Chapter 176
Ryu Jeong-hyeon, now branded as a Goryeo ghost and turned into the very embodiment of evil.
In the original history, he was one of the men who took the lead in persecuting Buddhism.
A corrupt official who, driven by greed for money, lent to poor commoners at usurious rates and exploited them as ruthlessly as Goryeo had.
Yet when death approached, perhaps frightened of standing before Yama, he said he wanted to accumulate merit and, in the original history, spent 5,000 seom of white rice to hold a Water and Land Rite.
The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty recorded this fact, and later generations laughed at Ryu Jeong-hyeon for it time and time again.
But if you look at this from a slightly different perspective, it means that fear of the afterlife is not absent even in a morally bankrupt man...
'The afterlife can be put to use, too.'
"In my opinion, King Beopheung of Silla accepted Buddhism not because he was a king obsessed with superstition and wanted to believe in supernatural forces and strange spirits, but because he recognized that Buddhism had positive functions that could benefit the nation."
According to historians' research, Christianity took shape as a religion around A.D. 33.
For the next 300 years, Christianity suffered immense persecution within the Roman Empire.
In Joseon, people were not arrested and killed merely for believing in Buddhism, nor were they directly disadvantaged for it...
In Rome, however, simply being a Christian was enough to get someone placed in the Colosseum and killed by every creative method imaginable.
They were thrown to the lions, burned alive in the Colosseum, and so on.
Yet in the end, Christianity became the official religion through the Edict of Nicaea.
How could Christianity, the religion of those who had been persecuted, become a country's state religion?
Because it came to be recognized as a religion that benefited society.
"Buddhism can benefit the nation..."
"The reason Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, made Confucianism the state's guiding principle was that the doctrine it advocated—rulers should act as rulers, subjects as subjects, fathers as fathers, and sons as sons, with each fulfilling the duties of his position—helped bring peace to the realm."
Before Liu Bang, Confucianism was merely one of the Hundred Schools of Thought that wielded some influence in China.
But Liu Bang realized that Confucianism's teaching of fulfilling one's duties and observing propriety in one's place helped maintain the order of the state, so he adopted Confucian learning as his guide to governing the country...
From then on, Confucius's teachings came to dominate Northeast Asia.
"There is no one in this world who does not fear death. Every human being also has an instinctive concern for what comes after death. Yet Confucius said that the world after death was something humans could not possibly know, and that trying to speculate about it would lead nowhere. Just as he did not discuss strange forces and spirits during his lifetime, he did not discuss the world after death either."
"You are right."
It is said that Yi Bang-won built a temple within the capital when his son died.
King Sejong, too, built an inner Buddhist shrine in the palace when Queen Soheon died and prayed for her soul.
What other reason could those two paragons of reason have had for doing so?
Confucianism teaches that the afterlife is not worth discussing, but they still worried about what came after death.
"The uneducated common people do not even know the principles of Confucianism, so they fear the afterlife all the more. Therefore, we should teach them that if they cherish their siblings, respect their parents, and remain loyal to their king, they can reach paradise. Then the people will want to live uprightly, if only so they can enter paradise after death."
Buddhist scholars believe that the hells appearing in the Six Realms of reincarnation were created as a means of edifying people through Buddhism.
That argument is persuasive because the offenses for which people are sent to the hells of the Ten Kings are closely connected to things people at the time considered grave sins.
Yama's Hell of Tongue Extraction is where liars go, while King Taishan's Hell of Dismemberment is where merchants who committed fraud go.
'So it's telling people to live virtuously if they don't want to go to Hell when they die.'
"Buddhism too depends on how it is used... I see."
"And, Your Majesty, I recently asked Hogun Jang Yeong-sil, who belongs to the Gongyasa, to build public bathhouses."
"Wasn't bathing an obscene custom of the former Goryeo?"
"The same is true of Namsadang troupes, is it not? After seeing how useful they could be in educating the people this time, I feel even more strongly about that. Public bathhouses are similar in that regard. Washing the body thoroughly and living hygienically is extremely important for the people's health. For example, after the soldiers under the military offices began washing regularly, outbreaks of epidemics among the troops disappeared completely."
Thanks to this, they say the Joseon army came to live and die by rigid discipline, like a strictly disciplined twenty-first-century military.
I once heard that one military officer, carried away by this momentum, even suggested introducing the Goryeo-ghost custom of eating at attention.
