Chapter 175
Sejong was a king who loved his people more than anyone else.
Because he was that kind of king, he had lived working like a man obsessed with work until Kim Daebung got Yi Bang-won to exercise.
He believed that if he suffered a little more, the lives of the people would improve, even if only slightly.
And it was this noble conviction that led him to create Hunminjeongeum even when he was almost blind...
Even now, as always, he was wholly occupied with thoughts of his people.
“You once said that if the people were only given the opportunity to learn, they too could rise to the ranks of chief ministers like the yangban literati.”
These words of Kim Daebung continued to echo in Sejong's mind.
The other ministers, unable to bring themselves to deny Confucius, would loudly claim that even a lowly person could become a junzi if he learned...
But not one of them believed that it would become natural for the people to learn and work alongside them as equals.
Sejong himself had once thought like them.
That was before Kim Daebung said that even the child of a man serving his military duty in the navy, an occupation considered one of the lowliest, could become a chief minister if given the opportunity to learn.
“To think of using Namsadang troupes to teach the people and guide them onto the right path. What a brilliant idea—one no one else in Joseon could have conceived.”
None of the court ministers had directly come forward to oppose the memorials Kim Daebung submitted.
That was because every policy he proposed had produced results better than anyone could have imagined.
Jinhae-hyeon, which had once been nothing more than a small fishing village, had long since grown into a major city rivaling Dongnae (Busan).
The Bang-won Law had strengthened the national finances tremendously while reducing the people's actual tax burden.
Who would dare oppose a policy proposed by a man who had achieved such remarkable results in fields ranging from steel, gunpowder, medicine, and diplomacy?
Yet there had been quite a lot of opposition to his proposal this time to use Namsadang troupes to educate the people.
“To think he would use such a troublesome thing—something I wanted to eradicate from Joseon but could never bring myself to stamp out. How clever.”
Thanks to the Namsadang troupes satirizing and mocking restaurants that sold spoiled food in Hanyang, it had become impossible to find an eatery there that sold spoiled or stale food.
A poor household might have no choice but to eat it because it had nothing else.
That was because whenever a restaurant sold spoiled food, customers whose standards regarding spoiled food had changed would rise up and turn the establishment upside down.
And when they caused such a disturbance without injuring anyone, the constables and patrol officers of Hanseongbu simply let it go.
“They said that these days, Hwalinwon no longer had people suffering from diarrhea coming to seek treatment.”
Judging by this fact alone, the troublesome Namsadang troupes had greatly benefited the state.
And now that he knew the people could be educated through something like deotboegi (masked dances), if deotboegi centered on loyalty and filial piety spread throughout all eight provinces of Joseon...
His hopes rose higher and higher at the thought that this might give the people a chance to live with somewhat more upright minds.
“It would be good to order the Assistant Director of Music to have the state manage the Namsadang troupes from now on, and to have those among them with exceptional talent perform deotboegi on themes requested by the state.”
Since this was the Namsadang troupe's first deotboegi script, Kim Daebung had written and given them a rough draft, but wasn't Kim a minister with far too many tasks already?
He had to resolve diplomatic issues with Ming, put a yoke around the neck of the Tsushima lord and work him like a yellow ox, increase Joseon's agricultural output, and solve all sorts of problems faced by the soldiers.
Assigning someone with so much to do another task, such as writing deotboegi scripts—something other talented people could easily handle—would be a waste of time.
‘Every task has a right person and a right place.’
Then Sejong suddenly became curious.
If Kim Daebung could even make use of Namsadang troupes that went around causing trouble throughout Joseon to educate the people...
“I must summon Kim Daebung to the next sangcham.”
He had turned even the utterly disreputable Namsadang troupes into yellow oxen working for the state—or rather, into excellent subjects...
What other thoughts might he have in mind?
Sejong was intensely curious what they might be.
**
The events in which Joseon officials met and conversed with the king were not limited to johoe, attended only by ministers of dangsanggwan rank or higher, and gyeongyeon, where they debated policy under the pretext of lectures on the Confucian classics.
Since these were formal events attended by numerous high-ranking figures, they were somewhat cumbersome to hold every day...
Thus, there was also sangcham, a shortened form of johoe in which almost all the formalities were omitted and the number of participants kept to a minimum.
At sangcham, any official of junior sixth rank or higher, whether a civil or military official, could attend if designated by the king or a chief minister.
“Why are we suddenly having a sangcham...”
When I was suddenly summoned to sangcham and sighed, the other officials looked at me as though I were some strange fellow.
