Chapter 122
“What exactly have we done wrong that you are giving us a chance to repent?”
What pitiful creatures.
No.
They were at the very top of the sijeon merchants’ cartel pyramid; I had no business pitying them.
They already had more than enough, and they had even tried to commit acts that would consume Joseon, so pitying them would be utterly pointless.
In my heart, I wanted to say, ‘You don’t know what crimes you committed? Then I suppose you can die,’ and purge these deep-rooted evils by exposing all their various misdeeds and making them face the judgment of the law, but...
The only reason I could not do so was that Joseon would have difficulty bearing the repercussions that would follow after stripping these bastards bare.
Instead, because of that insolent remark of yours, your wealth will be reduced by ‘half.’
Have you never heard that if you keep quiet, you will at least avoid making things worse?
“Several merchants belonging to the sijeon guild came to see my father-in-law a little while ago.”
If I revealed which merchant had said it, the friend who had found the courage to report it would become the target of every kind of abuse, like a soldier who had written a heartfelt letter to his company commander.
In the military, they can torment someone enough to make them contemplate suicide, but they cannot actually kill them; the merchant magnates gathered here, however, had enough power to physically kill a few merchants even if I knocked out every one of their molars.
Unless I were insane, I would never reveal who had said it.
If I opened my mouth about the informant’s identity, it would be no different from killing a righteous whistleblower with my own hands.
“According to them, you colluded, pooled your money, and planned to buy up all the land slated for new development.”
“My lord, that is a misunderstanding.”
“Oh, that is fine. Buying land in advance in an area where prices are sure to rise can be considered an investment. I was thinking of doing the same myself.”
If that were all, I would have been willing to let it slide.
But the reason I could no longer let these bastards off was what I was about to say.
What the hell were they thinking, trying to play at being ‘powerful clans’ by monopolizing commerce in Hanyang—not some provincial backwater—with Yi Bang-won and King Sejong watching them with eyes blazing?
Even after thinking it over again, I could not understand how they had seriously intended to do something like this.
They say that once people become blinded by money, they will invest their entire fortune in a villa that is supposed to cost 100 million won and sell for more than 300 million once completed, or in some unheard-of cryptocurrency, but...
‘By Korean standards, these men would be chaebol.’
To reach and hold a position like theirs, a chaebol would need not only business acumen but also a keen political sense... so what on earth were these bastards?
“But you did not stop at spending all the money you had to buy land. You even built workshops there, intending to seize control of all the logistics throughout Joseon’s Eight Provinces, did you not? Did you never consider that going that far was beyond the pale for merchants? Once things reached that point, the court would become a puppet that moved however you wanted.”
“You seem to be laboring under a huge misunderstanding. We only wanted to make money by expanding the scale of our businesses...”
“Why are men who know perfectly well how things work so long-winded? Shall I use an axe to cut that long tongue down to a reasonable length right now?”
“We have never once forgotten that it is entirely thanks to His Majesty’s grace that we were able to reach this position. How could we ever have entertained such presumptuous thoughts?”
“Cut the bullshit. If that were not the case, why did you tell merchants whose businesses were smaller than yours never to buy any of the newly developing land?”
At my words, the merchant magnates could no longer find anything to use as an excuse, and cold sweat began streaming down their faces.
“Ah, and I heard about the atrocities committed by a man named Kim Jang-seok, who runs Hanyang’s largest mijeon (a shop that deals in rice). It made my blood run cold. Unless he was possessed by the evil spirit of Ryu Jeong-hyeon, no sane man could have done such a thing.”
The more vigorously goods circulated and the larger commerce grew, the more power merchants acquired.
In neighboring Japan, only a few decades after the Edo shogunate was established, everyone from the shogun and daimyo to the samurai was borrowing money from merchants.
When the merchants threatened to raise interest rates, they sent their retainers to plead with them not to do so, and when that alone was not enough, they eventually went so far as to openly offer them even samurai status.
In fact, toward the end of the Edo period, merchants colluded and manipulated rice prices several times, humiliating the shogunate, yet their power was so immense that...
They got away with no charges and no punishment.
Was I supposed to be happy that this sort of thing had happened in Joseon too?
I mean, should I be happy that Joseon’s commerce had developed so far that a bunch of merchants could join forces and manipulate the price of rice in Hanyang?
Well, regardless, Kim Jang-seok had acted like a man possessed by the ghosts of Goryeo, so I planned to send him as close to the old Goryeo as possible.