Of course, the proposal never reached Sejong; his immediate superior chewed him out thoroughly and rejected it.
I also heard that as the army came to value rigid discipline, it began to place greater importance on cleanliness, and drying bedding and uniforms in the sun every weekend became routine.
Among the gun-gyo (junior officers or noncommissioned officers), I hear there are even people who say, 'I know the drill: as long as you do exactly what you're supposed to, they won't bother you after that.'
"This is something we have already seen work in the military. Therefore, to protect the people from all kinds of contagious diseases, including epidemics, we must spread bathing as widely as possible. For that, public bathhouses are essential."
Hanyang's population is rising sharply now.
Yet most people in this era bathe only once every three months or once every six months.
Wouldn't bathing only once every six months make them walking germ factories?
At my words, Choe Man-ri, who had taken part in this sangcham, rose in opposition.
"Most of what Seoyun Kim Daebung of Hanseongbu says is correct, Your Majesty... However, in the former Goryeo, women and men bathed together in streams and bathhouses, which caused it to become established as an obscene custom. Moreover, bathhouses were sometimes lined with deulbyeongi (one term for prostitutes), leading to serious obscenity. Taking that precedent as a warning, I believe Your Majesty must prohibit the reckless spread of bathing, at the very least."
Since bathing involves taking off all one's clothes and washing one's naked body...
it was not uncommon for prostitution to take place in the process.
In Rome and Edo, where public bathhouses were widespread, prostitution frequently took place in bathhouses as well.
Even early medieval Europe had public bathhouses under the influence of Rome...
and prostitution was said to have been common.
So naturally, such wicked practices must be prohibited.
"The spaces used by men and women must be strictly separated, and anyone who disrupts public morals through such obscene acts must be severely punished. Moreover, the sick must not be allowed to enter bathhouses."
In early medieval Europe, bathing was fairly common.
It was even considered a form of asceticism to refrain from bathing altogether.
Thus, contrary to our preconceptions, people in the early Middle Ages kept their bodies remarkably clean, but that custom changed completely after the Black Death swept through.
This was because, once bathhouses came to be regarded as breeding grounds for the Black Death, a culture of treating bathing itself as taboo arose.
By the same token, we cannot simply stand by and watch bathhouses in Joseon become breeding grounds for all sorts of diseases.
"But heating all the water used in those bathhouses must require a great deal of firewood."
"Coal is being mined in fairly large quantities throughout Joseon at present. Although it is difficult to use in places requiring extremely hot fires, such as blast furnaces... coal is coal, after all, so it is quite suitable for boiling water."
If we care only about short-term efficiency, the best option would be to obtain firewood from the mountains around Hanyang, including Bugaksan.
But from a long-term perspective...
if logging continues without end while Hanyang's population keeps growing, all the trees in the mountains around Hanyang will eventually disappear.
This would reduce the mountains' ability to store groundwater and worsen droughts, while the loss of tree roots to hold the soil in place would also lead to more frequent landslides.
If we use coal as fuel, we can not only open new mining villages throughout the country and create new cities where people can settle...
coal haulers will also emerge and increase the number of jobs, so I believe it is a policy worth pursuing.
After hearing me out, Sejong smacked his lips thoughtfully.
"Not one thing Seoyun Kim Daebung of Hanseongbu said is contrary to reason. However, I believe using Buddhism as a means of edification requires further consideration. Later, I shall have the court gather more public opinion."
"Your Majesty's grace is boundless."
King Sejong was a man who even put monks to work in order to create Hunminjeongeum.
He valued the contribution of the monk Sinmi, who had been put to work, so highly that he wanted to grant him a title fit for a general or chief state councillor.
If I merely cleared a path for him, it seemed King Sejong would use Prince Hyoryeong on his own initiative to unify Buddhism.
"As for the proposal to build bathhouses, I am certainly concerned that various obscene acts might flourish in them. However, I believe that would be like refusing to make fermented bean paste for fear of maggots. Therefore, Seoyun Kim Daebung of Hanseongbu shall devise the systems necessary to establish bathhouses, have the Uijeongbu review them, and then submit a memorial."
"Your Majesty's grace is boundless."
Sejong spoke one final time.
"Edification does not necessarily have to be carried out only through the principles written in the scriptures. Using sadang troupes to convey simple principles and have the people follow them is also edification. Do not forget this."