Chapter 45
Ryu Jeong-hyeon, this piece of trash is guilty just for living and breathing in Joseon.
Even if my resignation has to be delayed a little, I have to get this piece of trash out of Joseon before I leave.
Listening to the plea of the family head who is choking up in front of me makes me think that even more strongly.
"Oh, sir... To keep my fox-like wife and rabbit-like children from starving, I had no choice but to borrow one seom of rice from the Prime Minister during the lean spring season."
"I see. It must have been hard to get through the lean season."
"After the tenant rent and taxes like tribute and military service were deducted, there is truly no rice left in the jar at home. I really don't want to borrow from loan sharks either, but... if I don't, my wife and children will starve to death right away, so I had no choice. If I borrow one seom this year, I have to repay one seom and five mal next year, and I know very well how hard that is... But how could I turn my back on the children starving while looking only at this useless father?"
Loan sharks' main customers aren't the rich. They're the very poor.
People who don't even have 1 million won they can use right away, so their utility bills and loan payments pile up, and they can't even pay the rent on their cramped little home, left worrying about when they'll be kicked out.
Even as the times change, the basic workings of the world of the living are similar, so the man before me must have borrowed at usurious rates, tears in his eyes, for the sake of his family.
"We managed to endure for a few years like that, but this year the landlord suddenly raised the tenant rent to 50 percent. Because of that, I couldn't repay the rice I owed the Prime Minister. Then one day, the servants the Prime Minister had under him came to my house and, without warning, took my daughter, Eonnyeon, away. They said that since I couldn't pay the rice due this year, they were taking my eldest child, Eonnyeon, into servitude according to the contract I signed when I borrowed the rice."
Tears dripped from the man's eyes.
In Joseon, just like in Korea, an adult man tries his best not to cry unless it's something like a parent's funeral.
Even if his household is on the verge of collapse and things are so hard it feels like he might die, it's normal to avoid showing tears in front of others...
The man kneeling before me had now begun sobbing out loud.
"I only heard that I had to repay the rice by a certain time and in a certain amount. I never knew there would be such a clause in the contract. And my daughter has long since been made a slave in the Prime Minister's household, but this pitiful father hasn't been able to do anything, let alone report it to the magistrate."
The Veritable Records record Ryu Jeong-hyeon like this.
A capable financial expert—though slashing the budget recklessly is basically his whole policy—but he extorted the common people through usury far too severely.
He was so ruthless that the record even says, 'People don't easily try to borrow money from the Prime Minister. Complaints are rampant.'
And after King Taejong Yi Bang-won's death, Prince Hyoryeong had once borrowed money from Ryu Jeong-hyeon under a borrowed name—using one of his own slaves...
Ryu Jeong-hyeon even committed the atrocity of completely trashing the house of the slave used as the proxy because he said Prince Hyoryeong wasn't paying the money back properly. And yet it's amazing he didn't die in the original history.
So I thought he was the cruelest of the cruel, but I never imagined he'd be this merciless.
To think he would exploit the fact that commoners can't read by inserting a clause that turns their children into slaves.
Still, in Joseon, if you can't repay a debt, it's legal to take someone as a slave, so you can't even file a complaint.
Amazing, Ryu Jeong-hyeon. You really need to die for Joseon.
"Sir, sir. Please, just once, just once help me. I know it's an unseemly request, but please, please help me."
My eyes were reddening as I listened.
They say that even if a child you raised dies of illness, a parent carries that child in the heart and never forgets them for the rest of life.
To think he was cheated by a contract and his little daughter could be dragged off as a slave, never to see her face again... Does that make any sense? If you're a human being, you can't do that.
I want to help him without asking for anything in return, but.
'If I perform good deeds without compensation, even other beggars hoping for a lucky break will come swarming over.'
I'm no god; I can't handle all those people too.
"...... I can't help you for free."
The man in front of me, Gap-seok, who had been kneeling there and bawling his heart out, suddenly smashed his head against the floor.
So desperate was he that he didn't care even when his forehead split open and started bleeding.
"If I could just get my daughter back, I'd obey even if you told me to die. Please, please help me."
"...... I'll pay you generously, so from now on have your whole family work at our house. That will be enough. And don't spread the word."
If you reach out to someone desperate, especially a parent on the verge of losing a child, the one who receives that kindness will never forget it for the rest of their life.
If I help Gap-seok now, he'll literally not mind death for my sake. That will be a huge help to me later.
It just so happens that I need someone I can trust absolutely, so this works out well.
"Sir."
"How many seom of rice do you need?"
"One and a half seom is enough. With that, I can bring Eonnyeon back."
