Chapter 2
I have no intention of using the civil service exam to climb to high office.
I just need decent scores, a decent posting, and about three years as an official. Then I'm going back home.
If King Sejong spots me, I'll be in for the Hwang Hui treatment for sure. Why the hell would I want to be worked to death like Prime Minister Hwang Hui, mooing, 'Moo, I'm a yellow ox!' like a lunatic?
"I will announce the essay topic!"
I don't even know what the topic is, but I'll just write something decent and leave.
Still, I'm curious what they'll ask. Will it be an essay on poetry, or on the teachings of Confucianism...?
The others around me all look deadly serious, praying for questions on their own strong points... but honestly, I don't care what comes up.
Now that I've made it this far, passing the exam is practically guaranteed, so I have nothing more to hope for.
The board shows the topic in large, easy-to-read letters. But isn't this a topic similar to what came up when I talked with that plump young scholar yesterday?
[The rotten Goryeo has collapsed and Joseon has been founded, so the people enjoy a time of peace and sing Gyeokyangga. Scholars of the realm discuss how the country should be governed in accordance with the ways of Confucius and Mencius, and argue that Joseon stands firm because the king possesses virtue. State your opinion on this.]
Even though Neo-Confucianism, the ideology of Joseon, keeps stressing that one must be a 'loyal remonstrating subject,' still...
A king is still just a person, a human being.
So if some greenhorn who's only just about to take office, not even a seasoned minister, drops a fact-based bomb like that... the king's stomach is going to turn.
They don't say good medicine tastes bitter and honest advice grates on the ears for nothing.
But if I flatter too much, I'll be marked down as a sycophant, so the best answer to this question is probably something like this.
Something like 95 percent praise for the king's virtues and the quality of his rule, and 5 percent on how Joseon could improve, based on my own thoughts.
Yeah, if I wanted to place first in this palace exam and get ground down like Hwang Hui, becoming a yellow ox, that would be the way to do it.
'But I have no intention of doing that.'
Discuss Joseon's shortcomings from beginning to end, then add solutions for improvement.
If I do that and end up receiving a junior 9th-rank post, I'll have earned the right to work for a few years and then leave politics behind. No, if I play this right, I might even qualify to leave immediately.
[People say Joseon is enjoying a time of peace and prosperity, but Your Majesty must never be satisfied with that. Even the Sage Confucius reached the age of seventy before attaining the state in which every one of his actions conformed to the proper rites and principles; how much more difficult must it be to govern a nation?]
Doing well on my own and getting a good score is relatively easy. But raising the average for the whole class is extremely hard.
Because I have to drag along thirty other guys besides me.
How much harder would that be in a country like this, where more than ten million people live in the early Joseon era of King Sejong? A golden age where everyone is satisfied? Not a chance.
[Your Majesty's compassion for the people has reduced the excessive taxes of Goryeo, so it is certainly true that the poor now live better than before. But the reality is that the majority of common households don't even have one magi of farmland, and yet you bundle three such households together and tax them the same as those who possess five gyeol of land. How can that be right? For those small households, it must feel like having the liver eaten out by fleas.]
Joseon's tax system is grossly inefficient even by comparison with other countries. It's a blessing they collected so little tax; if they had levied huge taxes like neighboring Japan while also having such an inefficient structure...
Joseon would have collapsed within a hundred years, not five hundred.
What makes this so funny it hurts is that the kings and officials of Joseon, thinking they were doing right by the people, came up with a 'tax system that's sloppy beyond belief' as their answer. How could I just sit back knowing that?
Of course I should submit a blunt remonstrance and tell them to fix it.
Of course, even though this answer sheet is for a palace exam personally overseen by the king, there's still a very high chance they'll brush it off as 'an arrogant kid acting uppity.'... But speaking your mind anyway is the spirit of a Joseon scholar, and also the duty of a reader who has devoured far too many alternate-history novels.
[In addition, Your Majesty has allowed peasants who only grow rice and barley to pay their tribute goods through temples, fearing it would be difficult for them to deliver local specialties themselves... but the wicked temple monks are abusing this to cause all sorts of trouble for the people and the villages.]
In technical terms, this is called bangnap. Bangnap is when it's hard to pay the tax directly, so you hire a middleman to handle it... The problem is that these insane monk bastards were charging fees of 300 percent, 500 percent, and pocketing them.
According to the great statesman Ryu Seong-ryong of King Seonjo's era, which came after Sejong's reign, if you didn't use bangnap, one doe of rice would be enough, but if you paid through bangnap, you'd have to hand over eighteen doe of rice—seventeen of which were fees.
That's exaggerated in some respects, but it's not all that wrong either.
In the early Joseon period, it was the temples that pulled this stunt. Even King Sejong wasn't an all-powerful superhuman, so he wouldn't have known about details like this.