How could I let a bastard who played games with rice in Joseon live?
“You gathered every last bit of your own money and the money held by Hanyang’s sijeon merchants, bought up every grain of rice entering Hanyang and the surrounding counties through Incheon... and then sold it to the people at triple the price?”
“I, uh... Well, you see...”
“In Joseon, we call that...”
One of the things even the twenty-first century considers essential to protect for national security is food security.
That is why, when it comes to rice, the Nonghyup purchases it through its government procurement system at a ‘normal price,’ no matter how much of it is left over.
This contrasts with pear, fruit, and cucumber farming, where the government does not purchase the entire harvest even when a bumper crop drives the price of marketable produce down to nothing.
That is because farming crops other than rice is regarded as both agriculture and business.
So whether farmers abandon those crops or not, the government does not step in and tell them what to do.
Rice, however, is different.
If food imports became difficult because of trade sanctions that could arise at any time, Koreans would have no choice but to eat domestically produced rice.
If rice then became scarce, all Koreans would have no choice but to starve to death together.
Thus, to prevent this problem before it can arise, the government intervenes and buys up all the rice to prevent a decline in rice production.
But playing games with the price of something as important as rice...
“Treason.”
The merchant magnates froze at the word treason.
“If I were a man who pursued nothing but personal gain like you, I would have branded every one of you a traitor, purged you all, and filled the positions you occupied with the merchant companies owned by my father-in-law. That way, I could take control of all commerce in Joseon. It would have been killing two birds with one stone for me.”
Of course, if I did that, King Sejong, who had recognized the importance of commerce, would cut off my head.
No matter how loyal a subject of Joseon I was, His Majesty could not overlook treason.
“However, you are so enormous that I cannot kill you carelessly. Ah, what a truly regrettable thing.”
“...... My lord...”
“Ah, and do you understand now why I did not summon Kim Jang-seok of the mijeon to this gathering?”
“Have you already branded him a traitor?”
“By tomorrow, his three-generation kin group will be escorted under guard to the Uigeumbu.”
Kim Jang-seok would be drawn and quartered, while his household would have all its property confiscated and be reduced to slavery. That would settle the matter.
That was because Joseon had no law under which an incident like this could be treated as treason and punished accordingly; only the culprit would be executed as a traitor, while the others would receive reduced sentences.
“What use would there be in summoning a living corpse?”
Why would I waste my time talking to someone beyond redemption?
“But you still have some use left, so I cannot bring myself to kill you. Still, do not forget this.”
“What should we not forget?”
“Just as I do not hesitate to throw away my life for the sake of innocent people, I do not spare my life when purging those who ruin Joseon. And this time, I judged that killing all of you would harm Joseon, so do not forget that I am merely ‘letting you live because I have no choice.’”
“Yes, my lord...”
"I will remember what you tried to do until the day I die, and I will continue to keep watch over you. Well, Confucius said that even if human nature is evil, people can be reformed through education. I am skeptical of that."
Educational science says this.
Children can be educated to enter prestigious universities or become professionals even if their IQs are somewhat low, so long as they do not have an intellectual disability...
But once people become adults, no matter how much education they receive, changing their innate nature and character is almost impossible.
These men have already grown old, so how could I possibly rehabilitate their natures?
It is not for nothing that people say an adult has no ‘potential to change’ unless their parents die or they are pushed to the brink of death.
"I have no intention of reforming you. So if you do not want to die by my hand, live from now on while pretending to be good, even if you have to force yourselves."
"Yes, yes... My lord..."
"And it is only right that you pay the price for being spared. Offer half of your wealth to the court of your own accord, and confess the crimes you committed yourselves. Then I will petition His Majesty and have him open a special path for you to live."
"Thank you."
If another junior fourth-rank official had said something like this, these men would have gone to another minister and tried to tattle on him.
But they knew very well what kind of man I was, so they would conduct themselves properly.
"And never, ever covet the newly developed land."
With that, the preparations for cleaning up the cartel were complete.
The rest was up to these men: they could petition for the sijeon merchants’ cartel to be dismantled and report Kim Jang-seok of the mijeon.
Moreover, both Yi Bang-won and Sejong already knew that I was making these moves.
‘Everything will work out.’
Ah, after working this hard to develop Joseon, it would be wonderful to retire at the right time and live comfortably with Gyeouri.
I would never end up like Hwang Hui or Jo Mal-saeng.