Chapter 123
After their meeting with Kim Daebung, the merchant magnates rushed straight to the Uigeumbu to confess their crimes.
They feared that if they delayed even a little, they would incur the offense of insolence and lose their heads at any moment.
They realized and repented of their crimes not so much because someone—Kim Daebung—had ordered them to, but because they were responding to the cry of conscience inherent in every human being.
It was not because they feared that if they did not confess immediately, Kim Daebung would submit a memorial with an axe in hand.
The next day, the ministers gathered in the court hall, and Sejong likewise began discussing how to deal with them.
“They say that good things come only occasionally in life, while bad things come rushing in like a flood all at once... but how could such a dreadful event occur so soon after the great fire in Hanyang?”
Sejong’s heart burned with anguish.
Since ascending the throne, Joseon had continued developing at a speed no one had ever dared imagine.
The court’s budget had multiplied several times over in only a few years, and the memorials that had poured in from across the country like an annual ritual during the early years of his reign, begging him to send relief grain because the people were starving to death, no longer arrived.
And if, just as Kim Daebung had said not long ago, workshops were built throughout Joseon and various newly developed items, such as agricultural tools, were mass-produced and distributed at low prices?
The amount of rice harvested each year would increase even further, the court’s budget would grow more plentiful, and the people’s lives would become more prosperous.
Then commerce would flourish even more, creating a virtuous cycle that would make Joseon wealthier still.
After living in anticipation of nothing but such good news, learning this time about the ‘evil side of merchants’ had burned him badly; his vision went dark, and a throbbing headache swept over him.
“The merchant magnates of Hanyang’s sijeon scraped together their entire fortunes, bought up all the land slated for development near the ferry terminals, including Yongsan and Gwangjin, and tried to make Joseon’s commerce entirely their own. Is this not an atrocity that only the powerful clans of Goryeo could have committed?”
“I cannot suppress my own sense of devastation, either.”
“Yes. The only person who understands my heart so well is the Chief State Councillor.”
The other ministers chimed in agreement with Hwang Hui’s words.
“I only considered the positive side of commerce, which I had regarded as nothing more than a lowly occupation, and thought about how it would reduce the number of people going hungry. Please forgive my foolishness for failing to consider its harmful effects.”
“When I think that we nearly followed the path of the former Goryeo, I feel truly devastated.”
At that moment, Hwang Hui used the ultimate weapon available to a subject, with 90 percent pretense and 10 percent sincerity.
It was to ask for his resignation.
“Your Majesty, I, Hwang Hui, Chief State Councillor, have a report to make.”
“Speak.”
Hwang Hui bowed until his head touched the floor and then drew a deep breath.
He then made his report in a pleading voice filled with remorse.
“As Chief State Councillor, I bear the grave responsibility of examining every policy of the court and predicting how Joseon will change as a result, so that we may respond accordingly. Nevertheless, I failed to notice in advance that those merchant magnates of Hanyang were plotting such a dreadful deed. My guilt is immense. Furthermore, I did not even discover that a man named Kim Jang-seok, master of Hanyang’s mijeon, had cornered all the rice entering through Incheon in an attempt to deliberately raise the price of rice. When I consider my own incompetence, I find myself utterly devastated.”
“How could any of that be the Chief State Councillor’s fault? It is my fault as well.”
“No, Your Majesty. There is even a military law stating that a soldier on a watchtower who fails in his duty of vigilance should be beheaded, showing how important it is to guard against danger... My crime in failing to do so properly is truly great.”
By twenty-first-century standards, Hwang Hui had accepted enough bribes to earn the epithet of a man who would even sell his country.
Holiday gifts equivalent to ten thousand seok of white rice arrived at Hwang Hui’s storehouses every year, and the income he received through various requests amounted to several times that sum. It was truly an enormous fortune.
Kim Daebung estimated the real-world value of Hwang Hui’s presumed income at anywhere from several hundred billion to one trillion won.
Yet although Hwang Hui loved bribes, he loved his country even more, and he genuinely felt responsible for what had happened.
“Please dismiss an incompetent official like me and appoint more capable men, such as Uijeongbu Sain Kim Daebung, so that the dynasty and state may stand firm.”
Hwang Hui had long since amassed enough wealth to live in idleness for the rest of his life and still leave plenty for even his great-great-grandchildren.
Moreover, he had risen to the position of Chief State Councillor, the highest official post, so there was nowhere left for him to advance.
Thus, even if he resigned, he would not have had any great regrets, but...
“There is no reason for the Chief State Councillor to feel guilty, but if you truly believe that you have committed a crime, remain at my side and continue assisting this inadequate sovereign.”
“Your Majesty’s grace is beyond measure.”
“Chief State Councillor Hwang Hui, continue to devote yourself to Joseon and render meritorious service until the day you die.”
In Joseon, telling someone to devote himself until death was a kind of stock phrase.
It was no more than an embellishment, like politicians calling themselves ‘friends of the common people’ or ‘the politicians who understand the poor best.’
