Chapter 170
Food poisoning is like a bomb.
Once it explodes, dozens or even hundreds of people can contract food poisoning all at once.
That is why I have no choice but to take a firm stance on this matter.
“Seoyun Kim, what do you intend to do with those who were caught this time?”
"I intend to lock up those who sold slightly stale food for a few days, then release them after warning them that they will be severely punished if they are caught again. As for those who sold food that was obviously spoiled, I intend to have them flogged.”
“They sold spoiled food because it seemed fine when they ate it themselves, and because they did not know they were not supposed to do so. Flogging seems a little excessive...”
“Are they not shameless people who sold spoiled food? In my opinion, even penal servitude would not be excessive.”
Joseon's criminal punishments were divided into tae, jang, do, yu, and sa.
Tae meant being beaten with a thick switch; jang meant being beaten with a heavy club; do meant being forced to perform extremely arduous labor; yu meant exile; and sa meant execution.
Tae punishment was roughly equivalent to a misdemeanor or probation in modern society, ending with little more than bruises on one's thighs after the beating, but...
Being beaten with the heavy club even ten times meant one had to remain bedridden for half a month, and it was a severe punishment that sometimes resulted in unintended deaths.
Penal servitude was, in simple terms, like being sent to the Aoji coal mines.
Because the working conditions were so terrible, it was fairly common for people to die before completing their sentences.
It was certainly an extremely harsh punishment, but whenever a food-poisoning outbreak occurred at a single establishment, dozens or even hundreds of people commonly became victims...
Although in the twenty-first century the danger of diseases that cause dehydration, such as waterborne infectious diseases, has declined to the point that only a tiny fraction of people die from them even in Africa, in Joseon, the fatality rate could reach ten to twenty percent if someone contracted such an illness...
‘The person being punished may feel wronged, but this is a necessary measure.’
“Flogging is already severe. Would penal servitude not be a little too excessive?”
“The government has never informed them how serious a crime it is to sell spoiled food, so I do not intend to punish them too harshly. Therefore, this time I will stop at having those who sold spoiled food flogged. If anything like this happens again, however, I will shut down the shops of anyone selling spoiled food and punish them severely with penal servitude.”
Committing a crime did not automatically mean that severe punishment was the correct answer.
In late-eighteenth-century England, people caught stealing goods worth more than one shilling—roughly eight dollars by modern standards—were sometimes hanged.
At the time the law was enacted, stealing was considered something no human being ought to do, and thus deserving of death.
But before long, public opinion arose in opposition to punishing such petty theft with execution.
There was also the common-sense feeling that this was simply wrong, but when the death penalty was imposed for theft too minor to clearly warrant such punishment...
If someone stealing a single loaf of bread was spotted at the scene of the crime, it became fairly common for the thief to draw a knife and kill the witness.
‘It is absolutely not right to punish everything harshly without exception.’
However, it would also be wrong to say that harsh punishment was ineffective.
One reason restaurant owners operating in twenty-first-century Korea carefully follow hygiene standards is that getting caught in a hygiene inspection can result in severe business suspensions and hefty fines.
Moreover, the reason that the scumbags who fawn over and hit on female employees do not use their paltry authority or physical strength to attempt sexual violence against them is also...
Because they would suffer extremely severe consequences if they were caught.
Even so, there had to be a proper limit to everything, and that was why I was not immediately demanding that those who knowingly sold spoiled food be sent to the Aoji coal mines.
Among those I had arrested this time, the food I judged merely stale was of a quality that would have been thrown straight into the food-waste bin in Korea, while what I judged spoiled was at the level of scraping mold off food and selling it.
“Even so, for selling spoiled food...”
“My lord.”
A sigh escaped me.
As Yi Ye had said, by Joseon's standards, the punishments I wanted to seek could certainly be called harsh.
The punishment he considered appropriate would probably be to demand a few strokes of the switch because they had sold food despite knowing it was spoiled, then beat them with the heavy club if they were caught doing something like this again.
His Majesty King Sejong would probably say exactly the same thing.
That was because all of Joseon's officials, including Yi Ye, were fervent Confucians, and Confucian learning itself held that punishment should be avoided as much as possible.
“Even if your beloved grandson ate the spoiled food these men made and died, would you say the same thing?”
“...... What on earth do you mean?”
“When a person eats spoiled food, he suffers an upset stomach and diarrhea. If the diarrhea continues, the body loses its water and the person can die. Have I not told you this several times? Therefore, we must impose sentences while also considering the position of those harmed by people who knowingly sold spoiled food. That is why I dared to ask such a rude question, my lord.”
In Joseon, a man who raped a virgin was executed.
A person did not die simply from being raped, but no one in Joseon questioned this ruling or felt that it was unjust.
The Veritable Records even contain a case in which, when a master tried to rape his bondswoman, she scratched his face hard with her fingernails to protect herself...
