Chancellor Slayer (3)

Moving is not such a simple thing that you can just decide and leave at once.

Even in a world with ladder trucks and five-ton trucks, moving usually takes a full day.

Much less in this Joseon, where there are neither trucks nor ladder trucks—it goes without saying that moving all the way to such a distant place is no small matter.

Besides, Joseon is a country of rites and law if you put it nicely, and a land full of all kinds of stiff, old-man formalities if you put it harshly.

So there were mountains of things I had to do first before I could leave.

"Why are there so many people I have to visit—the Three Prime Ministers except for Ryu Jeonghyeon, the Ministers of the Six Ministries, even the Vice Director of the Hall of Worthies? And every one of them, when I visit, is frantic for me not to submit my resignation and to stay on in court..."

Especially Hwang Hui; when I went to his house, he made a fuss and told me to report to work at once.

It still rings in my ears.

'What, after pushing ahead with that major reform that will become Joseon's thousand-year foundation—the Bangwon Law—you’re backing out here? Isn’t it a shame to waste all the work you’ve put in so far? Come back to the Ministry of Revenue on your own right now. Then His Majesty the Retired King and His Majesty the King will value your abilities, promote you, and entrust you with even more important duties. Don’t go. Without you, all the officials of the Ministry of Revenue will die—don’t go!'

I went into office because I wanted to secure a standing that wouldn't be looked down on even if I just holed up in my hometown reading books—not because I wanted to become a lifelong Chancellor whom King Sejong wouldn't let retire even after he hit retirement age.

So I didn't give in to Hwang Hui's heartfelt persuasion.

If I just sent off a memorial impeaching Ryu Jeonghyeon while I was getting ready to move and then went back to my hometown, happiness would begin and misery would end. Why would I be crazy enough to go back into the Ministry of Revenue and volunteer to be a draft ox?

"Dolsoe."

"Yes, sir."

"Is the moving preparation going well?"

"I'm almost done packing. I'll have the furniture carried with a yoke, and I'm planning to load books and such onto mules."

"Good. And since we can take a boat as far as Yanggu, let's go to Noryangjin first and take the ferry from there."

One thing people usually think of when they think of Joseon is that because there are so many mountains, carts can't be rolled, so goods have to be transported by water and inland transport is difficult.

But if you think about it, that isn't entirely true either. Mountain paths where carts can't go are walked on foot, and wherever a river reaches, people somehow take a boat—that's Joseon's tradition.

"When I get back to Yanggu, I'll make it so you can have your wedding right away, Dolsoe."

"Oh, that's far too much, sir."

"You think I didn't know you liked Heesoon from Kim Gwonnong's household? I'll speak well of you to old Mr. Kim Gwonnong, the township headman, so just get yourself ready."

"Thank you, sir. And Mr. Mandeok is waiting outside right now."

"You should have said that first. Hurry and bring him to the sarangbang."

I quickly put on my formal robe and received Kim Mandeok in the sarangbang.

"Do not let anyone in before I call for them."

"Yes, sir."

Truthfully, unless King Sejong sent officers from the Uigeumbu to my house to forcibly arrest me, no one could enter our home without my permission.

"Seeing the packed belongings at your house makes it feel real that you're truly moving away, sir."

"...I've done all I can, so now I should go back to my hometown. I'm sorry I'm taking your daughter with me."

"Winter says she likes you too, sir, so how could I, as her father, stop her? Still, if I may ask one thing, please cherish that child."

"Of course. If Winter ever gets pregnant, I'll even make gwaktang (seaweed soup) for her."

We usually think that in a Confucian society, men cooking is absolutely forbidden, and people say that if a man goes into the kitchen, his genitals will fall off...

That's just empty formalism invented by parvenus with more money than sense who bought themselves yangban status after late Joseon's factional politics took hold. In reality, cooking as a hobby is perfectly fine.

During King Seonjo's reign, No Su-sin's having personally cooked food for his mother was remembered as a fine anecdote, and Yeonam Park Jiwon even made gochujang himself and sent it to his son-in-law.

Of course, that still counts as a very unusual hobby.

"By the way, have you looked into the Chancellor's loan-sharking?"

"Yes. From what I found, it's really... amazing that he hasn't run into major trouble until now."

This Ryu Jeonghyeon was the type of man who specialized in clinging to power.

When Sejong introduced currency, he personally stepped in and cracked down only on powerless commoners, so he could keep the scholar-officials' support while still obeying the royal command.

Thanks to that, he wasn't regarded as a bad man among the yangban, so he was able to get the impeachment over his loan-sharking swept away.

