Chapter 18
Joseon was a country where introverts couldn't survive.
Even in Hanyang, neighbors knew exactly how well-off each household was, and they even knew whether the idiot next door, Gaedong, was getting divorced and remarrying.
Because if people—no, even yangban—didn't help one another, they couldn't survive in premodern Joseon society.
Besides, there wasn't much in the way of leisure other than spending hot nights with one's wife at home...
Getting together with friends who'd been close since childhood and chatting over makgeolli was just basic Joseon common sense.
In this ordinary scene, Jangdori, who did odd jobs for Kim Mandeok's trading company, spoke up.
“Hey, folks, did you hear the news?”
“The news? How would we know? If you're about to say our Baenamugol's resident old bachelor, Deokman, is getting married, forget it.”
“Everyone in Jinhae County already knows that bastard is getting married, so why keep saying it? That stingy Deokman, who usually acts so miserly, even came to me and bought me a bowl of that gukbap or whatever the new magistrate had cooked up at the market, just to say he was getting married.”
“Goodness, after spending a lifetime thinking he'd never get married... that Deokman bastard really has become a person.”
If Deokman had been here, he'd have blown up at them, asking what was so strange about an old bachelor getting married.
Sure, he might not have been accused of being generous all these years, but to say that because he finally got married after a lifetime of seeming like he'd never make it he had become a proper person...
was no different from saying he looked like an old bachelor who'd never marry even if he died.
He couldn't stand them cowardly picking at his sore spots using nothing but facts.
“Then what is it?”
“The yangban lords are paying the tribute tax at the same rate as back when those damn monk bastards were here. Instead, they'll cut the amount of tribute tax paid by poor folks like us by that much.”
At the news that the tribute tax would be cut even more, those around Jangdori pricked up their ears.
No, even the people doing business nearby came trotting over.
If it had been some other story, maybe not, but this was about cutting a tax that burdened them, so there was no way it wouldn't catch their interest.
“Aside from Jeong Hakso, that bastard who died last time, the yangban lords aren't exactly stingy people... but they're not so generous that they'd pay our tribute for us, are they?”
Wherever you went in the eight provinces of Joseon, the day a local yangban house held an ancestral rite was basically the village feast day.
Because if a yangban held an ancestral rite and didn't gather the villagers and stuff them full of delicious food, his reputation in the village would take a hit.
Once that reputation fell, and kept falling, even the local yangban society would stop treating him like a yangban, so on rite days they would cry and wail and put on a feast with food enough for hundreds of villagers.
And if there was a bad harvest, they'd even open their storehouses and hand out grain for free.
They may have had a humane side, but if they didn't, they could be bitten to death by the tiger called hungry commoners.
So to the county people, yangban were only the sort of people to be grateful to when they held ancestral rites... and for them to suddenly devote themselves to the commoners? That was a little too suspicious.
“Jangdori, did you hear that wrong?”
What Jangdori had heard was 100 percent true. After all, the one who had told him to spread those words was none other than Kim Mandeok, the head of his own trading company.
And who was Kim Mandeok? He was such an extraordinary merchant that even the magistrate Jangdori had seen, the one who cared most for the commoners, had personally gone to him for advice.
Across Joseon, the only merchant a government official would visit not to take a bribe, but to ask for advice would be our own head merchant, sir.
'But he told me not to reveal that.'
“You know my cousin's brother-in-law's daughter is now the hobang official's concubine, right?”
“Who doesn't know that? My cousin bragged his face off just yesterday about getting a plot of land out of it. Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt.”
“I heard it directly from my cousin's older brother. He said our magistrate gathered all the yangban lords together, personally persuaded and instructed them, and the yangban lords volunteered to shoulder more of the tribute tax.”
The inexplicable sight of yangban voluntarily agreeing to pay more taxes.
But by then, the people of this county had already reached the point where, if Magistrate Kim Daebung said something would happen, they believed it would happen exactly as he said.