Thus, Hwang Hui did not take those words particularly seriously, but...
Hwang Hui did not know.
He did not know that His Majesty King Sejong would continue rejecting his resignation letters on all sorts of pretexts.
However, the instinct he had developed by surviving a long career in government sent him a warning.
‘You’re going to be Chief State Councillor for life.’
Realizing the warning his instincts were giving him, Hwang Hui began to tremble.
Sejong gazed at Hwang Hui with a deep, fond look and smiled.
“I heard that they asked for the sijeon dojung to be dismantled. What does the Minister of Revenue think?”
“The sijeon dojung system is already an institution unsuited to the present age. Naturally, it is right to abolish it.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Great King Taejo organized the sijeon merchants into a dojung and administered them because Hanyang had no proper market at the time. In exchange for granting them the right to do business in Hanyang, he made them pay taxes in the goods the country needed. Thus, even if their organization became somewhat corrupt internally, they could not cause great harm to the country. But the situation is completely different now.”
Sejong knit his brows.
This time, they had merely raised the price of rice in Hanyang severalfold and profited exorbitantly, but if those bastards grew bigger and more powerful in the future...
They would manipulate rice prices not only in Hanyang but throughout the country according to their whims.
That meant they would hold Joseon’s food supply in their hands.
“Separately from encouraging them to conduct business freely, we must establish a new subordinate bureau under Hojo to inspect those engaged in commerce. We should punish and prohibit actions harmful to the country, while encouraging and disseminating those that benefit it.”
“The workload of Pyeongsiseo will increase considerably.”
“Since it will have to oversee every county in the country, the current staff will naturally be insufficient. We should create an entirely new subordinate bureau and recruit new officials to manage it.”
“Have Hojo prepare a draft on this matter and have the State Council deliberate on it.”
Minister of Revenue Min Gye-saeng had a thought.
He would put together only a rough draft and then hand the rest off to Kim Daebung.
After all, he had spent his entire life as a civil official and knew nothing about commerce, so entrusting it to someone knowledgeable would be a hundred times better for the country and its people, would it not?
This was absolutely not his way of getting revenge because the Hojo officials had often gone hungry after arriving at work, having no time to eat lunch thanks to Kim Daebung’s habit of increasing their workload at a maddening pace.
It was all for the sake of the country and its people.
“I, Minister of Justice Seo Seon, have a report to make. According to what I heard while interrogating Kim Jang-seok of the mijeon, a great many people accepted bribes when Kim Doryeon filed a lawsuit over a matter involving slaves. I thought we could dismiss this as the words of a traitor, but Kim Doryeon obtained more than a thousand slaves through that lawsuit... He must certainly have offered bribes in many places to win.”
As Seo Seon spoke, the pupils of Jo Mal-saeng’s eyes began to dart wildly.
That was because he had received no fewer than thirty-six slaves from Kim Doryeon.
Converted into white rice, it amounted to roughly 720 seok. It was only a fraction of the bribe income flowing to him as Right State Councillor, but it was still a ‘bribe’...
The problem was that if it came to light that he had accepted 720 seok worth of bribes while serving as Minister of Justice to ensure that Kim Doryeon received a favorable ruling in the ‘slave trial,’ there would be no telling when a mace might come crashing down on his skull.
Under Joseon’s criminal law, Kim Doryeon’s lawsuit could only have ended in a victory for Kim Doryeon.
So, since it had been a case Kim Doryeon was bound to win from the start, Jo Mal-saeng had merely accepted a small gratuity for his trouble, but...
'If this gets out, I’m dead.'
“Please order this case to be reinvestigated.”
“Do so. And I shall issue my verdict.”
All the ministers of the court quietly waited for Sejong’s judgment.
“Kim Jang-seok, master of Hanyang’s mijeon, tried to manipulate the price of rice in Hanyang to reap enormous profits. This was no different from gambling with the lives of Hanyang’s citizens, so it may rightly be called a crime tantamount to treason. Therefore, Kim Jang-seok himself shall be drawn and quartered. His wife and children shall all be made state slaves, and all his property shall be confiscated.”
No one stepped forward to defend Kim Jang-seok.
No—even if Ryu Jeong-hyeon, possessed by the ghost of Goryeo, had still been alive, he would have furiously insisted that the bastard had to die.
Playing games with rice was absolutely forbidden by Confucianism.
“The sijeon merchants also disrupted Hanyang’s order through all sorts of collusion, but they repented of their own accord, turned themselves in, and offered to surrender half their wealth. I shall therefore make an exception and forgive them. And as of today, the sijeon dojung shall be dismantled.”
“Your Majesty’s grace is beyond measure.”
Thus, the sijeon dojung that had controlled Hanyang’s commerce was dismantled in an instant.
When Kim Daebung heard that the morning audience had ended, he went straight to Jo Mal-saeng and said,
“Right State Councillor, I know everything.”
The pupils of Jo Mal-saeng’s eyes began shaking wildly once more.