Chapter 233
Hwang Hui had felt deeply uneasy ever since he heard that Kim Daebung had taken ‘sick leave.’
Through his long experience as an official, he could tell that the sick leave Kim Daebung had taken was fake.
It was not, of course, that he disliked Kim Daebung using fake sick leave to tour the mountains and rivers, or resting in luxury by drenching his vegetables in sesame oil—an obscenely expensive oil in those days—under the pretext of enjoying a life of contentment in poverty.
After all, it was customary for senior officials—or rather, all Joseon officials—to have almost any leave application approved for whatever reason once they had completed the prescribed number of workdays each year...
Hwang Hui had no complaints whatsoever about Kim Daebung using illness as an excuse to take time off, just as he himself had done.
In fact, since Kim Daebung was possessed by the ghost of someone who would die if he could not work, the intensity of the court’s workload would decrease for the time being, so Hwang Hui ought to have been happy about it.
“If he went to the trouble of taking sick leave, he should spend a good half-month resting beside his wife, who would be delighted to have him home. Why is he working?”
Jo Mal-saeng answered Hwang Hui with a sigh.
“How could an ordinary person like me possibly understand Daebung’s thoughts?”
“A man who rose all the way to the position of Right State Councilor calling himself ordinary? Wouldn’t anyone who heard that click their tongue and call it absurd?”
“That is inevitable when the person he is being compared with is Vice Academician Kim. When His Majesty first ascended the throne, he led an army of more than ten thousand to conquer Tsushima, yet the lord of Tsushima did not bow flat before Joseon and instead tried only to exploit us...”
Jo Mal-saeng recalled how the lord of Tsushima’s attitude had changed completely after Kim Daebung visited the island.
The lord of Tsushima had suddenly transformed, crawling before Joseon and begging them to spare his life while promising to do anything they ordered.
The second time Kim Daebung visited Tsushima, they even presented Joseon with a silver mine, one of their territories and one of their greatest sources of income.
Kim Daebung had said that he had merely offered ‘a little persuasion,’ based on information he had obtained from Japanese traders dealing with Joseon merchants in Jeongui-hyeon...
Yet he had claimed that anyone else could easily turn the lord of Tsushima into a docile lamb.
‘Even after reading all the information that came up from Jeongui-hyeon, I couldn’t find anything I could do.’
“Now that I think about it, the Right State Councilor is right. Isn’t that why His Majesty the Grand King Emeritus wants old men like us to resign quickly and see Kim Daebung rise to the ranks of the chief state councilors?”
Yi Bang-won had secretly instructed Hwang Hui and Jo Mal-saeng that he would grant them special permission to resign once they made Kim Daebung Chief State Councilor.
But Yi Bang-won’s true intention was simply to make Kim Daebung Chief State Councilor.
That was why he had said those things, while they had arbitrarily decided that they were useless old men as a way of rationalizing themselves and creating a justification for their resignations.
Yi Bang-won had not even told Sejong about this secret agreement.
Thus, it was nothing more than a worthless promise that would become a mere bubble if Yi Bang-won happened to die first.
Even if he remained alive, he would be over eighty by then, so all he would have to do was claim that dementia had robbed him of his memory.
However, Jo Mal-saeng and Hwang Hui were so filled with longing for retirement that they slightly twisted the Grand King Emeritus’s secret instructions and interpreted them in a way that favored themselves.
They did so because they desperately wanted their final dream to come true.
“According to what I heard from the Chief Eunuch, Vice Academician Kim submitted a memorial several books long on his way into the palace.”
“Are memorials not usually written on scrolls? Why would he go out of his way to submit it as a book? Vice Academician Kim is hardly ignorant of etiquette and tradition.”
“I do not know the reason myself. I cannot guess it at all.”
“Was he blaming the Right State Councilor? No, he simply found it absurd...”
As Hwang Hui and Jo Mal-saeng recalled the several-book-long memorial Kim Daebung had submitted, the hair on their bodies stood on end and chills ran down their spines.
The fact that Kim Daebung—the walking embodiment of love for the people and the living incarnation of overwork—had submitted a long memorial to the king, one so lengthy that it violated etiquette and tradition, meant...
Dying before they finished all the work assigned to them as officials, or dying after completing all the work they were handling.
It meant they would be forced to choose one of the two.
“According to the scholars of the Jiphyeonjeon who saw Vice Academician Kim report for work today after finishing his long sick leave, his face is somewhat thinner than before, but for some reason, the smile has not left it.”
Hwang Hui felt tremendous fear when he heard that.
And, like the saying that even a tiger appears when you mention one, Kim Daebung appeared at the State Council with an expression overflowing with happiness.
Just as they had heard, a smile of pure joy had bloomed across Kim Daebung’s face.
That made it even more frightening.
“Vice Academician, did you rest well?”
“Yes, Chief State Councilor. I failed to take proper care of my health, so I had to rest for several days. I am truly sorry that I caused you trouble against my intentions.”
“No, no. It is only natural for a sick person to rest. Did His Majesty not always say that maintaining one’s health was the foundation of filial piety? If I had known you were in such poor health, I would have stepped in first and forced you to rest.”
