Chapter 229
This was the purpose for which King Sejong the Great created Hangul.
Because the common people were too poor to receive an education, they could not read or write Chinese characters.
They often found themselves unable to convey what they wanted to say and faced many difficulties in life because they could not read Chinese characters.
That was why he created a script that was easy to learn and easy to write, in order to resolve these difficulties faced by the people.
It would be remarkable enough for a fifteenth-century monarch to have thought this way, but creating a new, original, and even scientific writing system entirely on his own while his eyesight was failing was a sacred, groundbreaking, and beautiful achievement beyond words.
And so, later generations have thanked Sejong for his noble achievement and taken pride in it, never ceasing to study it while continuing to use it every day.
Thanks to this, even if they do not remember his achievements in conquering territories such as the Four Counties and Six Garrisons, everyone knows that King Sejong the Great was the creator of Hangul.
When one considers that the people who actually lived in that era gave him the posthumous temple name 'Sejong' in the sense of a great conquering monarch, it seems that something became tangled as time passed.
Personally, I think 'Munjong' would suit him better than 'Sejong.'
After entertaining such idle thoughts for a moment, I continued speaking.
"Confucius accepted anyone who came to him with only a bundle of dried meat as a disciple. Why do you think he did that?"
"Perhaps he accepted anyone who possessed the desire to learn as a disciple so that he could teach them the morality and learning necessary to live as human beings."
By the standards of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, a bundle of dried meat was the lowest-ranking gift among all possible offerings.
In modern terms, you could compare it to the cheapest cooking-oil gift set among the holiday gift sets sold today.
They say he accepted this from students who came to learn because he considered the ritual of bringing something tangible important, as a way of observing the minimum level of courtesy.
In fact, among Confucius's disciples there was someone who struggled to make ends meet, and there was even a thug who swaggered around causing trouble until Confucius beat him and brought him to heel by force...
Confucius himself seems to have believed that everyone should be given equal opportunities for education.
"Yet until now, in Joseon, unless someone was born into a wealthy family, they could not even learn how to read the Thousand Character Classic. Until now, one could say this was unavoidable because the country's budget was insufficient and the number of books was far too small. But is the situation not different now?"
Heo Jo suddenly gripped both my hands tightly in his excitement and spoke.
"Exactly! If we print more books like the Thousand Character Classic and the Elementary Learning, it would not be impossible to establish schools in every village throughout the country."
"We can select young scions of yangban families between the ages of fifteen and eighteen and employ them as instructors at those schools."
"They will teach children the conduct they must observe as human beings during the day and prepare them for the civil service examinations at night, like people who work by day and study by night... Very good. Very good indeed."
Compulsory education could be called an idea far too radical for a premodern state in the fifteenth century to accept.
So although it might seem absurd for the Confucian old fogey Heo Jo to support the 'radical spread of compulsory education'...
the essence of Confucianism is ultimately this.
'Study hard so you can become a proper human being! If you want to become a human being, then study!'
'Pass on what you have learned, and put what you have learned into practice!'
To Heo Jo, who was utterly faithful to the essence of Confucianism, widely spreading compulsory education would seem like precisely the kind of task a seonbi had to accomplish even at the cost of his life.
"Set aside the matter of expanding the printing of the Four Books and Three Classics by leaving it to the merchants for the time being. For now, why not focus on printing books such as the Thousand Character Classic and the Elementary Learning, then prepare a system for widely establishing schools throughout the country?"
"Of course, that is what we should do. Naturally. But... surely you are not planning to carry out this wonderful undertaking all by yourself?"
"I am already far too busy with the work currently assigned to me..."
Joseon's scholar-officials lived and died by honor.
For such scholar-officials, compulsory education that taught everyone the knowledge necessary to live as a human being was practically sacred ground.
Having one's name associated with promoting this compulsory education would be the greatest honor that could be passed down through one's family for generations.
"Ah! Then I suppose I have no choice! I will draft a proposal myself and submit a memorial as soon as possible. Our Vice Academician Kim is such a busy man, after all. I cannot help it. I feel sorry that this old man seems to be stealing the credit for your achievement, young man..."
"No, Your Excellency."
I had absolutely no attachment to having my name left in history.
What use would such a record be to me?
Was I supposed to die in a war fought over the cup Jesus used to grant wishes, or live on as a god who would vanish if people stopped believing in me?
Neither of those things applied to me.
