Chapter 200
The Japanese and Ming bastards have not a shred of honor.
Rather than trust those bastards, I would be better off betting my entire fortune that my little sister’s diet will succeed after she made the New Year’s pledge, ‘I’ll get an S-line figure and wear a bikini this year.’...
No, both of them would stab me in the back sooner or later, so it would be best not to trust either of them.
Yet Joseon keeps faith even with Tsushima, practically one of the Wokou’s Seven Warlords.
Heo Jo and I, Joseon officials in whom benevolence, righteousness, and trust live and breathe, submitted a plan to Sejong to save Tsushima and received permission for the Tsushima lord and his people to survive.
“Long time no see, Lord of Tsushima.”
The Tsushima lord looked at me as though he were gazing upon a demon that had returned alive from hell.
Good grief, all I have done for Tsushima until now is...
I have not done a single bad thing to it.
I have no idea why he looks at me with such an unpleasant gaze.
These days, rumors have been spreading among Joseon officials that I am an ‘axe-wielding goblin,’ or that I am such a work-loving masochist that...
there are even bizarre rumors that I wander around singing a song called, ‘I like it, I like it, I like working myself to death.’
People say that no matter how much the world curses a ruler behind his back, this is going too far and amounts to malicious slander.
And Sejong and Yi Bang-won have also been subtly saying things like, ‘Daebung, I have a wonderful proposal for you. Become a senior court official.’
Even though I am only a fourth-rank official, I am already being slandered this much. If I suddenly became a senior court official, just how many bizarre rumors would people invent?
I can hear this level of slander and let it slide, but if it gets any worse, Gyeoul will worry, so... I can take my promotions slowly.
“Goodness, what brings our busy Kim Eung-gyo all the way to this distant Tsushima?”
“Lord of Tsushima, I will speak frankly. Tsushima’s fate has become extremely precarious, like a lamp flickering in the wind.”
The Tsushima lord’s expression instantly hardened when he heard my words.
I understood his feelings perfectly well.
If some madman suddenly came to me and said, ‘Joseon is on the verge of collapse,’ I would react the exact same way.
“Ming has assembled a Western Ocean expeditionary force, and they say it intends to subjugate Tsushima and Iki.”
“By a Western Ocean expeditionary force, do you mean the one that carried tens of thousands of sailors and traveled beyond Tianzhu (India) all the way to Yizhou (Africa) and back?”
“You know it very well.”
“Some of our Tsushima sailors have even been to Tianzhu. As for Luzon (the Philippines), we go there so often that it is like taking a stroll.”
Most of the pepper currently circulating in Joseon came in through Japan.
It comes from Wokou from Tsushima and various other regions, who travel to India or Southeast Asia and bring it back after threatening people at swordpoint—or, rather, conducting perfectly reasonable negotiations.
“Some of the people who have been to Tianzhu even saw that expeditionary force with their own eyes. They said they were utterly astonished when they saw ships as massive as Mount Tai and a grand fleet so enormous that it was difficult even to count it. But that expeditionary force is coming to attack our Tsushima...”
The Tsushima lord let out a deep sigh as he looked at me.
“Our Tsushima will simply be sent out to die, like an ant crushed beneath a person’s foot. Well, if I flee from place to place, I might be able to save my own life. But more than half of Tsushima’s people will die or be taken as slaves.”
The Tsushima expeditionary army raised by Joseon was far smaller than Zheng He’s expeditionary force, and it had no experience conducting overseas expeditions.
Because it made mistake after mistake along the way, the conquest of Tsushima led by Sejong did not achieve particularly good results; there are even people who claim that it failed.
However, Zheng He’s fleet was not only the strongest fleet in the world at the time, but had also actually experienced numerous wars.
Tsushima, which was poorly armed and had a small population, would never be able to handle it.
Unless the Tsushima lord were a legendary commander on the level of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, he would lose all one thousand battles if he fought one thousand times.
“Then, in the end, we have no choice but to rely on the Shōni clan we serve. Our Sō clan is the Shōni clan’s karō (a senior vassal—or, in company terms, the president of an affiliated company)... They won’t abandon us, after all.”
Before the Edo shogunate was established, Japan operated like a yakuza organization.
There was a big boss called the shogun, and the executives beneath him were the bosses of subordinate organizations...
Whenever subordinate organizations fought over their interests, wars broke out as a result.
The Japanese were faithless by nature, but if they abandoned even their subordinates in a situation like this, the great-daimyo Shōni clan would split into factions and become embroiled in internal conflict...
