Chapter 47
Ryu Jeonghyeon's impeachment had been neatly wrapped up, and the Bangwon Law was soon to be enacted.
So I was able to return to my hometown, Yanggu County, with complete peace of mind.
“It’s certainly more rustic here than Jinhae, isn’t it? Still, the water is clear and the scenery is beautiful, so it’s a nice place to live.”
Jinhae County is close to Dongnae County, the center of trade with Japan, and because it’s a place where fishing and farming can be done at the same time, many people live there.
By contrast, my hometown, Yanggu County in Gangwon-do, had the advantage of being relatively close to Hanyang, with waterways that connected all the way there, but...
Because commerce in Joseon still hadn’t developed much, it was nowhere near a well-developed place like that.
“If it’s a place you’re going, my lord, even Samsugapsan would be fine.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“You are the kindest person I’ve ever met in this world, my lord. I can’t live without you now.”
As Gyeoul said that, it almost seemed as though I could see the shadow of some cute game heroine in her eyes, saying, ‘Daebung is going to die with Gyeoul now.’ But...
This was all probably due to the stress and fatigue I had accumulated from being tormented by official duties.
I could get the wedding over with and go straight to... Hmm, no. It’s still too early.
I don’t know why a Joseon scholar-official gets so impatient and easily excited.
It’s all because I’m a 22-year-old young man, full of vigor and overflowing vitality.
I’m definitely not the sort of person who likes lewd things, beautiful women, or busty ones.
“See that mountain over there? That’s Gobang Mountain, and there’s a gorgeous waterfall halfway up it. It’s famous for its beautiful scenery and its cool water. So when summer comes, you take a watermelon, dip it in the waterfall, and eat it. Imagine how sweet and refreshing that watermelon would be. Gyeoul, let’s definitely go.”
“Yes.”
As I talked with Gyeoul and slowly made my way home, I noticed some commoners threshing barley.
“My, Mr. Kim. How long has it even been since you got married, and you’re already out of steam? Looks like your wife squeezes all your energy out of you at night, so you’ve got nothing left during the day?”
“Jealous?”
“No, not at all. Just you wait until you get there yourself—then when your wife says, ‘I’ve put all the kids to sleep today,’ your knees will be shaking like mine.”
“My, isn’t that because your back is weak, brother? I hate to say it, but your weak back is famous in our village. How weak do you have to be to lose a ssireum match to Uncle Gapdol, the forty-year-old from the neighboring village, on Dano?”
We tend to think Joseon, throughout its early, middle, and late periods, must have taken an extremely conservative stance on sex...
In truth, that only applied to the yangban, the middle class, and wealthy merchants.
Among ordinary people, if a married couple didn’t get along, divorce was relatively common.
There was no honor to lose by getting divorced, and even if restrictions like limits on taking the civil service exams were imposed, it wouldn’t matter.
Naturally, they also talked about sex in a very explicit way.
Winter, having no immunity to this kind of talk, turned her head away sharply, her face red as a ripe apple.
Winter looked extremely cute like that, but what caught my attention more right now was... the way those people over there were threshing.
“Doing it like that must be terribly inconvenient.”
They were grabbing bundles of barley by hand and knocking them against logs called gaesang, or laying down straw mats and beating them mercilessly with flails.
That was the best threshing method available in this era, but...
If they made and used something like a holte or a pedal-powered thresher, they could work several times more easily.
If they finished the work quickly and then went to the mountains to gather wild greens or cut firewood to sell at the market, they could live much better than they did now.
The sight kept lingering in my mind.
Part of me wanted to go over to the farmers and ask whether threshing with a gaesang was inconvenient... but I shouldn’t do that.
Only if I made them a holte or a pedal thresher and then told them to use their old gaesang as firewood would it mean anything.
If I asked whether it was inconvenient without offering a proper solution, all I’d do would be to make them aware that it was inconvenient.
If I were still in office, I would have gone to see Jang Yeong-sil by now, explained the pedal-powered thresher to him, and pushed hard for its production and distribution...
No, wait. Don’t let myself get bogged down in this.
I resigned, didn’t I? Since I resigned, I can just live freely and comfortably now.
......
Seeing my expression turn sour, Gyeoul, who was beside me, asked.
“Did something unpleasant come to mind?”
“No, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go.”
After saying that, I headed toward the house where my father was, with a slight feeling of unease.
**
When I returned home after two years, my mother welcomed me warmly.
“Daebung, you’re back. Yes, I heard you had a hard time at court...”
“It’s all in the past, Mother.”
“You even took care of the sick among the lowly slaves, so how much must you have suffered emotionally having to file an impeachment memorial and deal with those who spread slander and malicious rumors...”
The moment Mother saw me, she was already in tears.
Whether in 21st-century Korea or 15th-century Joseon, a mother worrying about her child seems to be the same.
She never looks after her own health, but if I—still young enough that most ailments disappear after a night’s sleep—so much as cough once, she frets and worries, saying to call a physician and brew medicine. That’s my mother.