"No, I asked how much rice it would take for you and your wife and children to eat their fill."
"Pardon...?"
"No one who works in our house goes hungry. Gap-seok, your children will need to help out with odd jobs from time to time too, so wouldn't they be part of our household?"
At my words, tears again dripped from Gap-seok's eyes.
"Sir, thank you. Thank you so much."
"Go with Dolsae and pay off the debt owed to the Prime Minister, and bring back Eonnyeon first. And I'll give you about two more seom of grain, so from now on make sure your wife and children are well fed. And there's one thing you'll need to do starting tomorrow: gather the stories of those who, like you, suffered injustice at the hands of the Prime Minister."
"Yes, sir."
"Go on, get going."
After finishing speaking, I called Dolsae and sent him with Gap-seok to Ryu Jeong-hyeon's house.
And after thinking about what to do with Ryu Jeong-hyeon, I went into the study and started writing a memorial.
**
There is a saying, 'The mouth is the gate of disaster, and the tongue is the sword that cuts a person down.'
It means exactly that.
A memorial is like that.
The Yesong dispute, which caused countless people to die in Joseon, and the purge under King Sukjong all began with a single memorial.
"If Hyojong were the eldest son, he'd have to wear mourning clothes for three years, but since Hyojong isn't the eldest son, one year is the right answer, isn't it? Sure, it lacks legitimacy, but that's the fact, isn't it?"
With this one memorial, Joseon split into the Westerners and the Southerners and fought each other to the death.
The memorial I am submitting is the foundation for uprooting someone—more precisely, bad guys like Ryu Jeong-hyeon who exploit the common people.
"I have to do it."
So I proposed the Bangwon Act, and after that I toiled day and night in the Ministry of Finance to lay out its foundations as well.
So before I retire, let's do the one thing that absolutely has to be done, one last time.
Let's cut down the Goryeo ghosts who hate the Bangwon Act and try to obstruct it however they can, and the doglike bastards who exploit the people of Joseon to line their own bellies.
"...... Maybe I should write it."
Once I'd made up my mind, I picked up the brush.
The brush I usually handle and use countless times felt terribly heavy when I thought of using it to kill someone.
[Former Jiphyeonjeon scribe Kim Dae-bung, after bowing his head and making two deep bows, respectfully reports.
If Your Majesty promulgates the Bangwon Act across the country and it is used widely, all the people will rejoice, saying that a peaceful age has arrived, and there will be no more starving bellies.
Recalling Guanzi's words that the people regard food as heaven, I would say that enacting and implementing the Bangwon Act is no different from Your Majesty opening a new heaven for your humble subjects.]
Whether in the past or now, what matters is the economy.
Hope that, although one is poor now, by ceaseless effort one can live a better life tomorrow.
Belief that if one does not spare effort today, before long one may be able to make even a single patch of land one's own.
Expectation that if I work hard, I can give my wife and children even slightly better clothes and food.
Making this is precisely what a ruler must do.
In Joseon, the Daedong Law truly benefited all the people.
But thanks to my intervention, it was changed into the Bangwon Act and got started hundreds of years earlier; how fortunate is that?
[However, upon thinking it over carefully, I believe those who practice usury in Joseon would have no choice but to raise arms against the sacred will of His Highness the Retired King and His Majesty the King.]
In this world, the worse the economy is and the harsher unemployment gets, the more money some people make.
For example, loan sharks, voice phishing scammers, con artists, and criminal organizations.
These bastards make money by taking advantage of people in desperate straits...
So when a recession hits, their income shoots up.
In Joseon, Ryu Jeong-hyeon is the prime example.
[Because usury is when poor commoners, trying somehow to feed their wives and children, borrow rice and money with tears in their eyes.
But just as a person who drinks seawater because he's thirsty will ultimately not escape death... when commoners borrow usurious loans to save their wives and children, they end up being unable to repay them and becoming the slaves of the person who lent the money all too often.
The usurers have grown rich this way, but if the Bangwon Act is implemented, the people's circumstances will improve and they will no longer borrow usurious loans. In other words, they will lose the means by which they grow rich. Would the usurers want that?]
Yi Bang-won said that anyone who opposed the Bangwon Act was a remnant of Goryeo.
And there is only one minister in Joseon who likes usury.
Prime Minister Ryu Jeong-hyeon.
"I will definitely kill you before I retire to the countryside."
If I’m going to implement the Bangwon Act, I’ll need a definite example, and this man is perfect for it.
And on top of that, I wrote down all of Ryu Jeong-hyeon's various atrocities and submitted the memorial.
**
Kim Dae-bung's memorial turned the court upside down.