The Shōni clan would never be able to abandon the Tsushima lord and the people of Tsushima.
However, the Japanese were notorious for refusing to keep their word.
Even if the great-daimyo Shōni clan embraced the people of Tsushima instead of abandoning them in their time of crisis, would they really treat people who had lost their entire base and come crawling to them properly?
“The Shōni and Ōuchi clans have been continually warring with each other. Two years ago, they even lost Hakata Castle in Chikuzen to the Ōuchi clan.”
“...... How in the world do you know that, Kim Eung-gyo?”
“If I want to know something, I have ways of finding out. Merchants who come to Jeongui-hyeon in Tamna bring me all kinds of information. Ah, of course, His Majesty knows all about this as well.”
All the knowledge I possessed was dressed up as a lie, claiming that it had been acquired in Jeongui-hyeon, and reported to Sejong through the Ministry of Rites.
“The Shōni clan will soon join hands with the Ōtomo clan to retake Hakata.”
Since it was roughly the year 1430, in about a year, the Ōtomo-Shōni allied forces would succeed in beheading Ōuchi Morimi, the head of the Ōuchi clan.
However, at this point in time, the prevailing opinion was that the Shōni clan was more likely to lose, so I needed to exploit the Tsushima lord’s anxiety.
“And the Shōni clan will put Your Excellency and the people of Tsushima, who have lost their territory, at the vanguard of the most dangerous battlefield. You will be assigned to the position where the most blood is shed, and will have almost no opportunity to earn merit.”
“...... That certainly could happen.”
“So abandoning Tsushima and relying on the Shōni clan is not a particularly good choice.”
“You make it sound as though there is another option. What exactly is this other option you know of?”
“Please cross over to Ulleungdo for a while. His Majesty has granted permission for Your Excellency and the people of Tsushima, who are Joseon subjects, to live there.”
For Joseon to eventually cross the Pacific and reach America, it would need to advance not only to Ulleungdo and Dokdo, but all the way to Hokkaido.
However, because of Yi Bang-won’s empty-island policy, not a single person lived on Ulleungdo, and although it had a considerable amount of land suitable for cultivation, it had neither paddies nor fields...
What if we protected the people of Tsushima and let them live there for a set period, in exchange for having them clear new farmland?
Ulleungdo would become an island where people could live.
“You may have a point that the Shōni clan will accept us and later use us as expendable pawns. But there is no guarantee that Joseon would not do the same...”
“If Ming learns that Joseon is involved in the Tsushima lord and the people of Tsushima raiding the Ming coast, Joseon will suffer a tremendous blow.”
There was a reason I went out of my way to tell him the weakness Joseon had in their hands, even though he had not asked.
Even if the Tsushima lord claimed that Joseon had ordered them to commit all those acts of piracy, Ming would never forgive them.
Rather, to make them pay for their piracy at Joseon’s behest, Ming would start by killing the informant and then slaughter everyone else...
After that, it would do everything in its power to turn Tsushima into a land where no one could live.
Therefore, the people of Tsushima could never betray me to Ming by telling them what I had said.
Besides, if they obeyed Joseon, they could obtain rice and silk, and earn a tidy income by selling steel... Why would they betray Joseon?
"Therefore, Joseon must protect Tsushima. And Joseon is not currently at war. We have neither the need nor the intention to send Your Excellency and the Tsushima samurai to the battlefield."
"That is true enough."
"And there is one more thing: we will hand Tsushima over to the people of Iki Island for the time being."
From this point on, I deliberately lowered my voice and even put on an evil smile.
"The fleet sent by Ming will wipe out every last one of the Wokou on Iki. Then it will wipe out the Iki Wokou who have come to Tsushima as well."
"I suppose it will."
"Then, after waiting a little while for the vacancy left by the Iki people to appear, how about Your Excellency gobbling it up? Even if you pledge loyalty and devote yourself to the Shōni clan, you will receive no reward whatsoever. At best, they will give you land worth only 2,000 or 3,000 koku somewhere in a remote corner of Kyushu. On the other hand, if you take Iki Island..."
"We could expand our territory without even fighting a war, so that would be ideal for us. Very well, we’ll do that."
The negotiations with the Tsushima lord ended without incident.
All that remained was for the fleet carrying Joseon soldiers to monitor them to arrive, at which point we would join forces, turn Tsushima into a wasteland, and flee.
The people who come afterward will take care of the rest.