Chapter 214
The Hall of Worthies is both an academic research institution and a policy research institution.
On top of that, it is also responsible for political discussions under the pretext of studying academic subjects.
Especially since the king currently seated on the throne is none other than His Majesty King Sejong...
“Ah, I hear His Majesty intends to hold court lectures twice a week. At this rate, I’m going to be crushed to death beneath a mountain of work.”
The officials around me looked at me with eyes full of concern.
The scholars of the Hall of Worthies seemed to pity me, having been abruptly promoted to senior court official at far too young an age and thrown into the hell of court lectures.
“Say, Clerk Kim (Kim Jong-seo), how is your preparation for the court lecture coming along?”
Kim Jong-seo, whose seat was close to mine, had just finished his policy research and was reading the classics to prepare for the court lecture. He let out a sigh.
“I have prepared to some extent, but... I intend to prepare for today’s court lecture about ten times more thoroughly and meticulously than usual.”
“You don’t need to go that far.”
Anyone who had passed the civil service examination had completely memorized the Four Books and Three Classics, along with various other classics.
Even if someone grabbed me right now and told me to recite the Analects, I could probably recite it perfectly without getting a single character wrong.
Since I had done nothing but devote myself to memorizing the classics from birth until I passed the civil service examination, I would never forget their contents or wording until the day I died.
Therefore, preparing for a court lecture did not mean studying the classics anew. It was more like preparing for an essay exam: reviewing one’s memorization of the original text and organizing one’s thoughts and practical plans based on it.
So even though my opponent in the court lecture was the king, there was no need to prepare as thoroughly as Kim Jong-seo had described, as if he were studying for a civil service examination.
“I hear His Majesty was so excited about the court lecture hosted by Lord Deputy Director that he couldn’t sleep the night before. So shouldn’t we, as scholars of the Hall of Worthies, do our very best to live up to those expectations?”
It wasn’t as though he were a child so excited about going on a picnic that he couldn’t sleep the night before. Why on earth had the king of Joseon supposedly been unable to sleep because he was so excited about a court lecture?
He was the sort of person I had only heard about through rumors during my school days—the kind who would chant, ‘I love studying so much. Games are no fun,’ and genuinely enjoy spending every waking moment studying...
And this person had even created an entire writing system by himself because he wanted to use the knowledge he had acquired to benefit the people.
If this wasn’t a supernatural monstrosity, then what was it?
Of course, it was truly fortunate for Joseon and its people that such an excellent king sat upon the throne...
But for officials like me, being worked to death under him, work kept flooding in without even a moment to breathe...
That was how we ministers below him could never escape overwork...
“Nothing particularly remarkable will change just because I’m hosting the court lecture. I don’t understand why His Majesty is so excited about it.”
Kim Jong-seo looked at me with an extremely suspicious expression.
When I glanced at Hwangbo In beside him, he, too, was looking at me with eyes full of suspicion.
“Then what topic do you intend to discuss at the court lecture?”
“It’s nothing special. Just...”
I explained in detail to Hwangbo In and Kim Jong-seo what I intended to bring up at today’s court lecture.
The faces of the two men listening to me turned deathly pale.
Then Hwangbo In said to me,
“Lord Deputy Director, surely you haven’t made a plan to work yourself to death together with every official of the Six Ministries because the Chief State Councillor and Right State Councillor, who helped promote you to Deputy Director, are away on leave and cannot be here... Are you saying we should all die together?”
Anyone hearing that would think I was planning a mass suicide.
Even though my intention was not some terrible plan to die together.
I merely had the wholesome intention of doing something together that would help the nation’s development.
When we looked back on it later, it would all become beautiful memories, and it would be a perfect opportunity to leave behind beautiful names in the annals of the government.
“It is a shame that we cannot do this together with the Chief State Councillor and Right State Councillor.”
Even if Joseon was a country that placed great importance on filial piety, where people generally treated their parents with extraordinary devotion without anyone forcing them to do so...
People did not spend several dozen days tending the graves of their deceased parents.
Those two men were clearly using only a single day to visit their parents’ graves and spending the remaining days having a wonderful time, just like office workers who took annual leave and went off on exciting trips.
Those damn Hwang Hui and Jo Mal-saeng...
They had made me a senior court official and, fearing that I might lose my temper and unleash a work bomb whose fallout would hit them as well,
they had immediately taken long-term leave and fled to their hometowns? Were they even human?