Sejong kept indulging him to the end, because his loan-sharking didn't violate the 'national law,' and by early Joseon standards he was basically a Keynes-level economic expert.

But his current standing is very different from what it was in the original history.

While I was serving as magistrate of Jinhae, I proved that rather than cutting costs blindly, collecting a little more tax and spending the budget efficiently benefited the people more.

What's more, that man even took issue with the Bangwon Law, which Yi Bangwon had practically stamped with his own name, so his position must already be shaking a lot.

Even so, the reason he has survived until now is that he's the Chancellor, so he's not someone you can casually remove, and because he hasn't challenged royal authority.

If I just give it one more push...? I could even kill a Chancellor.

Some might think I can kill a Chancellor because I'm a power broker in court, but the truth is different. He'll die because he did something that deserves death.

"I heard that not only jangni and gapri, but even people who were good at collecting usury were appointed as yeokseung, the officers in charge of relay stations."

"Yeokseung, huh. Yeokseung, you say."

There's one thing people commonly misunderstand. They think that in Joseon, the only way to rise to office was by passing the civil service exam.

Strictly speaking, in early Joseon, there were various ways to become an official besides the civil service exam.

There was something called saman geogwan, by which for certain positions, if you completed the required number of service days, you could become a formal official with rank, just like those who passed the exam.

The positions that fell under this were noksa (senior clerks), seori, central-office clerks, gapsa, and yeokseung. Among them, yeokseung was especially lower in importance, since it supervised relay stations far from the capital.

Put bluntly, if someone as high-ranking as the Chancellor set his mind to it, he could have people parachuted into posts.

"A high-ranking official placing an acquaintance in a yeokseung post by itself isn't a huge blemish. But does it make any sense to appoint some guy who diligently collected usury as yeokseung and give him a chance to win an official post?"

"Of course not."

What merit is there in collecting usury, anyway? Are you going to give someone an office just because he did that well?

If we were going to hand out offices like that, we'd might as well gather every knife-wielding thug in the country, give them gapsa posts, and when their term ended assign them as military officers to help open up the Four Counties and Six Garrisons. Enough with the crazy talk, seriously.

"And furthermore, I hear the Chancellor is extremely wealthy, with warehouses all over the country, and that he runs usury in many counties throughout Joseon's eight provinces. The yeokseung appointed by him use the Chancellor's slaves to collect the principal and interest, and those who can't pay are beaten until they volunteer to become slaves."

Is that really true? They say the Seodal incident was just a cover-up, but for a man who is the Chancellor to do something like this to the people...

"Isn't this just some absurd rumor?"

"That's why they don't use yeokri and yeokjol, and instead use servants, isn't it? If they didn't do that, how could they gather nearly 70,000 seom of rice in Hanyang alone?"

This is a complete mess. Does any of this even make sense?

Come to think of it, it doesn't seem that impossible.

Because when treason broke out in Joseon, it was slaves who served as private soldiers.

When Grand Prince Suyang carried out the Gyeyu Coup, the fellow named Im Eoul-eun who first smashed Kim Jongseo's skull became a second-rank meritorious subject, too.

"If you were appointed as a yeokseung and did this sort of work well, they'd even promote you to a frontier military post afterward."

"It's common enough for yeokseung to be appointed as military officers once they complete their term. But appointing someone as a military officer just because he's good at collecting usury... depending on how you look at it, isn't that basically making him run a private army? But how did something like this never reach the court?"

At my words, Kim Mandeok let out a snort of laughter.

"Because collecting usury was legal, and because he had the king's favor as the Chancellor, no one dared step forward to impeach him carelessly."

"But that favor is starting to fade now..."

Then he can be impeached. To put it bluntly, the Daedong Law—no, the Bangwon Law—will kick into gear the moment Yi Bangwon gives the word.

But if that bastard Ryu Jeonghyeon remains Chancellor, he'll keep putting the brakes on it for absurd reasons...

For Joseon's sake, I have to kill that bastard before I go.

Yes, I'll think of it as doing one last good deed before retirement.

"...Bring me some accounts from the people harmed by the usury as well."

Yi Bangwon and King Sejong's love for the people is genuine.

So if I add stories of the people's suffering to the facts I've gathered so far, it'll work one hundred percent.

I'm resigning and going back to my hometown anyway, so I might as well leave with 'Chancellor Slayer' as my final achievement.

And besides, it would make no sense for the man who cut down the Chancellor to be reinstated, so this will make my return to my hometown even more secure. What a great thing.