He had cut tribute taxes in half, returned to the people the rice the monk bastards had embezzled, and built a market that gave them something to see and even a way to make a living... so it made sense.
“And from what I hear, that's not all.”
“What else did he do?”
“They say he's building several weirs in Dongcheon and Seosacheon. If you take part, they'll cut your hwan-gok by a day's worth of labor.”
“...... They're reducing hwan-gok for corvée labor?”
“They even give the workers a snack and dinner so they won't go hungry. Paid for with the taxes the yangban lords contribute, of course.”
The people who heard this felt dizzy. They had been told one impossible thing after another, all of it beyond their common sense.
Originally, when a magistrate ordered corvée labor, it was only natural to conscript people without pay, and they had to prepare their own meals. That was how it was when Gyeongbokgung was built, and when Changdeokgung was built too.
It was as obvious as water flowing from top to bottom, and yet this magistrate was saying he’d cut 'hwan-gok' if people did the labor?
It was something they simply couldn't understand, no matter what they tried.
“If it's not the busy farming season, then whenever I have free time during the slack season, I should definitely go out?”
“If a bunch of weirs get built, the chances of famine should go down too, right?”
Building fortress walls wasn't something that helped them right away, but building weirs in the river would also reduce the chance of famine...
And it would make reclaiming farmland easier, so clearing land and making it your own would be much easier too.
No matter how you looked at it, it was a policy with only benefits and not a single downside.
“The magistrate really did a good job persuading the yangban lords. But listen, once the magistrate leaves, isn't that the end of it?”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
The old man who'd said that it would end once the magistrate left asked Jangdori as if he were accusing him.
“The magistrate persuaded the yangban lords well, so for now it's like this, but do you really think it'll keep going if another magistrate comes?”
Jangdori barely managed to hide the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Kim Mandeok had told all his employees that if they could rally the people—no, persuade them—to put up a merit stele, he'd give them half a seom of rice.
If he persuaded the people here and got a merit stele erected, that would be practically the same as getting half a seom of rice for free.
“Then how about putting up a merit stele?”
“A merit stele?”
“Since the yangban lords have personally spared no expense for poor commoners like us and for the county, let's ask for a few lines of writing and put one up to show our gratitude.”
“Are you really Jangdori? Why are you so smart all of a sudden?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
The Jangdori they knew was just someone doing odd jobs to make a living at Kim Mandeok's trading company, not a man this clever. So they thought it was a little suspicious, but...
What mattered more now was that the yangban lords were paying a lot of tax, so their own tribute burden was lighter and they didn't have to worry about repaying hwan-gok by working on weirs during the slack season.
If they worked during the slack season, the hwan-gok they'd have to repay would go down, and if they were fed too... that was no different from rice multiplying on its own.
“The important thing is, if we put up a merit stele and show our gratitude to the yangban lords... then the yangban lords themselves won't be able to call it quits once a merit stele has gone up, will they?”
Jangdori's suspicion about why he was suddenly speaking so cleverly vanished at the single phrase, “won't be able to call it quits.”
Taxes had gone down, and their lives had gotten better. Since a way to keep that going had come out of Jangdori's mouth, who cared who was behind him?
“Yangban love leaving their names behind for posterity for no good reason. So if we put up a merit stele and thank the yangban lords, they'll keep doing it just like now, right?”
“If the county people pool together and do it, it doesn't seem like it would cost much.”
“If the yangban lords are willing to pay more taxes, we can do that much.”
Once public opinion had gathered like that, even the people talking here began to drift away.
Because they had work to do, whether that meant going home to pat their wives on the rear or going to tend their kitchen gardens.
And then they immediately spread out all over and started the rumor.
“I heard that... the magistrate persuaded the yangban for our sake and got them to pay some of our tribute tax for us?”
“Thanks to the yangban lords, our taxes have gone down, so shouldn't we put up at least one merit stele?”
“Those people would probably rather do it after hearing a word of thanks than do it for free...”
And before long, a merit stele praising the virtues of the yangban was erected in the county.