Chapter 126
King Sejong is naturally regarded as the most learned king in Joseon.
He must have enjoyed scholarly discussions immensely, since it is said that he held a gyeongyeon almost once a week.
Thus, I remember occasionally being dragged to the gyeongyeon when I worked at the Hall of Worthies.
“What did you just say, Chief State Councillor Hwang?”
“His Majesty has issued a special royal command ordering you to attend this gyeongyeon as well, Kim Sain.”
“Isn't it Joseon's custom that no one attends the gyeongyeon except Hall of Worthies scholars, officials of Senior Second Rank or above, and royal secretaries?”
“Generally speaking, yes.”
The gyeongyeon was, simply put, a place where people of ministerial rank or higher were summoned to hold a ‘cabinet meeting’ under the pretext of studying the classics.
Of course, ministers were extremely busy people, so only a few attended in rotation as a rule.
The Hall of Worthies came to be regarded as a shortcut to advancement because serving as a gyeongyeon lecturer allowed one to lecture on the classics directly before the King. During discussions about the gyeongyeon, the King could also personally assess that person's abilities.
It was also a place where outstanding people were kept in the Hall of Worthies for a long time, allowing them to study all sorts of knowledge and research the policies of various departments before setting them on the path to becoming ministers.
“But according to what I heard through the chief eunuch, His Majesty seems to have something he particularly wants to ask you.”
“I cannot imagine what His Majesty might ask me.”
“From what I hear, His Majesty has recently taken a keen interest in the lives of the hamin (common people). So he ordered the local magistrates to submit detailed reports on how they live, but their reports do not seem to have satisfied His Majesty. Do you know why that might be, Kim Sain?”
“It is because magistrates and the people live in different worlds.”
Politicians do not know much about how the common people who form their support base actually live.
Even those who experienced truly crushing poverty firsthand when they were young eventually find themselves surrounded only by people who have achieved social success.
The poverty they experienced in their youth remains merely a fragmentary memory...
As a result, they no longer know how the common people who were once in the same position as them are living.
Once, when I accompanied a minister to a university lecture event, a student said this to him.
‘I am preparing for the civil service examination because I want to become a civil servant in the future.’
The minister heard that and said, ‘Ah, if you mean the civil service examination, you must be talking about the state administration or foreign service examination. The judicial examination has been abolished, after all. If you do well, you might even become Officer Kim's successor someday.’
Later, when I told him, ‘That university student who said he was preparing for the civil service examination was probably preparing for the Junior Ninth-Rank civil service examination,’ he clicked his tongue and asked why a university student would prepare for such an examination.
If that minister had looked down on or despised Junior Ninth-Rank civil servants, I would have thought he was an influential but nasty bastard with a deeply entrenched sense of discrimination.
But he genuinely had trouble understanding why a university student would prepare for the Junior Ninth-Rank civil service examination.
Well, in the era when that man was preparing for the state examinations, it was apparently common even to click one's tongue when a university student passed the Junior Seventh-Rank civil service examination.
If things were like this even in a world where the gap between social classes had almost completely disappeared, how could local magistrates possibly understand the lives of poor people?
“Well, it is true that I have never had to worry about food in my entire life. But most people are probably the sort who have to worry about what they will eat that very day every time they open their eyes in the morning. Now that I think about it, I can understand what you mean when you say that we cannot help living in different worlds.”
“This is not so much a matter of the magistrates' abilities being lacking as something that truly cannot be helped.”
“His Majesty knows that as well, which must be why he is so concerned.”
“I see. Then when should I attend the gyeongyeon?”
Hwang Hui looked at me and gave me an evil smile.
“Kim Sain, you still have the Four Books and Three Classics memorized, right?”
“Yes, I do.”
“The gyeongyeon is today after we leave work on time. His Majesty insisted sternly that it had to be held at that hour. Oh, and since you are not a gyeongyeon lecturer, you will not need to lecture, so there should be no problem, right?”
“......”
