Matchlocks and Northern Expedition (4)

The news that the conquest of the Jurchens had been finalized was surprising enough, but the news about me that came with it was even more shocking.

They say that's how the world works: those who are good at their jobs get saddled with more work...

Honestly, wasn't this just too much?

I was definitely a good person in my previous life, so why had I been appointed to a position like this at a time like this...?

“Right State Councillor, is what is written in the royal edict I received really correct? Could there have been some mistake when the Office of Diplomatic Correspondence drafted it?”

“Heh heh, are you pleased because a new opportunity to devote yourself to the state and royal house has arisen? His Majesty must have thought there was no position in the Ministry of Military Affairs suitable for our Hogun Kim, so he temporarily appointed you as a Hogun of the Five Guards. His Majesty trusts Hogun Kim so greatly that he has placed you in charge of all the Ministry of Military Affairs’ subordinate offices. His favor is truly immense.”

“You entrusted all the practical affairs of the Ministry of Military Affairs to a mere fourth-rank official? The Ministry has a Vice Minister, an Assistant Minister, and a Deputy Director, does it not?”

“The Deputy Director’s post is vacant. Well, just remember it that way, Hogun Kim.”

Jo Mal-saeng ignored my words completely and rambled on about something unrelated.

They had assigned a mere fourth-rank nobody work that should have been handled by a senior court official.

This was the same level of atrocity as leaving the position of division commander vacant because a colonel at General Headquarters was good at his job, then making that colonel manage the entire division.

That was why I had lodged a perfectly legitimate protest, but Jo Mal-saeng answered me with a sophistry on the level of saying that if I did not like the rank insignia on my head, he would replace it with two stars.

Good heavens, this was all the work of King Sejong, the demon king of overwork.

Sima Yi, after being duped by Zhuge Kongming, must have suffered and felt his insides burn in much the same way.

“Are you telling me to take on the duties of the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Military Affairs right now?”

Jo Mal-saeng grinned as he watched the slaves clear away the belongings that had been sitting on his desk.

“If our Hogun Kim wishes it, I will specially submit a memorial. And since I have also been made Minister of Military Affairs this time, you and I will be working together even after we go to the ministry. Is that not another sign of His Majesty’s boundless favor?”

A war to mobilize twenty-five thousand troops and suppress the Jurchens was by no means an ordinary matter.

That was why it made perfect sense to have Jo Mal-saeng, the Right State Councillor, concurrently serve as Minister of Military Affairs and manage the ministry.

Once war broke out, the affairs of all the departments, including the Six Ministries, would inevitably revolve around the Ministry of Military Affairs.

It was therefore reasonable for Jo Mal-saeng, who outranked all the ministers of the Six Ministries by far, to step forward and serve as its minister.

But there was one problem here: judging from the fact that His Excellency the Right State Councillor went out of his way to point out that he would be working alongside frail little me at the ministry...

He had revealed his intention to dump even the work he was supposed to do on me.

“Chief State Councillor, that’s how things have turned out.”

Hwang Hui said angrily.

“Since the Minister of Taxation is your younger brother, he is taking very good care of his elder brother, isn’t he? I am buried under paperwork and on the verge of death, while the Right State Councillor seems to have become somewhat more comfortable.”

Perhaps Jo Mal-saeng felt sorry toward Hwang Hui, because he placed a box containing truly precious medicinal herbs on Hwang Hui’s desk, then smirked and shrugged.

“It’s all His Majesty’s will, so what can I do? And I prepared these especially fine medicinal herbs for His Excellency the Chief State Councillor, so please accept them as a token of my feelings.”

With that, he took me along to the Ministry of Military Affairs.

“The only reason I have become a man who cannot obtain permission to resign is the crimes I committed, but the Chief State Councillor isn’t exactly an innocent man either.”

“Yes, I know that well.”

The Seodal Incident had not happened yet, but once it did, there was a good chance Maeng Sa-seong and Hwang Hui would also be Jo Mal-saeng’d.

“A man like that keeps telling me, over and over until my ears are calloused, that I have become someone who can never resign and should simply work hard. So I gave the Chief State Councillor those precious medicinal herbs in the hope that he would remain healthy for a very long time. I am sure he will be pleased.”

This wasn’t a gift—it was an insult.

‘You aren’t exactly a clean man yourself, so someday you will have to atone for your sins through lifelong service. May you live ten thousand years.’

That was what he was saying.

Yet, malicious intentions aside, it was tempting.

Because of Hwang Hui, I had been saddled with more than five times as much work as everyone else in the State Council.

Five times the paperwork handled by the State Councillors, or at least six to eight times as much work as an ordinary official.

They had reduced the workload assigned to those people according to their ranks, then made me do all of it.

Thanks to that, the State Council had transformed into a government office where the lunch break lasted one and a half sichin (three hours) whenever it was long.

But why would I object to teasing the ringleader of that work-dumping gang by saying, ‘You too—lifelong service!’?

“The Chief State Councillor is indeed advanced in years, but since he is still so vigorous, I am sure he can continue serving the state and royal house for many years to come.”

Go on, stay Chief State Councillor until you’re ninety.

**

When I arrived at the Ministry of Military Affairs, what greeted me was a gigantic hill of documents.

What kind of military reports had been piled up to a height of over sixty centimeters? Was this what wartime administration looked like?

Beside the hill of reports was another enormous pile of reference books and documents that I would have to organize into book form from now on.

“Is this hell?”

The directors and assistant directors of the Ministry of Military Affairs all nodded at the word hell.

Still, what could I do?

If I handled the work carelessly or made a mistake, only the innocent soldiers who would soon be fighting the Jurchens would end up dying.