“Then perhaps I should have rested a little longer.”
Hwang Hui noticed that Kim Daebung’s manner of speaking was different from usual.
In ordinary circumstances, he was not the sort of person who would respond to a situation like this with a joke, so why was he suddenly making jokes when he never did so before?
“Perhaps it is because you have rested, but your expression is so bright that it is good to see. It is wonderful to have so much enthusiasm, but do not overexert yourself.”
Hwang Hui prayed inwardly.
He prayed that the madman who felt thorns sprouting in his mouth if he failed to be loyal to the king and love the country for the sake of the ancestral shrines, and who threw himself into danger without sparing himself whenever he saw the people threatened, would please refrain from dropping an overwork bomb on the court.
And so he prayed inwardly to the Buddha he had once worshipped so earnestly during the Goryeo era.
‘Greatly compassionate Buddha, please, no overwork—no endless overwork.’
He prayed so desperately that if the crisis he had sensed today turned out to be nothing more than groundless worry, he would donate rice to the temple near his home every month...
“My lord.”
“Yes.”
“Is the sky not wonderfully blue today? The flowers have bloomed in brilliant colors, and the birds are each chirping as they sing of an age of peace... I cannot help but think how wonderful it would be if all the officials of the court, myself included, devoted ourselves to the country without sparing ourselves for the peace of the people. If one devotes oneself to the country, one’s beautiful name will be recorded in the official histories. What could be better than that?”
Hwang Hui looked into Kim Daebung’s eyes.
Listening to Kim Daebung, Hwang Hui felt that something about him seemed a little off.
They said that people sometimes became strange after eating poisonous mushrooms, and it seemed that being steeped too deeply in love for the people had made Kim Daebung somewhat strange.
As he thought that, Hwang Hui realized:
‘Something big is coming.’
Kim Daebung continued grinning strangely as he left the State Council with an exceedingly light step, looking nothing like his usual self.
Hwang Hui spoke with genuine sincerity.
“I want to resign. I want to resign even if it means giving up half of my entire fortune...”
Jo Mal-saeng nodded in agreement.
Not long afterward, Sejong finished reading the proposal for improving Hunminjeongeum that Kim Daebung had submitted and summoned all the ministers of the court.
**
After finishing something important, I slept deeply for a long time, and when I woke up, my mind was clear and my body felt incredibly light.
Adults sometimes say that their bodies feel as light as feathers, and now I completely understood why they used that expression.
In my current condition, I felt as though I could even run a 42.195-kilometer marathon, with a little exaggeration.
It had been a very good thing to listen to Gyeoul and sleep soundly before waking up.
My body had already been on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion, while my mind, due to an excess of dopamine, had been unable to feel fatigue despite the overwork.
If I had continued working in that state, not only would my efficiency have suffered...
I might even have died like Zhuge Liang on the eve of the great task of promulgating Hunminjeongeum. How regrettable would that have been?
Once this work was over, I really ought to take a few days of vacation and go somewhere on a trip with Gyeoul and Jangsaeng.
“His Majesty the King is entering!”
As those words rang out, all the ministers prostrated themselves on the floor.
Then, following the command, they performed the rite of bowing to the king three times.
Sejong sat on the throne and looked down at us.
“Since I have been absent from the throne due to illness for the past several months, you must all have been very worried. However, the royal physician has now said that my body has completely recovered and is as healthy as before, so there will be no difficulty in handling state affairs. Therefore, you need worry about me no longer.”
In truth, not a single one of the ministers gathered here had been worried about King Sejong the Great’s health.
That was because everyone knew that this was not an emergency in which Sejong’s health had genuinely deteriorated and Yi Bang-won, who had become the Grand King Emeritus, had been forced to stand in for him on the throne, if only temporarily. For some unknown reason, Sejong had secluded himself to devote himself entirely to ‘something important.’
Accordingly, Hwang Hui offered congratulations that retained little emotion or sincerity and consisted almost entirely of formality.
“Your Majesty’s recovery is a great blessing for the ancestral shrines and the state.”
If King Sejong the Great had truly been suffering even from a minor cold, Hwang Hui would have delivered a long congratulatory speech mentioning everyone from the Great King Taejo all the way through Taejo’s four preceding generations of ancestors.
“You are right. Therefore, to commemorate this joyous occasion, I wish to share my happiness by bestowing royal food upon everyone working in the Six Ministries, from officials and clerks to runners and government slaves.”
The ministers flinched at the mention of royal food.
“And while I was ill and lying in bed, one thought came to me.”
I knew what the result was.
But none of the other ministers knew yet.
That fact made me feel as though I alone had been chosen by Sejong, causing my shoulders to rise with pride.
“No matter how many books we print, the impoverished people still cannot read the difficult Classical Chinese script... I found myself wondering what meaning any of this could possibly have.”
The ministers’ faces filled with shock as though a bomb had exploded through Sejong’s words.
But King Sejong the Great’s assault would not end there. It would continue from this point onward.
Because, in the end, the solution to the problem of the people who could not read Classical Chinese was a new script that they could learn easily.