Chapter 174
Gong-gil summoned the Namsadang troupe he led.
Usually, whenever Gong-gil called the troupe together like this, there was always someone who would fidget around and joke, ‘Why have you called us together again today? Are you going to give us each a hidden piece of honey rice cake, or maybe a cup of takbaegi? Better yet, both.’
But now, no one dared to joke around.
That was because yesterday Gong-gil had personally gone to meet Jibu Kim Daebung, the yangban reputed to be the craziest bastard in Joseon.
No one knew what he and Kim Daebung had discussed.
‘Lord Jibu wouldn't have called us merely to play a joke.’
“Hey, Gombaengi (the second-in-command of a Namsadang troupe).”
“Yes.”
“Lord Jibu has entrusted us with work for the state.”
Gombaengi Kim Mal-ttong tilted his head at Gong-gil's words.
The others also froze as if rooted to the spot, thinking, ‘No, what on earth is he talking about?’ Yet none of them dared say it aloud.
“...What kind of nonsense is that? The yangban hate us so much.”
Yangban hated Namsadang troupes.
Their dislike was not merely due to the prejudice that Namsadang troupes represented the culture of the lowborn.
They traveled from village to village performing deotboegi (masked dances) full of obscene gestures and words, and the yangban who appeared in their performances were invariably portrayed as greedy, brainless fools who became the targets of every kind of ridicule.
In some cases, they even kidnapped children to fill out their ranks.
Even so, the members of Namsadang troupes knew how to do nothing else, so they continued this work to make a living despite knowing full well that people hated them...
A yangban lord—especially Lord Kim Daebung, who was famous for his incorruptible integrity—had entrusted them with work for the state?
It was as absurd as saying that humans could fly.
“When I first heard that, I found it just as hard to believe as you do. But it was true. And do I look like someone who would lie to you over something like this?”
“I'm not saying you, the kkokdusoe, are lying... It's just so absurd that it sounds impossible. Don't misunderstand me.”
“I understand. Enough. Look at this.”
The kkokdusoe Gong-gil handed Gombaengi the letter Kim Daebung had written for him.
Gombaengi could not read a letter written in Chinese characters, but if this had really been written by Kim Daebung himself...
“Lord Jibu himself wrote this letter. And when I went to Hanseongbu at first light this morning, just as he instructed, the clerks there said they had been expecting me. They told me to write down every member of our Namsadang troupe, so I did exactly that and am on my way back.”
“This is truly enough to make ghosts weep.”
“Exactly. So now we'll officially be doing work for the state. We won't get official posts, of course... but he said he'd pay us generously, at least.”
“How much did he say he'd pay us?”
“He said that if we traveled between Yongsan, Gwangjin, and Noryangjin and put on performances once every five days, we'd receive four seom of white rice each time. He also said we could keep all the money and goods tossed to us by the people gathered there.”
Namsadang troupes were always poor.
Even when they traveled around rural areas and performed, all they received was food from the village and a little rice as their performance fee.
If they put on six performances a month and received four seom of white rice each time, they would get a fixed income of no less than twenty-four seom of white rice that month alone. And since the people of Hanyang were all well-off, they could expect a favorable reception as well...
They could also expect substantial on-the-spot income.
“Instead, he asked us to write a deotboegi with new content. He said we should include things like a tavern proprietress who sells spoiled food receiving divine punishment, a filial son receiving great blessings, or a poor man who works hard and eventually becomes rich.”
“We shouldn't include insults against the yangban, right?”
The great pleasure Namsadang troupes provided was that, while wearing masks and dancing, they could mercilessly rip into yangban whom they would never dare even meet eye-to-eye otherwise.
However, since they were receiving money from the state, it was obvious they would be beaten with canes if they included such content.
“He did say it was all right to satirize ‘Ryu Jeong-hyeon’ as a yangban who tormented the common people by lending money at usurious interest.”
“That bastard possessed by a Goryeo ghost?”
“The fellow playing Malttugi will get to tear into him properly.”
Kim Daebung wanted to use this opportunity to strengthen public criticism of usurious lending as well.
Although the law of Joseon said that yangban could not be punished for lending money at interest, he still considered it an atrocity that continued to squeeze poor commoners by the throat.
If you borrowed one seom of white rice, you had to repay at least one and a half seom the following year, and in the worst cases, you had to pay back two...
If this arrangement continued, the common people would never be able to escape poverty.
Thus, even if he could not abolish the practice of usurious lending through the law, he planned to plant a deep and widespread awareness that it was dishonorable conduct.
Once that perception took firm root, yangban who lent money at interest would lower their rates or abandon usurious lending just to preserve their honor.
“Just leave it to me. I write one hell of a deotboegi, you know. Leave it to me.”
“I'm counting on you. Ah, and—”
“What?”
“Lord Jibu said he would provide the food we need while we remain here preparing the new performance. But if we cause trouble...”
Kim Daebung had sternly warned Gong-gil that something terrible would happen if they caused trouble.
However, because Kim Daebung had become too famous under the nickname ‘Jibu,’
Gong-gil interpreted those words as follows.