And that bondswoman was found not guilty.
What this meant was that, depending on the circumstances, Joseon regarded crimes against the fundamental bonds of human relations, known as gangsang offenses, as serious as treason.
Rape was considered an even graver crime than a gangsang offense.
In Joseon, if a master tried to kill a slave for no reason and the slave struck the master to protect themselves, the slave would very likely be sentenced to death.
That was because the crime of harming one's superior was considered graver than the murder the master had been attempting to commit.
Then why did Joseon go so far?
The answer was extremely simple.
All the kinds of harm a rape victim would suffer while continuing to live could be so severe that anyone would think death preferable.
Because Joseon applied the principle of putting oneself thoroughly in another's shoes, it carried out almost automatic executions for the crime of rape.
What I was doing was merely setting an example for those who had failed to observe rules that were entirely feasible even by Joseon standards.
To put it bluntly, if I had applied twenty-first-century food hygiene standards and punished people accordingly, everyone selling food in Hanyang would have been arrested, received at least fifty strokes of the heavy club, and more than a hundred would have been exiled.
At my words, he fell silent.
“......”
“They did not serve stale rice and stale greens while knowing people would die, as vicious murderers do. Therefore, we cannot charge them with the same crime as murderers.”
Even modern criminal law clearly distinguishes intentional murder from unintentional killing.
The result was that both had killed innocent people, but the weight of the crime was naturally far greater in the case of intentional murder.
“However, quite a few of those who ate the food they sold must have suffered from food poisoning such as diarrhea. Some may already have died because of them.”
It would not be an exaggeration to say that in Korea almost no one died from food poisoning, whereas in Joseon, two out of every ten people who contracted it could die.
In other words, whether or not they thought someone would die while selling slightly spoiled food...
‘The fact remains that someone could die regardless.’
“That is why we must establish rules.”
If those who sold spoiled food had truly been arrested unjustly, I would have merely shown them around Hanseongbu prison, warned them never to do it again, and released them with a caution.
But the fact was that they had continued selling it despite knowing it was spoiled.
They deserved to be beaten with the heavy club until they were reduced to a bloody pulp.
“Having heard your explanation, I even feel that beating and releasing those who sold outright rotten food could be considered lenient, if one thinks about it.”
“And to ensure that this problem never happens again, we must provide those who sell food with at least a basic education.”
The thirty-two people I had arrested had been caught openly selling spoiled food, but...
While conducting inspections, I found that nearly half the establishments operating in Hanyang were so unsanitary that it would not have been surprising if they caused a massive food-poisoning outbreak.
If we left things unattended and a mass food-poisoning outbreak occurred, hundreds of people would die.
Food poisoning did not immediately turn into an epidemic, but Joseon was a country where even a poor harvest could bring an epidemic at any time...
Nor was there any guarantee that a large-scale food-poisoning outbreak would not develop into an epidemic.
“Does the government office really have to teach them that?”
“Is it not the duty of the yangban literati to show the people the right path and enable them to fulfill their obligations as human beings? Among the four estates—scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants—the reason scholars are respected by everyone is that they fulfill that weighty duty. Neglecting education would be tantamount to casting a scholar's duty onto the ground.”
“I understand. Then I will write and submit a memorial to His Majesty stating that those caught selling spoiled food must be punished severely, and that everyone who sells food must also receive at least a basic hygiene education.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
After my conversation with Yi Ye ended and he was about to leave, I took a book from inside the sleeve of my official robes.
The moment he saw the book, Yi Ye took a step backward.
“What on earth is that book?”
“It is a brief summary of how we should provide hygiene education. We need to give them clear guidelines before ordering them to do the work. Will anything be done properly if all we say is that they must teach them?”
The hygiene manual I wrote last time and the hygiene education guide I submitted this time were both not particularly long.
Although I had explained everything in great detail so that the reader could understand it, they amounted to roughly fifty thousand characters.
That was about ten pages per book on A4 paper.
If I organized what I knew around a rough outline, I could finish one in about a day.
“Are you suggesting assigning one of Hanseongbu's Chamguns to hygiene alone?”
“Yes, exactly. And rather than merely policing food sellers, we should have him oversee the installation of privies and the treatment of wastewater in Hanyang... He should also encourage the people to wash themselves regularly.”
“Washing one's body is not going to be a simple matter.”
“Even if we set aside the issue of fetching water, heating enough water for people to wash themselves will be a major problem.”
However, there was a clue to solving that problem as well.
There were coal mines scattered throughout Joseon, and fairly large quantities of coal were being mined from them.
“Joseon's eight provinces have a fairly ample supply of coal. We can use that coal to boil water and encourage the people to wash themselves.”
At present, the only places where coal was used to boil water were bathhouses, but...
If coal mining became a little more active, perhaps it would even be possible to spread ondol heating throughout Joseon.