“And relax your expression a little. If anyone saw you, they’d think I was a ghost who went around swinging an axe and beating ministers to death with overwork. I’m not some bad person who pointlessly increases people’s workload. Have you ever seen me make you work overtime?”
“......”
“This is all for the sake of the royal ancestral shrines, the state, and the people of Joseon.”
Time passed until it was time to leave work, but we could not leave the office. Instead, we had to make our way to the court lecture hall.
**
People naturally hate studying.
This is an instinct people are born with.
In that sense, anyone who says studying is incredibly fun and enjoyable is not normal.
The greatest proof is that there is not a single normal person among professors, a profession that only people who love studying immensely can enter.
From that perspective, His Majesty King Sejong, too, is not normal—in a good way.
“Heh heh, studying is one of the greatest joys in my life. When I apply what I have learned and practiced for the benefit of the people, their livelihoods improve... How could anything be happier than that?”
I hate studying.
I may be an elite who passed the higher civil service examination in Korea and then, after being reincarnated in Joseon, placed first in the civil service examination at the age of eighteen, but even so, I find studying boring.
To me, fondling Winter’s breasts even once more would be happiness, rather than spending that time opening a book and studying.
Every official here would agree with me.
Studying isn’t fun. Playing is the best.
“And I hear that today’s court lecture is hosted by our Deputy Director Kim, who thinks day and night of nothing but the royal ancestral shrines, the state, and the people of Joseon... I was so delighted that I couldn’t sleep last night.”
His Majesty King Sejong’s passion for studying had gone beyond anything I could understand and was, frankly, frightening.
It was truly fortunate that he was the king.
If he had lived in the twenty-first century, His Majesty King Sejong would certainly have become a professor. After becoming one, he would have kidnapped countless students into graduate school, faithfully paid them their salaries, and filled every waking moment with studying.
It was horrifying beyond words.
Even if I ate marinated crab and dried persimmons every day after the Gapjin Year, it would still be less horrifying than this.
“Today’s court lecture topic is the Xue Er chapter of the Analects. Confucius said, ‘The young should be filial to their parents at home and respectful toward their elders outside; they should be cautious in speech and conduct, keep faith, love people broadly, and draw close to the humane. After acting in this way, if they have any strength left, they should use it to study.’ I, too, believe that one must first fulfill one’s duties as a human being and devote one’s remaining time to learning. That is the proper duty of a human being.”
A court lecture begins with the king or a minister first discussing the contents of the classic to be studied that day, after which the person who introduced it presents his own thoughts.
“No matter how much a person learns, it is meaningless if he does not put that learning into practice. If someone who has learned that he must be filial to his parents does not attend to their meals and health, or look after their emotional well-being, what meaning does that learning have? Therefore, the words of the sages are truly correct: a gentleman should first fulfill his duties as a human being and devote himself to studying in his remaining time.”
There are an awful lot of pieces of trash in this world who put what they have learned to strange uses.
Even Ryu Jeong-hyeon, who left his name deeply inscribed in history as the very embodiment of the Goryeo ghost, would have become Joseon’s greatest loyal subject and still be alive, working in the royal court, if he had simply acted as he had been taught.
But that bastard never put a single thing he had learned into practice and struggled only to fatten his own belly. That was why he was a Goryeo ghost.
“Even the Sage (Confucius) set his mind on learning while studying the rites and proprieties of Zhou. How much more so should ordinary people? Even Confucius could not understand everything entirely by himself. How could young and ordinary people discover on their own the duties necessary to live as human beings?”
Sejong looked at me with a meaningful smile.
As I watched that smile, I realized that Sejong intended to turn me into another Hwang Hui.
The moment I understood his intention, a chill ran down my spine.
However, this was both a crisis and an opportunity.
That’s right.
If I endured the overwork and worked hard now, thereby sharing this suffering with others...
then someday I would be able to repay the grudge I held against Hwang Hui and Jo Mal-saeng, who had stabbed me in the back, forced me into a promotion, and then gone off on long-term leave.
‘I won’t die alone.’
“Thus, every day I think about how I want to give more people more opportunities to learn. I tried to find the best way to do so, but finding a clear answer was not easy. Anyone who has thoughts on this matter, speak freely.”
Yes, I had sensed what was coming from the moment Sejong appointed me Deputy Director and designated the Xue Er chapter of the Analects as the topic for the court lecture.
It was a topic about expanding the reach of education’s benefits.
“The problem is that books are too expensive.”