Breaking the Cartel (8)

After their meeting with Kim Dae-bung, 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 Dae-bung—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 Dae-bung 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 Dae-bung 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...