Chapter 127
"What is the reason you said we must give up on saving every poor person?"
"The emergence of poor people within a country is something that, like famine arising after a bad harvest, cannot be predicted or prevented by human power."
There are all sorts of reasons people become poor in this world.
Someone who starts a business with a grand dream, only to see it fail and lose all his property in an instant, becoming impoverished.
Someone who spends excessively compared to his income until he can no longer bear it and goes bankrupt.
Someone who becomes obsessed with gambling or debauchery and squanders all the money he possesses, and so on...
Besides these, some people fall into the mire of poverty because of circumstances unrelated to their own rights or wrongs, such as an illness in the family.
No matter how diligently civil servants and the government keep watch over such sudden circumstances and try to help, it is impossible to help everyone.
How much more impossible is it in Joseon, where the problem is not merely smaller budgets and a smaller workforce, but the lack of even a computerized network?
"For the same reason, it is impossible to save everyone who becomes poor."
Besides, even if the country were overflowing with money, rescuing gambling addicts and people caught up in excessive consumption as well would be nothing short of madness.
That is because, even when such people are given a chance to start over through bankruptcy and debt relief, there is a high chance that they will repeat the same behavior.
When I was living in Korea, there was a fellow who had barely managed to breathe again after declaring personal bankruptcy, but one day I heard rumors that he had started gambling again.
Not long afterward, I heard that he had killed himself after becoming unable to repay the new debts he had incurred.
"But if Your Majesty wishes to take into his embrace those who have the will to escape poverty, they can be saved."
"Those who have the will to escape can be saved..."
"When I was magistrate of Jinhae County, there was a widow named Sun-deok. She had lost her husband at a young age and supported her household by earning money alone, so she was constantly worried that one mistake might leave her children starving to death. However, once a market was established in Jinhae County, she diligently worked in the fields she farmed as a tenant from early morning until noon, then gathered wild greens from the afternoon until sunset and sold them on market days. Little by little, she was able to escape the poverty that had forced her to go hungry."
Even now, I vividly remember eating with relish the bibimbap she mixed for me when I visited the market shortly before my term as magistrate of Jinhae County ended.
She had said that once she saved a little money by working like this, she wanted to buy a patch of land and farm it herself.
I do not know whether she achieved that dream...
"There are also people near Hanyang who rise early, finish working in the fields they farm as tenants, and then come to ports such as Yongsan-jin in the afternoon to do odd jobs and earn even a few coins. Their bodies must be terribly exhausted, but they would be overjoyed that, by working harder than before, they can keep their wives and children from going hungry. Such people have escaped poverty."
"You are right."
"As the number of merchants engaged in commerce throughout Joseon's eight provinces increases, and workshops and taverns become more numerous, each shop will have no choice but to hire people to work there. Then jobs will be given to those who have starved until now because there was nowhere to work even when they wanted to, and they too will be able to escape hunger."
In truth, I wanted to add a few words here.
Even if jobs increase exponentially, the population of Joseon will increase relatively slowly in comparison.
Then landlords and merchants will begin competing for the workers they need to run their businesses, and the value of labor will rise in the process.
Landlords will have no choice but to lower rents so that their land does not lie idle, while merchants will have to raise wages.
As this happens, the people's income levels will rise, and the number of poor people will gradually decrease.
But I did not intend to bring this up here.
If I brought it up here and the yangban officials learned of this fact, it would lead to a disastrous, irreversible result.
"Furthermore, if commerce expands, the rice and grain possessed by the wealthy will no longer rot away in their storehouses."
At the word rice, Sejong's eyes flashed.
One of the reasons King Sejong and Yi Bang-won had taken such an immense interest in introducing currency was likely that they had been deeply concerned about rice piling up in storehouses and rotting.
'To put it bluntly, no matter how carefully rice is stored, it all rots after three years have passed since the harvest.'
Yangban and merchants are not philanthropists, so they would rather let three-year-old rice rot in their storehouses than give it away...
They certainly would not distribute it to the people just because they felt it was a waste to let the rice rot.
They would merely set out lavish feast tables several times for family ancestral rites—just enough to avoid provoking a peasant uprising.
"What does the expansion of commerce have to do with grain rotting away?"
"My father-in-law and I greatly increased our wealth through commerce. Did this harm the country, or did it benefit it, Your Majesty?"
Everyone present pricked up their ears at my words.
Whether it was legal or illegal to increase one's wealth by investing in commerce would be decided at this very moment.
"The way you increased your wealth benefited the national interest. Why do you ask?"
"Then the wealthy will now invest in commerce to increase their fortunes further, rather than storing all their property in rice, silk, and various luxury goods. Since they are human too, they will desire to become even wealthier than they are now... Rather than merely storing up their wealth, they will want to make it grow."
One of the things we often say is that if I had exactly ten million won in my bank account, or even one hundred million, I would have no other wish.
But someone who says they would want for nothing after saving ten million won will, once they have actually saved that much, set a goal of one hundred million and start saving toward it.
Someone who says they would want for nothing after saving one hundred million will want to save one billion once they have accumulated that one hundred million; it is human nature.
Strangely enough, this tendency is even stronger among the rich than among the poor.
Apparently, some truly extreme people among the wealthy have assets exceeding one billion or ten billion won, yet never eat out under any circumstances.
Even when they have to buy something as ordinary as a bowl of gukbap, they tremble at the thought of wasting money and try not to eat it.