I nearly blurted out an utterly disloyal remark.
I nearly said that His Majesty had deliberately decided to hold the gyeongyeon after the end of the workday because he did not want to exercise, such as by going hiking.
If that was really the reason, then wasn't this exactly like a modern office worker making up all sorts of excuses because he did not want to do personal training...?
“Why are you only telling me this now, Chief State Councillor Hwang?”
“His Majesty apparently suddenly decided last evening that it should be done this way. So I did not hear the news until today either.”
When I came to work today, for some reason I could not fathom, His Majesty King Sejong had dumped a mountain of work on me.
To exaggerate only slightly, it was enough work to keep me busy for two days, yet I had to finish it all in one day.
I heard that the Minister of Taxation had wailed that it was too cruel to forbid overtime when there was already so much work to do...
Why were they treating us like this?
I looked at Right State Councillor Jo Mal-saeng, whom I considered the root cause of this disaster.
Jo Mal-saeng noticed my gaze and suddenly began preparing to leave, saying that he had somewhere to go.
“Come to think of it, I completely forgot that the Ministry of War sent word that the matchlock gun you proposed we make, Kim Sain, is almost complete. I should go hear about it myself.”
With that, he made a quick escape before the sparks could fly.
Hwang Hui looked at me, gave me an evil smile, and spoke.
“It looks like I can coast through this gyeongyeon. It is all thanks to you, Kim Sain.”
...... So he intends to dump all of His Majesty King Sejong's endless curiosity on me.
Even eating soy-marinated crab and dried persimmons at the same time would be less heinous than what Chief State Councillor Hwang was doing now.
**
For the gyeongyeon, I was dragged to a place I knew quite well.
This was the Gyeongyeon Office, a place for enjoyable scholarly and policy discussions where several Hall of Worthies scholars, ministers including Hwang Hui and Jo Mal-saeng, and even King Sejong all gathered together.
Ah, of course, King Sejong was probably the only one enjoying himself.
After all, ordinary Joseon officials like me did not think, ‘Heehee, studying is the most fun! Studying is the easiest thing in the world!’
Even so, I spotted several familiar faces.
“Vice Director, how have you been?”
When Jeong Inji turned around, his face was covered in dark circles.
These days, leaving work on time had become standard, and it had been a long time since overtime had disappeared.
So why did he look to me like an office worker being squeezed dry after working until three in the morning and coming in at eight?
“Do I look like I have been doing well? Joseon is developing so rapidly that the Hall of Worthies' workload has tripled from what it used to be... And we cannot even work late when necessary, while His Majesty asks so many questions during the gyeongyeon... We Hall of Worthies scholars are truly at death's door. I am also desperate to resign. But do you know what is truly frightening? If I submit my resignation, His Majesty rejects every single one...”
“You have my sympathies...”
“Kim Sain, please return to the Hall of Worthies... The Hall of Worthies truly needs you right now. Wasn't it wonderful when we were together?”
At that moment, Hwang Hui flew into a rage.
“Vice Director, Kim Sain is an indispensable talent in the State Council. You only said that because you do not know how busy the State Council is, but I also serve as the Hansŏng P'anyun. You have no idea how much the development of Hanyang gives me a headache...”
“But Chief State Councillor, you still look quite well...”
“Ahem, what are you talking about? I am exhausted every day because I am so busy handling this excessive workload. If I were not in poor health, why would I take restorative medicine every day?”
“Then, Chief State Councillor, please send me to a department other than the Hall of Worthies.”
“The Vice Director is only thirty, isn't he? At that age, you can chew iron. Just persevere in the spirit of loyalty to the King and love of country.”
Jeong Inji was crushed beneath Hwang Hui's old-man act of ‘What could a young fellow possibly have to be tired about?’
Looking around, I also spotted Choe Man-ri, whom I had been unable to meet lately because he had been so busy.
Choe Man-ri's face looked almost exactly like Jeong Inji's.
I would have to send him a bundle of restorative medicine later. At this rate, he really might die.
