Jiphyeonjeon GPT (7)

My name is Kim Daebung, Joseon's all-purpose search engine.

No, against my will, I was forcibly turned into an all-purpose search engine.

I hear the minister lords even said, 'Kim Daebung is someone we need to keep using in rotation for a long time, so we should save him.'

Today, the Minister of War himself rushed over as soon as he got to the ministry to be the first to consult me.

Even if the Six Ministries have plenty of thorny issues, why on earth do the ministers keep coming after me, a mere sixth-rank official, out of nowhere...

"Now that I've met you, I can finally resolve the Ministry of War's worries. At last, the Ministry of War can clock out on time."

Minister of War Jo Mal-saeng had a suspicious smile on his face. If that old man weren't the Minister of War and the target of that smile weren't a man...

it would look like a picture of him asking, "Heh-heh, want to do something nice with this uncle?"

Seems the Ministry of War had a hard time clocking out on time, too.

I'm not against the Ministry of War leaving work on time, but I'm human too, so please, those second-rank minister old guys, stop getting fixated on me.

If you keep squeezing tips out of me... eventually, won't the other officials start coming to me whenever they get stuck, too?

'Daebung, tell Hojo how to properly collect taxes from the Hanyang markets. I'd like you to write the implementation plan from start to finish in the format of a Joseon official document.'

'The report you wrote was incredibly helpful. Then this time, I'd like you to write the grounds showing that this plan doesn't go against the words of the sages, along with a proper explanation.'

If it keeps going like this, it feels like even all kinds of other officials will come looking for me. If that's not cosmic horror, what is?

"......Kim Su-chan, are you hurt somewhere?"

"No, sir."

"That's a relief. These days, thanks to you, the Six Ministries are no longer getting bogged down in official work... If you got sick and couldn't work, that would be a huge problem. So I was thinking of quickly sending over some medicinal herbs, ginseng, and dried abalone. Ah, if the workload gets too much and it's hard on you, feel free to come over to the Ministry of War anytime. If that's what you want, I'll make a special request to His Majesty. The Ministry of War will always guarantee you clocking out on time."

As soon as he said that I should come over to the Ministry of War, some old scholar from nowhere suddenly appeared and joined the conversation.

"Kim Su-chan is a loyal subject who knows only public duty before private interest, the kind of person who even enjoys overwork. Otherwise, he never would have caused such a stir when he was magistrate of Jinhae."

"......Come to think of it, didn't the Jinhae magistrate who followed Kim Su-chan submit a resignation memorial? He took over Kim Su-chan's work and said he was too incompetent to be suited for the post."

"I hear His Majesty the Retired King even bestowed tonic medicine on the Jinhae magistrate."

At that, I tilted my head. Huh? This is something I'd written out in detail in the handover document, so what was so hard about it?

What, as if he were some brand-new ninth-rank clerk? He's been in government service for over ten years, and he says that was difficult?

I guess he went down there expecting to live a leisurely life as a fifth-rank local magistrate, but he ended up assigned to a county under the Retired King's watchful eye, so there was too much to worry about and it wore him out. That's probably why he submitted his resignation.

It shouldn't have been that hard to take over what I did.

Meanwhile, Minister Jo Mal-saeng nodded as if to say he agreed with Jeong In-ji.

"As expected, Deputy Chief Scholar Jeong's words are right. I was too greedy. Forget I said anything."

Do they think I'm some kind of workaholic? I'm just working hard during my working hours the way 21st-century Korean office workers do. I only focus on work from clock-in to clock-out.

"Kim Su-chan."

"Yes, sir."

"The Ministry of War has judged that the people are struggling because of military service, and we want to ease that burden. Under the current military service law, a court-rank cavalryman (the equivalent of a cavalry officer or senior NCO) gets four support households, regular cavalrymen get three, and infantrymen get two. But the people still find even that terribly burdensome."

To put it simply, it's like this.

In theory, an infantryman only needs a spear and a uniform, so upkeep isn't that expensive. So I figured that if two households each paying 600,000 won a month came together, they could maintain one infantryman.

But cavalry needs horse upkeep, all kinds of armor, and weapons too, so even if you pooled three or four households, each household would still have to shoulder at least 5 million won a month.

That was a ridiculous sum by Joseon household standards, so the system existed only in name and had no practical effect at all.

There were hardly any people in Joseon who could pay that much money.

So those sent off for military service could hardly receive any support. Infantrymen had to serve without pay at all, while cavalrymen's every expense had to be covered by the state treasury.

On top of that, cavalry was such a specialized kind of soldier that only specific personnel took turns serving, so peasant household heads weren't dragged off into military service during the busy farming season—

but infantry was something any Tom, Dick, or Harry could do, so if your rotation period happened to fall during the busy farming season? That year's farming for that household was ruined.

"How should we change this? The Ministry of War is suggesting shortening the duty rotation period and having people switch off more often..."

I do have a rough idea of how to handle that, but the policy itself is so intricately tangled that even I would find it hard to come up with an answer right now.

I'm human too, after all; I can't possibly keep up with a flood of incoming proposals and solve them one after another without falling behind.

From now on, I'll need to set a 'processing time' based on how important and complex each issue is. Even GPT takes longer to process things when the content is complicated.