What was supposed to help the people ended up killing them instead.
It's the same as giving your grandchild peaches out of affection, not knowing they're allergic to peaches, and ending up killing them.
[As the old saying goes, harsh governance is more feared than a tiger. The flawed tax system of Joseon is now a calamity more terrifying to the people than a tiger. So please, Your Majesty, see clearly, show grace to the people, and abolish this corrupt tax policy.]
If we just abolish this fucking bangnap system, the people's income will shoot up. Right now, let's say they earn 200 a month and get shaken down for 1 million won in taxes every month.
Even if you just normalize the bangnap system, the tax burden drops to 600,000 won. Then the money I can spend would rise from the previous 1 million won to 1.4 million won.
[For that, the periodic markets (jangsi) banned by law must be allowed to flourish, and the local magistrate should supervise them and collect the taxes. Otherwise, institute a system where the people are taxed only in rice, and then use that rice to buy the tribute goods. Then the people will sing Taepyeongga and praise Your Majesty's grace.]
The standard for a good king versus a bad king is surprisingly simple. Did he increase the income that reached the people's pockets, or did he cut it down?
If he lets me live well, he's a good king; if he makes my life miserable, he's a bad king.
Now that I'm done, let's get out of here.
I neatly folded my answer sheet and handed it to the examiner. Since this was the palace exam, the examiner was wearing a red court robe. That means a robe worn by officials of senior third rank or higher. He must be an extremely high-ranking man.
And on top of that, he seemed to have a completely hunched back...
Is this the famous principle fanatic Heo Jo?
"...... The other students are busy writing their answers, but you are quite insolent. Is it because you're young these days? Your thinking seems awfully shallow."
"My apologies."
"Is saying you're sorry supposed to make it all go away? In my day, we couldn't even imagine writing up an answer so quickly and handing it in like you did. Honestly, kids these days..."
A principle fanatic, in other words the ultimate old fogey.
He's number one on the list of people I absolutely do not want as a superior.
I've heard this guy refused all sorts of things by invoking 'principle' every time. I can't imagine how much the officials under him suffered. I want to avoid that man at all costs too.
"My lord, please be generous and overlook this young man's rudeness."
"Fine, we'll leave it at that. In any case, whether you become a junior 9th-rank official in this exam or a junior 6th-rank official starting as a regular court official... that's all just your fate."
Even junior 9th rank is the same as passing the civil service exam, and junior 6th rank is equivalent to a bureau chief-level official—if you compare it to a company, that's director level or above.
That's why the gap by ranking is so huge that everyone writes with grim faces, as if their lives depended on it.
Of course, for me, who has no intention of staying in office for long, it doesn't really matter either way.
**
The palace exam usually produces results within a day.
The ranking list was announced the next morning.
Like everyone else, I started looking for my name from the bottom...
"...... Why can't I find my name?"
I'd written a whole mess of remonstrance that was way too inappropriate for a greenhorn to hand in, so I thought I'd be sitting at the very bottom of the Byeonggwa group (ranks 11–33). Then does that mean I'm in the Eulgwa group (ranks 4–10)?
I wasn't on the list of Eulgwa passers either. Next up was Gapgwa (ranks 1–3).
And when I looked at the Gapgwa list—more precisely, the spot for the top scorer—my name was staring right back at me.
"...... Shit."
The curse slipped out on its own.
No, me, the top scorer? Even Eulgwa would have been high enough for me to run away saying office wasn't a good fit. Why the hell did I have to place first?
In Joseon, anyone who topped the exam would usually end up as a dangsanggwan—basically Sejong's personal slave. No, what kind of disaster is this?
Be that as it may, the people around me were in the middle of a storm of joy and sorrow.
"I can't believe I'm the runner-up! Mother! Your son did it!"
"...... It's great that I passed, but why Eulgwa... If I'd ranked just one place higher, I would have been senior 7th rank."
"Now the world is mine! Bwahahahaha!"
Shut up, please... please, just shut your mouths.
Because I'm the one who feels like screaming and bawling my eyes out until tears and snot are streaming down my face.
Not long after, officials came pouring out from Gwanghwamun and took us with them.
It was to go through the ceremony of granting offices to the exam passers.
As the top scorer, I was granted the honor of receiving the royal eoshahwa directly from the king.
Huh, but why does the king's face look so familiar? Ah, that scholar I saw yesterday...
"...... Jukheon, no, Kim Daebung. Your remonstrance deeply moved even my royal father. I do hope you will use that wisdom to serve me for the rest of your life."
"...... Shit, I'm Sejong's slave for life..."
"I appoint Kim Daebung, who placed first in the exam, as county magistrate of Jinhae, junior 6th rank."
He's even being sent out as a local magistrate—does that even make sense?