I was just about to ask him how he had been when King Sejong entered.
“The text for today's gyeongyeon will be the Extended Meaning of the Great Learning. Lecture on the Chaemi and Guna chapters.”
At Sejong's words, the man who had stepped forward as the gyeongyeon lecturer began lecturing earnestly.
Since the texts being lectured on were familiar to everyone, they were probably all only half listening.
I was no exception.
Yet King Sejong listened intently to material he already knew, as though it were a secret martial arts manual he was hearing for the first time.
And whenever the lecture reached passages discussing the hardships and joys and sorrows of the people's lives, he pricked up his ears and listened even more intently.
“I listened carefully to the lecture by Eung-gyo Kim Man-su, who served as the gyeongyeon lecturer. Now I will ask everyone attending the gyeongyeon. Until now, knowing that the people's lives were difficult, I have continuously considered ways to help them. Thus, when civilizing the baekjeong, I tried to bring them into Joseon's fold by taking pity on their difficult circumstances and providing generously for them. However, to bring them into Joseon's fold, I needed to think from their perspective, but I failed to do so and suffered a major defeat. Through that experience, I learned that I had to think from the people's perspective if I wanted to properly care for their lives. Accordingly, I ordered the magistrates to submit detailed accounts of how the people lived. Yet the memorials they submitted did not contain the level of detail about the people's lives that I wanted. I wish to hear your thoughts on why this was the case.”
King Sejong's love for his people can be seen from the Gongbeop alone, which was at the heart of his reform of the tax system.
When he sought to establish a system in which taxes would be paid according to that year's harvest and the fertility of the land, he asked the opinions of more than 150,000 people before putting it into practice.
Of course, it was a system that would never be implemented in the Joseon I knew.
I acknowledged the purpose of the Gongbeop, but the magistrates would be the sort to report a bumper harvest as merely ‘average’ so they could line their own pockets once the system was introduced.
Even sending secret royal inspectors would make this extremely difficult to detect.
“Even now, there must be more than a few people among the people of Joseon who are so poor that they go hungry. Why is that?”
At Sejong's words, the Left Assistant State Councillor replied.
“The fact that there are needy people among the people who have neither clothing nor food is because those governing the people failed to inspect the matter in time. Issue orders to the magistrates so that they may inspect more carefully whether there are any such people in their districts.”
“When civilizing the baekjeong, I inspected their circumstances, provided them with food, and even gave them land. Yet the result was truly disastrous. Is it enough for magistrates merely to inspect the lives of the people in their districts carefully?”
The Left Assistant State Councillor could no longer open his mouth after Sejong's rebuke.
“It is my sin as King that I do not know the people's hardships. Even if I reflect that I committed an error because I did not know or misunderstood something, to people suffering hardship it will look like nothing more than pointless busywork. That is why I ordered the magistrates to learn and report their circumstances and difficulties in detail: so that I would not continue committing the sin of failing to properly understand their hardships.”
As students, we learn that mistakes and errors are never tolerated.
Even if we know the correct answer, our score is reduced if we mark the wrong answer on the test paper.
The same is true at work: if we ruin something through a mistake despite being capable of doing it properly, we must pay the price.
How much more so when it comes to a politician's mistake?
It can genuinely kill dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people.
That must have been what Sejong was trying to say.
“How can we prevent people from becoming poor, and how can we rescue them from poverty?”
I decided to present a very realistic alternative to that question.
“Your servant, Kim Daebung, Sain of the State Council, respectfully reports.”
Since the seeds of capitalism had already been planted in Joseon, I might as well talk about capitalism to my heart's content.
Capitalism was not absolutely right, but among the various forms society could take, it was at least the best option.
“No matter how excellent a king may be, he cannot save every poor person in the country or completely prevent poverty from arising within the country. At most, the best he can do is reduce their number.”
As long as humanity exists, eliminating absolute poverty completely is impossible.
However, it is possible to reduce the number of people suffering from absolute poverty.