Chapter 195
The Iron-Mace King—no, the Retired King, Yi Bang-won, had summoned me.
Typically, whenever a king and subject end up meeting privately like this, rumors spread among the officials.
‘Boo, that bastard is going to become a powerful minister, a treacherous official who toys with the court. Boo, what a piece of trash.’
That was why, whenever I had something to report, I had always submitted memorials to Sejong through proper channels and had never once requested a private audience.
I could have done so if I had wanted, but then I would have had to endure tremendous slander and abuse from people accusing me of trying to become a treacherous official.
“How delightful it is to see your face up close first thing in the morning.”
I could hear immense joy in Yi Bang-won’s voice.
If someone saw his face right now, they would probably think it was the expression of a grandfather overjoyed to see his grandson home for the holidays again after a long time.
“I am overwhelmed by Your Majesty’s grace.”
“Seeing you reminds me of the loyal advice you once offered. After returning from serving as a secret royal inspector in several districts of Gyeonggi Province, you told me that although it was important for the king to attend to all state affairs, if he did not make an effort to move his body from then on, diabetes would soon become prevalent and damage his health. When I first heard those words, I thought it terribly irreverent and ominous for a subject to say such things to his lord... But looking back now, I realize that without that loyal advice, the busy king would not have made an effort to move his body, symptoms of diabetes would have appeared, and his health would have suffered greatly.”
“It is thanks to Your Majesty, the Retired King, for not taking offense at my insolent words and graciously accepting them.”
When children tell their healthy parents, ‘Mom, Dad, if you don’t want to develop a serious illness later, you need to start taking care of yourselves now. Exercise regularly, make sure you eat a balanced diet, and go straight to the hospital whenever you’re sick. Please, take better care of your health!’
Their parents sometimes take it very badly.
The children mean well, but the parents may start wondering whether they are already old enough to develop a serious illness, and they may dislike being nagged by their children, leaving them in a bad mood.
To say in front of a young king’s father, Yi Bang-won, that the king might fail to take care of his health, develop a serious illness, and even die?
By Joseon standards, if I had been beaten to death with an iron mace on the spot, I would have had no grounds to complain.
Even so, it was truly remarkable that Yi Bang-won had listened to me seriously.
If the person to whom I had offered advice about his health had been King Yeongjo...
There is a high probability that I would have ended up locked in a rice chest and dying there.
“A few days ago, I went hunting with the Crown Prince and the other princes and grand princes, and I thought of you, so I had some of the deer we caught made into jerky. This is that very deer jerky. In recognition of your merit in offering loyal advice to protect the king’s health, I shall bestow upon you one geun of deer jerky and jukryeokgo. Eat well, summon even greater strength, and work diligently for the royal ancestral shrine and state.”
“I am overwhelmed by Your Majesty’s grace.”
“When I looked closely at you, I found that you, too, seem to be in rather poor health. I shall specially order the Naeuiwon to prepare and bestow upon you a restorative decoction.”
I read this in a novel once, but in that novel, yangban sending restorative medicine to one another was understood to mean, ‘Go fuck yourself.’
Of course, the Joseon court had done away with overtime, becoming an organization where officials had to leave the office at the appointed hour no matter what... So the life of a government official was not particularly difficult.
Therefore, if I received restorative medicine, I should simply accept it with gratitude.
Yet for some reason, it felt as though he were taking care of my body by feeding our yellow ox meat and restorative medicine so I could be ready to work myself to the bone.
‘I feel like I’ve turned into a cow.’
While I was feeling uneasy at the thought that I had become Hwang Hui the yellow ox, Yi Bang-won continued gazing at me with a pleased expression.
His gaze was so syrupy that anyone seeing it might mistake me for his lover.
“When you served as the magistrate of Jinhae and cared for the lives of its people, they submitted a joint memorial asking that you be allowed to continue working in Jinhae. I was truly pleased when I read that memorial. And when the Bangwonbeop was implemented, I was able to help ease the people’s hardships as well. Thanks to that, in the twilight of my life, I have been granted the great joy that comes from benefiting the people far and wide.”
“I am overwhelmed by Your Majesty’s grace.”
“Because a subject like you is in the court, I have been freed from all my worries. Therefore, do not lose your initial resolve. Until the end of your days, devote all your strength to making Joseon an even more beautiful and prosperous country.”
When I heard his words, one thought immediately came to mind.
‘Thank goodness this isn’t a fantasy world.’
If this were not Joseon but a world like Parallel-Universe Joseon-A, the sort of world we usually call a historical romance...
King Sejong, King Munjong, and even Yi Bang-won and Hwang Hui would all appear as beautiful women or pretty girls...
