how wonderful it would be if you listened so readily from the start. Then I wouldn't have to talk until my mouth hurt."

When I was a Jegeom at Jeonhamsa, I thought I could get away with this because I was the head of a subordinate government office, but at the State Council, I was practically the lowest-ranking bureaucratic nobody...

And now he was entrusting me with persuading the Minister of Revenue.

"I'll submit a memorial to His Majesty about what we just discussed myself. I'll ask that everything be kept secret. Now, how should we proceed specifically?"

I explained to Hwang how to handle the matter and resolve it without unnecessary fuss.

And just before leaving work, I received a royal reply granting permission.

So I immediately summoned the men known as the sijeon's merchant magnates to my house.