“When life gets hard, a person needs to rest too. If you make an ox work all day, it gets sick and collapses; do you think people are any different?”
“Thank you, Mother.”
“...... I made the braised short ribs you like. And...”
Mother glanced at Gyeoul standing beside me and gave a sly smile.
“Is your name Kim Gyeoul? I’ve seen your name quite often in the letters Daebung sent home from time to time. Since you haven’t had the wedding yet, I’d like you to use another room. Would that be all right?”
“Yes, madam.”
Mother encouraged Gyeoul with a gentle smile.
“Our Daebung is such a tender-hearted boy, and I’ve heard he received a lot of comfort thanks to you. That’s a wonderful thing. Even if your status is different and you’re technically a concubine, we will never treat you poorly. Don’t worry too much.”
My family, when I was first born, wasn’t as bad as a bunch of Confucian old fogeys, but we were still a rather rigid yangban household.
But ever since I was young, I treated slaves as equal people—more precisely, as employees—and tried to be as considerate as possible... so the family’s atmosphere changed.
Mother, too, stopped mistreating the concubine my father had taken from some point on, and she even began giving slave couples who had just had a baby maternity leave, calling in a physician and even preparing tonic medicine to help them recover.
And Mother quietly took Gyeoul away somewhere on her own. ...... What in the world was she planning to talk about?
"...... It doesn’t seem like she means to torment her."
This time, Father came over after clearing his throat a few times.
“Daebung.”
“Yes, Father.”
Father looked at me, spread his arms without saying a word, and embraced me tightly.
“You’ve had a hard time with public service. Your father here never even managed to pass the lower civil service exam, let alone the higher one like you, so I can’t understand all your difficulties. Still, just hearing the rumors about you from this backwater of Yanggu was enough for me to see how devoted you’ve been to Joseon.”
“I simply did my best within the limits of what I could do, just as Father taught me.”
There’s a saying that once you’re discharged, even the military base starts to look beautiful. Of course, that feeling supposedly disappears completely after you’ve been discharged for just three days...
Actually, my life as an official was much better than when I was serving as an officer after passing the civil service exam.
In Jinhae County, the commoners even brought me expensive abalone without taking any money, and without me even asking, they erected a commemorative stele to express their gratitude to me.
At Jiphyeonjeon, I was basically turned into a GPT and put to work by Hwang Hui, Jo Malsaeng, and Heo Jo, and was worked to the bone, but it was still rewarding because I was able to help the country and the people even a little.
Later, when a currency that would have wrecked Joseon’s economy appeared, I succeeded in stopping it by resorting to the extreme measure of a jibusangso, and even laid the groundwork for the Bangwon Law’s implementation.
In the end, I even used a memorial to get Ryu Jeonghyeon out of the way, the man who would have blocked the Bangwon Law from every angle and interfered until the very end.
Filing the memorial about Ryu Jeonghyeon was truly enjoyable and rewarding.
When I was in the military or working at the central government offices, I couldn’t even imagine stabbing a superior.
But after writing my resignation letter, killing that corrupt official who was standing in the way of Joseon’s development was downright exhilarating.
To put it bluntly, wasn’t this basically ecstasy?
“Seems your life in office was pretty enjoyable.”
“It was arduous.”
“What work in this world isn’t arduous? A farmer working the fields according to the seasons, or reclaiming wasteland to expand the land under cultivation, is all extremely hard work. And isn’t it only possible for a scholar-official to devote himself to learning by suppressing the urge to take a comfortable nap or go sightsee around famous nearby mountains with his friends and instead focus on the studies he ought to be doing?”
I couldn’t argue with my father’s words.
Because hearing him made me remember something someone had once said.
'To become special, you have to keep repeating boring, difficult, and hard things over and over.'
And just as those words said, in order to enter official service, while my hometown friends were off here and there having fun, I didn’t get swept up in the mood and simply kept my books open, reading day and night.
I was full of dreams and hopes that once I passed the exam, I’d start studying very lazily from then on.
“But if you devote yourself to farming according to the season, you can reap a good harvest every year at harvest time, and if you spend several years doing the hard work of reclaiming land, you can end up with land of your own. If you study hard for the exams, you’ll pass them as a result. And once you reap those rewards—no, wait, no... Even the process of striving toward those rewards is enjoyable in itself.”
...... I can’t deny it. If I said that when I was the magistrate of Jinhae County, even while complaining that I was being worked to death, it had been nothing but hardship and no enjoyment at all...
That would be a lie.
The commoners said that their lives had gotten better because of me, that they were grateful for the hope I gave them. Whenever I recalled that memory, a smile always touched my lips.
If the Bangwon Law were implemented, how much happier would the people of Joseon become?
“You’ve worked hard enough up to now. So rest easy and get plenty of sleep.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Since you’d written to let me know about Gyeoul, we’ve made simple preparations so that the wedding can be held at our house the day after tomorrow. Until then, don’t think about anything and just rest comfortably.”
And so I ended up getting married right away... and now I was facing the most important part: consummation.
Through the long, awkward silence, Gyeoul carefully opened her mouth.
“My lord...”