Aaargh, just thinking about it is horrifying.
It was a thought far more horrifying than sitting inside a rice chest while eating marinated freshwater crab and dried persimmons at the same time.
“However, there are still fools possessed by the ghost of Goryeo in Joseon, so my worries have not completely vanished. His Majesty has ordered the sons of yangban families not to serve military duty, but instead to pay ten seom of polished rice per household every year, and has even said that the amount will be adjusted according to each family’s circumstances and wealth. Why, then, are there so many shameless people stepping forward to say that they will not pay even that?”
There are many wealthy people in this world who have thrown their consciences to the dogs.
They go shopping at department stores, bully innocent employees over absurd pretexts, and make them kneel and beg for forgiveness.
There are often idiots who go berserk, insisting that they will send the employee’s life—and even the lives of their family members—straight into the abyss, no matter how much that employee begs and pleads.
There are certainly far more wealthy people who are not the sort who deserve to be shot in the head, but even a small number of subhuman idiots stand out because their impact is so much stronger.
“Is it not a gentleman’s duty to forcibly teach those who know no shame?”
“You are right. Preventing people who do not know the duties they must uphold as human beings from throwing their weight around here and there—that would be true moral instruction.”
On Korean streets, there are people who toss cigarette butts or plastic litter, but no one defecates in the street or openly dumps food waste.
People are thoroughly educated not to do such things, and if anyone is nevertheless caught doing so, the government imposes enormous fines.
Through this process, people who openly dumped food waste on Korean streets disappeared.
In Confucianism, this is called moral instruction.
“The one who insulted His Majesty King Taejo must naturally pay for it with his life, but what if we strip the others of their yangban status and make them serve five years of military duty in the navy?”
“Would that not be too lenient a punishment?”
“They have lived by throwing their weight around in their districts because they were yangban, and they have also been exempted from military duty. That is why His Majesty ordered them to pay ten seom of polished rice every year as the price for that privilege. But the fact that they submitted memorials simply because they begrudged the rice... shows that they do not know how difficult life is for those who serve in the military. Therefore, if we make them serve five years in the navy and experience firsthand how painful military duty is, they will abandon their mistaken ideas and be reborn as people with proper thoughts.”
In the twenty-first century, the saying “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” has come to mean that you have to give people the same hell in return before they can truly understand.
Although that statement was somewhat extreme, it was not wrong in the slightest.
When someone bullies and torments me with unreasonable abuse of power, I can either sue them or use some other ingenious method if one is available.
Unless I make a huge fuss, such people never realize what harm their actions have caused others.
A relative comes to a holiday family gathering without contributing even a single coin in pocket money, yet, simply because they are an elder, launches into infuriating questions: Why aren’t you married at your age? Why haven’t you found a job? Do you really think you can get married on the salary from your current job?
If they unleashed such infuriating nagging and made a huge fuss...
Grabbing their child and responding by doing exactly the same thing to them would be extremely effective.
Of course, if I used this method in earnest, my relationship with that relative could completely fall apart, which was why it was not something I could easily do.
“That is right.”
“And because the government manages namsadang troupes and entertainers, spreading through deotboegi performances stories about people who fell ill because they failed to wash properly and about those who sold spoiled food being severely punished... the custom of washing oneself spread naturally among the people, and in Hanyang and many other districts, almost no one became sick with diarrhea from spoiled food sold at taverns anymore.”
The KKK, an organization welded together by white supremacy.
One journalist’s method of attacking them was to portray the KKK as pathetic, third-rate trash villains in Superman.
Thanks to that, they came to be mocked among Americans as pathetic, trashy, third-rate villains.
As a result, the United States succeeded in dealing the KKK a devastating blow without mobilizing any state power whatsoever.
“We must create deotboegi performances that satirize and ridicule them, leave their filthy names in the official records, and spread their names throughout the eight provinces of Joseon.”
A smile spread across Yi Bang-won’s face.
“That is truly a cruel punishment. If I were one of them, I would beg to be killed instead.”
“Those who refuse to uphold the duties a human being should possess should not be treated as human beings. That is the best way to edify those lacking in character.”
Yi Bang-won smiled broadly as he looked at me, displaying his deep satisfaction.
“Your words are indeed correct.”
A month later, Yi Bang-won summoned Gong-gil’s troupe to the palace and had them perform a deotboegi satirizing shameless yangban who were unwilling to uphold even the most basic propriety.
Thus, the forty-five yangban who had submitted memorials this time ended up losing the most important thing a yangban could possess.
Their honor and reputation as yangban.