The lives of twenty-five thousand heads of household, dragged into military service against their will and forced to fight the Jurchens, were resting on my shoulders.

I absolutely could not be lazy or make mistakes.

“Let’s see. What’s this? Why are the rations issued to the soldiers so small? Are you out of your minds?”

An adult male in Joseon ate at least seven hop of rice a day.

There also had to be side dishes, doenjang, and the like.

In special circumstances such as war, people had to move much more and were under greater psychological strain, which increased their energy consumption...

They should have been given more than twice as much food as under normal circumstances.

Yet they were receiving only seven hop (1,050 g) of rice a day?

Joseon was not currently struggling, nor was it at war, yet it was still seven hop... Once losses caused by clerks and government slaves who periodically went unpaid were taken into account, only about four and a half to five hop would actually be delivered.

The Nanjung Ilgi says that naval soldiers received a ration of five hop of rice every day, and describes this as making soldiers fight while starving them.

‘The soldiers will want to desert just to escape starving to death.’

“When I was a Director in the Ministry of Military Affairs, I couldn’t touch the war plans. I could only improve the system for supplying food to the soldiers... But when it comes to the transportation plan, this is a complete disgrace.”

So that’s why Jo Mal-saeng had told me that everything would be solved if I became the Deputy Director of the Ministry of Military Affairs.

As expected, although that man had the bad habit of dumping mountains of work on me, he handled the one task entrusted to him with tremendous responsibility.

Then again, if he had not been that kind of man, once he became deeply implicated in the Kim Doryeon Incident, he would not have been sentenced to lifelong service. He would have been told, ‘Then die.’

“Who is in charge of the Seungyeosa?”

As soon as I asked for the official responsible for the Seungyeosa, the atmosphere turned menacing in an instant.

I didn’t want to do this if I could help it either, but what the hell had this man been doing?

While handling his work, once he realized there was a problem with the war plans, he should have said that the logistics route under his charge was a complete mess and needed to be fixed.

“It’s me, my lord.”

“Ah, Director Kim.”

A sigh escaped me.

“On land, there are relay stations at intervals along the roads, so it is possible to leave a record of which stations one passed through. But Joseon now transports all its supplies by sea, does it not?”

“Yes, that is so.”

“Since we transport supplies by sea, can’t we simply send them directly from the port of departure to the destination? If we are sending five hundred seok of white rice from Jinhae, we should be able to send it straight from Jinhae to Incheon.”

“Yes, Hogun-nim. But when waging war, have we not always followed the old grain-transport system and stopped at several ports along the way to leave records?”

If this had been peacetime, I would have listened to him and gently admonished him: ‘The old regulations were indeed like that, so you are not wrong. However, time and cargo can be lost along the way, since clerks and sailors embezzle part of it whenever they dock. Change the system from now on.’

But this was wartime.

Twenty-five thousand soldiers consumed more than two hundred seok of rice every day simply by breathing, and if a supply problem left them hungry for even a single day, their combat power would drop sharply. This was an emergency.

And in a situation like this, they were going to waste time transporting supplies that way and allow materials to be lost?

‘Soldiers are dying. They are really going to die.’

“Are you aware that, since the Bang-won Law was implemented and ocean navigation began, ships can now sail from Pyeongan Province to Hamgyeong Province—even if they have to go all the way around Joseon—without anchoring even once along the way? Navigation has changed, so naturally the system must also be changed to suit it. If we merely change the system in this case, we can reduce the time required severalfold and save up to three tenths (30 percent) of the food lost during transport.”

Even after implementing the Daedong Law, Joseon transported rice under all sorts of bizarre regulations.

For example, even though one could travel directly from Busan to Incheon by ship, and ocean navigation made the journey safe...

Government-operated vessels reportedly had to stop at countless cities—Geoje, Yeosu, Mokpo, Seosan, and so on—after passing Busan, filing a report every time they docked.

As a result, a journey that could be completed in three days by ocean navigation had to take a circuitous route lasting nearly half a month.

Ah, naturally, every stop also led to rampant embezzlement by the officials, clerks, and government slaves at the port. They always siphoned off grain under the excuse that some of the rice had gotten wet.

‘I want realistic official salaries. I want the Yangnyeom Silver System.’

There is even a record in the Veritable Records that King Jeongjo flew into a rage after learning that this inefficient administrative system—government vessels stopping at countless ports—was not being properly observed.

“Redraft the plan for transporting food immediately. Also calculate and write down how much the loss of military provisions will decrease if we follow the altered route, and above all, increase the rice supplied to the soldiers to nine hop per day.”

“My lord, if we do that, the Ministry of Taxation will...”

......Yes, the Ministry of Taxation would raise hell.

But if you were an official serving the country, you could not let soldiers who had been dragged into war through military service go hungry while they might die in battle.

You crazy bastard, have you been shot in the head?

“Hey.”

“Yes, my lord.”

I leaned in and whispered into his ear.

“A soldier is starving to death, you know? If His Majesty were to hear that, despite a war being underway, soldiers had starved to death for reasons unrelated to combat and discontent had risen among them... do you think His Majesty would let Director Kim off?”

Kim Jeongnang’s face went as white as a sheet at my words.

“Cao Cao once beheaded Wanghou, the official in charge of military provisions, to appease the discontent of starving soldiers in Shouchun. Just remember that.”

“Understood. I will find a solution as quickly as possible, by whatever means necessary. However, the food...”

“Ah, there are ways to handle that.”

I couldn’t order the merchants to enlist voluntarily, but...

I could strongly encourage voluntary donations.

Ah, I suppose I’ll have to borrow my father-in-law’s help for the first time in a while.

I’ll also take some of the rice stored at home and contribute it to the Northern Expedition.