"Please tell me specifically what alternatives the Ministry of War has proposed and what problems you think still won't be solved. Then I'll look through the precedents and find a solution."

"Military service problems are beyond even you, huh? Good."

Jo Mal-saeng talked for nearly two hours without even taking a sip of water about the military service issue he was tearing his hair out over.

Just writing all that down was exhausting. Maybe from now on I should have him organize it into a document and bring it to me.

"With this, the Ministry of War's military service problem is settled. When can you give me an answer?"

"Would it be all right if I thought it over for three days and then gave you my answer?"

"Three days, huh, three days... can't be helped."

"It's a matter of tremendous national importance, and the issue is very complex, so please tell the other ministers not to assign me any other work in the meantime."

"Of course. Three days? Heck, I'll give you ten if that's what it takes."

That smile, that expression—no doubt about it. It was the incredibly selfish look of someone who was pleased only that the Ministry of War would escape overtime.

"Understood. I'll do my best to be of help to you, sir."

Having said that, I decided to use the privileges of a Jiphyeonjeon scholar for research.

In fact, that meant access to almost all materials inside Gyeongbokgung Palace, but really it was only enough to let me look at the books and references needed for work...

If I spent one day working myself to the bone looking up materials and thinking up alternatives, then spent the remaining two days leisurely organizing them and writing them up as a memorial to hand to Jo Mal-saeng, it should work somehow.

I don't have the answer to the problem he brought me right now, but my head is full of how Joseon's history unfolded and plenty of 'reference materials' I can draw on accordingly, so it shouldn't be too hard.

'The important thing is just to make it even a little more beneficial to the people than the current military service system.'

That way, the job Jo Mal-saeng requested could be postponed until I answered him three days later. But there's one problem.

"So far, I could answer everything without much trouble within the knowledge I already had... but from here on out, there will be cases when that won't be true."

The military service system could probably be improved if I thought it through using references like local defense militias, the reserve army, the Roman legion system, and Germany's first wave of eastward colonization (roughly the eastern part of modern German territory).

But what if another request comes in about a problem I don't know well?

I'd still have to say I can't answer right away, but the odds of me working overtime to solve it would be very high.

I have to stop that no matter what.

First, the best thing is to eliminate the possibility of getting hit with a 'something-I-don't-know' bomb.

The important thing is to steer the issues I have to solve toward things I already know the answer to, or fields where I can find the answer easily.

In other words, it would be better if I proposed problems in fields I'm confident about before anyone else brought one to me.

For example, what if I had them build reservoirs and all the farming tools essential to agriculture, and then argued for the benefits of rice transplanting?

Minister of Taxation Hwang Hui would be absolutely obsessed with rice transplanting. It would make double cropping possible in the three southern provinces (Jeolla, Gyeongsang, and Chungcheong), and in other regions it would greatly increase rice production.

The peasants of this era don't know it, but back in late Goryeo, rice transplanting was fairly active under the Yuan dynasty, and it had already been used to boost yields. The farmers would be interested too.

If I keep gradually expanding only the fields I know like this, I'll buy myself time.

I should start right away.

"May I go meet Lord Jang, the Assistant Commissioner, at the Office of Court Craftsmen?"

The senior Jiphyeonjeon scholar near me answered with a listless expression.

"If it's for official business, go ahead as much as you like."

No matter how quickly I get promoted, I won't ever climb above the ministers. Not unless I use Admiral Yi Sun-sin's promotion speed.

But from the other scholars' point of view, I'm someone who could rise above them at any time and become a rival, so there's no way they'd look on me kindly.

So there's that saying in companies, isn't there.

Being too capable can sometimes be a sin, too.

"Thank you, sir, Associate Senior Scholar."

Once I got permission, I headed straight to the Office of Court Craftsmen.

After arriving at the Office of Court Craftsmen, I stopped a passing clerk and asked where Jang Yeong-sil was.

"Where is Lord Jang, the Assistant Commissioner?"

"Lord Assistant Commissioner isn't at the Office of Court Craftsmen right now."

So the Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Court Craftsmen doing paperwork at the Office of Court Craftsmen... ah, impossible.

This isn't even the era of Hunminjeongeum yet, so how could Jang Yeong-sil possibly read all the Chinese characters? No, even if he somehow managed to read them, there's no way he'd be able to draft a memorial in the proper official format, stuffing it full of every kind of ornate phrasing.

"Lord Assistant Commissioner is probably discussing how to smelt iron with the craftsmen at the Office of Court Craftsmen."

"Lead me there."

"Yes, sir."

The clerk kept watching me especially warily. Did I look like I was about to blow up the Office of Court Craftsmen or something?

I'm just going to find Jang Yeong-sil because I'm thinking of doing something good for Joseon.

"I make it sound like I came to the Office of Court Craftsmen to do something bad. Relax."

"Of course not."

At the place the clerk led me to, there was a middle-aged man in his forties with a shaggy beard and the look of someone who loves drinking.

You could barely tell from what they were wearing, but since only one person was wearing a 'samo'... the one wearing the samo must be Jang Yeong-sil.

"Are you Lord Assistant Commissioner Jang? Let's join forces and make Joseon prosper."

At long last, the time for agricultural tool reform has come.