‘I’ll personally chop your neck off with an ax.’
“Not only the one who causes trouble, but all of us will die. I'm not joking. Those were the words of Lord Jibu himself, after all.”
Everyone in the troupe nodded in agreement at that declaration.
“Keep an eye on one another. Don't go harassing women or kidnapping children to recruit piri (trainee members), or anything like that. If we're caught, every one of us could be beheaded together on the same day at the same hour.”
Although Kim Daebung had not said so explicitly, if Gong-gil's troupe were caught kidnapping children...
He truly intended to punish every member of Gong-gil's Namsadang troupe very severely.
Thus, his prediction could not be called entirely wrong.
“Now, think carefully about what we're going to do with the deotboegi. We have to create one new deotboegi within a month.”
And after a month had passed, they successfully created a new deotboegi and put on a performance of it.
**
The newly established marketplace in Noryangjin was crowded with people again today.
Dolsoe, who had come up from Yangju, experienced firsthand that these days, saying more people gathered in Noryangjin than in Unjongga (Jongno) was no longer merely a joke.
“Gap-dol, now that I've come in person, I completely admit that a huge number of people really do gather in Noryangjin.”
“Of course, you idiot. My older cousin went to Hanyang because he couldn't find land to farm as a tenant, then settled here. They say fourteen people from our village alone work in Noryangjin's workshops and merchant houses.”
“Hanyang really is different.”
Dolsoe was unable to hide his astonishment as he watched merchants selling all kinds of goods in Noryangjin and countless ferryboats—too many to count—moving in every direction.
“What were we supposed to buy today? Let's see.”
As they looked around in every direction to find the things they needed to buy, they spotted a Namsadang troupe putting on a performance in the central market square.
They displayed all kinds of dazzling and breathtaking movements accompanied by the clamor of musical instruments, drawing the attention of every passerby around them.
They even hung a rope from a tall pole and performed terrifyingly daring movements that made the spectators' hearts tremble, while freely turning somersaults through the air several times.
The eyes of Dolsoe and his companions locked onto the Namsadang troupe, and before they knew it, they were drifting toward it as if iron were being drawn to a magnet.
They were completely captivated by the performance put on by Gong-gil's troupe.
“All right, all right, that's it for today's eoreum (tightrope walking). From now on, we'll show you a deotboegi we've newly created. We need a big round of applause.”
At those words, Gong-gil and his companions changed their clothes in an instant and began acting with masks on their faces.
The deotboegi lasted roughly two hours.
Following Kim Daebung's instructions to the letter, the greedy tavern proprietress sold stale rice and spoiled food without distinction...
“Heh heh, everyone eats food that's a little spoiled without saying a word, so the money in my storeroom is piling up day by day. If I save just a little more, I can even buy a tiled-roof house in Hanyang. Now I'll live just as well as any yangban lord. It's all thanks to His Majesty's grace.”
The gestures were exaggerated, and the plot was, objectively speaking, somewhat childish.
Yet as Dolsoe watched the villainous tavern proprietress, crazed by money, casually sell spoiled food, he unconsciously furrowed his brow, and a curse slipped from his lips.
“That, that woman deserves to die. That greedy tavern woman is deliberately selling spoiled food to her customers?”
In Joseon, people sometimes ate slightly stale rice and somewhat spoiled food because they did not have enough to eat.
But that was only because they had no food and were too poor to do otherwise.
Yet seeing a woman who had made a fair amount of money selling food casually sell spoiled food to her customers and pile up wealth made the spectators' blood boil.
As the performance continued, it showed several people who had eaten the food sold by the tavern proprietress suffering from stomachaches.
Eventually, it even showed one child dying...
At this, Dolsoe and countless other spectators all groaned and began hurling curses at the tavern proprietress.
A woman with plenty of money, blinded by greed, had sold spoiled food and killed a child.
Although this was a deotboegi and its content was fictional, it was more than enough to unleash the fury of everyone watching.
At that moment, a masked man carrying an ax appeared in the play.
The man with the ax immediately pretended to smash a jar with it.
“You wretched woman, selling spoiled food just to earn a little more money! Are you not afraid of Heaven? What you have done is a grave crime that neither Heaven nor Earth nor His Majesty can forgive! Guards! What are the constables doing? Bind this wicked woman, blinded by money and even killing a child, and flog her soundly at once!”
Then a scene of her being bound and flogged played out, and the play ended.
After watching the tavern proprietress get bound and beaten, the spectators applauded like thunder and each offered a comment.
A wicked woman like that deserved to die.
Dolsoe and his companions also clicked their tongues and spoke.
“When we're among ourselves and have no food, I suppose we can't help eating spoiled food, but when there is enough to go around, we should avoid stale rice or spoiled food whenever possible.”
“Everyone's had stomach trouble after eating something a little spoiled at least once. But I had no idea. I really didn't know people could die from it.”
“From now on, I must never buy food at restaurants that sell stale rice. To charge the same price while selling stale rice... Such places have no shame, and they're wicked places committing crimes too.”
From the time this performance began, restaurants selling stale food saw their customers decline sharply day after day, even when they lowered their prices.