I only needed to live in Joseon as a father who was not ashamed in the eyes of Gyeouri and our Jangsaeng.
"I will certainly repay you."
Having said that, Heo Jo hurried out of the Jiphyeonjeon at a brisk pace without looking back.
He must really like compulsory education.
Then, as the time to leave work drew near, a eunuch from the main palace came to see me.
"His Majesty wishes to see Vice Academician Kim in Sajeongjeon Hall."
"At what time should I go?"
"Please come during the haesi hour (9:00–11:00 p.m.)."
**
Thanks to King Sejong the Great, I had to work late for the first time in a long while.
I informed Gyeouri that I would be working late through one of the household servants.
Gyeouri must have been terribly disappointed.
This is why working late is bad.
The biggest problem whenever I had to work late was that Gyeouri became lonely.
On top of that, working late caused a worker's overall efficiency to drop.
That was why, if only to eliminate overtime from the court, I had advised Yi Bang-won to make King Sejong exercise regularly.
"Me, working late? Me, working late..."
Yet whether it was the army or a workplace, when your superiors told you to do something, you did it, and in Joseon, when the king told a subject to do something, he had to do it.
Therefore, I dragged my heavy feet to Sajeongjeon Hall in Gyeongbokgung Palace at the appointed time
as I had been instructed.
"Your Majesty, has your health improved at all?"
After offering my greetings and looking at Sejong, I saw that his face was filled with profound exhaustion.
Had he damaged his health by devoting himself too completely to his research?
Even in actual history, he had suffered vision loss from diabetes while creating Hunminjeongeum and had become completely blind by the time it was promulgated...
It seemed possible that he had damaged his health by focusing so completely on creating a new script for the sake of the people.
"I feel terribly exhausted."
"Your Majesty..."
Sejong grinned as he looked at me.
"His Highness the Grand King says that making my body healthy is the greatest filial duty a son can perform for his parent, and has made me do all kinds of strenuous exercises... Around this time every day, I begin to feel the burden on my body. Even today, I ran no less than 25 ri (10 km)."
"I see you did."
"When I first started running, my heart pounded as if I were about to die after only 2 ri, and I even felt like vomiting. But now my body has grown so strong that even after running 25 ri, I am not particularly exhausted. The symptoms of sokal (diabetes) that I had suffered from before have also disappeared completely."
"It is a great blessing for the royal ancestral shrine and the state that Your Majesty's health has improved so much."
"Thank you for saying so, but..."
Sejong scrutinized my body very carefully.
His gaze was like that of a muscular man holding a protein shake in his right hand at a gym as he looked at a beginner who had come to the gym for the first time that day.
How much exercise had Yi Bang-won forced Sejong to do for His Majesty to develop this level of 'gym prowess'?
"I could not see it well when you were with the other ministers, but now that I am looking at you from this close, your body is extremely thin. A true man ought to have at least some muscle on his body."
"I have been this way since birth, Your Majesty."
"Yes, I understand. That is not important now, so we can discuss it later."
No, what on earth had he called me here to discuss?
Surely he was not about to say something like this.
'Kim Daebung, your body is terribly frail, so I suppose you will have to strengthen it through exercise.'
'Keeping your body healthy is part of filial piety...'
Ugh, exercise.
Just thinking about it sent a shiver down my spine.
"So, have you been able to guess why I had to feign illness?"
"I am not sure, Your Majesty."
Though I said this, if the task was important enough to make Yi Bang-won, who had worked until just before his death to establish Sejong's royal authority on solid ground, take the throne again, there could only be one answer.
The creation of Hunminjeongeum!
Laying the foundation for a country in which all its people could learn.
However, if I said that I knew this, I would be treated as a walking dokkaebi, a purveyor of occult nonsense, so I pretended not to know.
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there was even a fool who read Cao Cao's intentions in advance and began preparing to retreat, only to lose his head.
That probably would not happen to me, but Sejong might still become wary of me, so I had to be careful.
"I will tell you. Come closer."
Only when I had come right up to Sejong's feet did he hand me a sheet of paper himself.
Written on the sheet were the things I had wanted so desperately to see.
It was Hunminjeongeum, beginning with ㄱ,ㅋ,ㄲ...
"Your Majesty, what is this?"
Sejong smiled gently as he looked at me.
"It is Hunminjeongeum, a script created to save from ignorance the common people who cannot attain enlightenment because the wall of learning is too high."