So when I turned my gaze toward them, some of them even deliberately avoided my eyes.
I could actually understand why they were acting that way.
That was because the subject of this sangcham was none other than educating the people through Namsadang troupes.
Because of me, they must have spent several days analyzing and researching a subject they had never once considered in their lives until now...
‘Of course they aren't going to think kindly of me after I dropped a bomb of extra work on them.’
“His Majesty the King is entering!”
At johoe and gyeongyeon, when the announcement “His Majesty the King is entering!” was made, the court musicians would play songs including Yeomindongnak.
But sangcham was a place for the king to hold a light discussion about policy...
It was an abbreviated ceremony accompanied by only the minimum honor guard and escort, so even the court musicians did not attend.
Once Sejong had taken his seat, he looked at me with a deep, lingering gaze.
If I had been a woman, it was the kind of gaze that would have made me wonder, ‘Is this a green light?’
I nearly got goosebumps.
After giving me that look, Sejong now smiled at me.
“Is Kim Daebung here?”
I knew what was going on from the moment he directed that gaze at me.
This sangcham had been arranged because it was difficult to summon me for a one-on-one private audience, so he had brought several stand-ins to prevent the court historians from getting any strange ideas.
The men who had been summoned probably found this both absurd and fortunate.
They found it absurd because they had hoped to impress the king here and somehow grasp a lifeline to advancement, only for all of that to come to nothing.
They considered it fortunate because they would be spared a barrage of questions from His Majesty King Sejong, the ultimate curiosity demon and tireless seeker of knowledge.
‘This is a joke, but one could say that King Sejong established royal authority through debate.’
To be more precise, they say that people avoided opposing policies because they did not want to engage in endless debates with Sejong...
King Jeongjo, who claimed that he personally taught all his ministers, sometimes seemed to browbeat them with the authority of the throne, but His Majesty King Sejong was more than capable of doing the same.
If a mere minister brought up viewpoint A, His Majesty King Sejong would discuss everything from B to F and then order him to write a paper about it.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“When you first submitted a memorial proposing that you would use Namsadang troupes to educate the people, the court ministers and I found the idea admirable, yet we were deeply concerned that it might be dangerous. However, not one of the reckless policies you had proposed up to that point had failed to produce results, so I decided to use gwondo (a king's arbitrary decision) and put your proposal to the test.”
“I am merely grateful beyond words that Your Majesty places so much trust in this foolish subject.”
“Ha ha. Who in the court could look down on you merely because you are young? Though you may be young, the aspirations you hold in your heart are those of a phoenix. And this time as well, you did not merely talk—you actually succeeded in educating the people by using Namsadang troupes.”
As the elders of old used to say.
If someone suddenly praises you, they are laying the groundwork to ask you for a difficult favor.
There was no chance His Majesty King Sejong would ask me to cosign a loan or lend him money, the sorts of difficult favors the elders had warned about...
Still, the way he was laying this groundwork made it seem that he wanted to ask me a question that would give me a headache.
“If Namsadang troupes can be made to contribute to the people depending on how they are used, what about monks devoted to the Buddha?”
Unease appeared on the faces of everyone gathered at the sangcham in response to Sejong's question.
There was no issue more difficult to handle than Buddhism, and being asked to answer a question about it put me in an extremely awkward position as well...
“Subjects such as the six paths of reincarnation and other supernatural and mysterious matters are things no one can know even if they try to understand them, so we must not become absorbed in them. In the former Goryeo, the monks became consumed by greed and made everyone—from the king and powerful clans above to the commoners and slaves below—look only toward matters of the afterlife such as the six paths of reincarnation, and that was what ruined the country.”
“Are you saying they cannot be reformed at all?”
“Monks are like arsenic. Used properly, they can become medicine, but used improperly, they can eat away at the state. If the people come to believe in the six paths of reincarnation and focus only on the afterlife, coming to scorn their lives in the present, that would be an extremely serious problem, but...”
Whenever we hear Catholicism or Protestantism, we tend to think only of the bad images associated with them...
In fact, the premodern Europeans' obsession with the afterlife was not entirely negative.
Most commoners endured the suffering caused by society's contradictions because they believed they could go to heaven after death, while striving to live as good people.
Could Buddhism not be used in the same way if it were handled properly?
“If we speak of the afterlife and tell the people that they can be reborn in the Pure Land only by accumulating good karma, it could be put to excellent use as a way to make them strive of their own accord to encourage good and punish evil, and live upright lives.”