'For the price of a bowl of gukbap, I could eat three meals at home!'
Would wealthy people in Joseon be any different?
'Rich people are all the same in the end.'
"The rice invested in commerce will continue circulating and eventually return to the poor people's wages and jobs. In that process, new opportunities will be given to those trying to escape poverty."
Someone once said:
"Over the entire course of human history, capitalism emerged and began to move only a few hundred years ago, yet the glory and progress it brought were far greater than those of the hundreds of thousands of years that came before it."
The most dramatic proof of this is that the European hegemonic powers, which would currently have a hard time defeating Joseon one-on-one, completely defeated Qing China during the Opium Wars.
Qing China controlled commerce and failed to fully embrace capitalism, causing development to stagnate, while Europe continued to advance after embracing capitalism.
History is the trail left by the victors, and as a Joseon official, I would make Joseon take the path of 'capitalism' so that I could turn it into the greatest nation.
King Sejong nodded as he listened to me, then suddenly put on a serious expression.
There was no way what I had said could have displeased King Sejong, was there?
"I am truly pleased to hear that the number of starving people will decrease. But I wish to know and understand the lives of the people better. Looking back, it seems that the terrible tragedy of the Great Hanyang Fire occurred because I did not understand the baekjeong well. Therefore, would it not help me understand the people's lives if I went to meet them myself?"
One of the most common mistakes politicians and senior general officers make is going to government offices to ask civil servants what is difficult for them.
That is because, regardless of the visitor's intentions, civil servants will say, 'There are no problems.'
For example, suppose a member of the National Assembly went to a police substation in his district and asked what was most difficult about performing police duties.
What if one clueless rookie police officer answered honestly, saying that this or that was difficult?
The assemblyman would hear that and tell the police chief to correct those issues, and the police chief would look unfavorably upon the substation that had caused him to be reprimanded.
Therefore, after the visitor left, a chain of abuse would descend upon that substation from the police chief downward.
That is why people capable of making a common-sense judgment answer, 'There are no problems.'
Thus, in a situation like that, anyone who says of his own accord that this or that is a problem must either lack tact or be someone with tremendous resolve.
How much more so in Joseon's time, when the King himself went to the people to ask about their circumstances?
The outcome is painfully obvious.
"Even if Your Majesty personally visits the people and asks them, not a single one of them will be able to speak honestly about the joys and sorrows of his life. If you truly wish to know the truth of their lives, you must conceal your identity completely before visiting them."
Even today in the military, there are people who are fooled when a sergeant nearing discharge pretends to be a private.
In Joseon, there were few cases of a king completely concealing his identity and traveling incognito in plain clothes, so everyone would probably be fooled.
"You are right. Someday, I shall go on a secret journey far away, see their lives with my own eyes, hear them with my own ears, and return."
"Your Majesty's grace is boundless."
He said that, but King Sejong was the King of Joseon.
How could someone like that disguise himself and travel all the way to where commoners lived like a secret royal inspector?
He would probably order someone else—though perhaps not me—to conduct a proper inspection of the people's livelihoods, then work him to the bone.
"Lastly, I shall ask you this. Among the people, there are those who do not go hungry yet fail to get along with their siblings or honor their parents. Why do you think such people come into being?"
"It is because they have not been educated. How many people throughout Joseon's eight provinces do you think have read the Elementary Learning, which deals with the basic duties of human beings? Even if you add them all together, they would amount to less than five pun (5%). Because they have not been educated, they do not know what proper conduct is, and thus cannot live as human beings should."
Humans become people through education.
Among the so-called goose fathers, there are apparently quite a few who are not treated as fathers by their children.
That is not because those children's natures are rotten, but because, while living apart from their fathers, they never learned from their mothers how to treat them as fathers.
Conversely, if there is a fellow who mistreats his mother, it is because he grew up seeing his father disdain her.
It is only natural that someone who has never learned what proper conduct is does not know proper conduct.
"Zilu was nothing more than a ruffian who liked using his fists until he met a sage. After meeting Confucius and learning rites and morality, loyalty and righteousness from him, he eventually became a loyal subject. If he had not met Confucius and learned from him, how could he have lived as a human being should?"
Education makes people human.
When I lived in Korea, I too had a very poor and difficult childhood...
It was thanks to the teachings of a certain person that I made it to where I am now.
That is why I believe education is more important to people than anything else.
And the core of that education is just one thing.
A script that anyone can easily learn and write, rather than Chinese characters.
'Hangul.'
"If everyone learns the principles of the sages, then one day even among the naval soldiers (one of the seven base occupations, legally commoners but treated as lowborn in practice), someone will come first in the civil service examination. Even among those called lowly, people will pass the civil service examination in great numbers."
In fact, in the second year of King Munjong's reign, a man whose grandfather had been a naval soldier came second in the civil service examination.
Although he had earned the highest score, Munjong demoted him to second place because his status was lowly.
I personally consider this one of Munjong's greatest blunders.
"I dare believe that Your Majesty is fully capable of accomplishing this great undertaking."
The gyeongyeon continued after that.
However, because Sejong occasionally muttered, 'A world where everyone learns the principles of the sages,' it did not continue for long.
Thus, the gyeongyeon ended sooner than expected, and everyone was just getting up to leave when...
Sejong grabbed me and gave me a suspicious smile that clearly had an ulterior motive.
What the hell? Why was he acting like that?