Kim Daebung, Secret Royal Inspector (1)

King Sejong wants to see me at this late hour.

Is this a green light? No. Green light, my ass—this is a very bad sign.

Strictly speaking, for people who want to get ahead, it would be an auspicious sign that a golden lifeline for promotion is about to drop from the sky... but for me, it's a very bad omen that a work bomb is about to drop.

“I did decide to work again for the country and the people... but that doesn't mean I wanted to take on a work bomb.”

I just want to clock in on time and clock out on time, and every so often use visiting my grandparents' graves as an excuse to take five to seven days of leave and go on winter outings, that's all.

I absolutely do not want to end up like Hwang Hui, Maeng Sa-seong, or Jang Yeong-sil, constantly saying, "Aaaah, let me resign," while being worked over.

Why does King Sejong insist on working his ministers so hard?

Ah, thinking about that reminded me that King Sejong likes paperwork and written documents, but hates exercise, so he doesn't do any at all.

“For now, he's still young, so he can hold out...”

Once he gets a little older, all sorts of adult-onset illnesses will descend on King Sejong.

Before that happens, I need to find a way to force King Sejong to exercise.

Separate from his dedication to the country and the people, he needs to stay vigorous until the day he dies.

Since exercising at a fixed time every day would be good for his health, it would be nice if I could make him work out right when it's time to clock out.

Then the chances of every official, myself included, getting off work on time would go up.

While I was walking and trying to suppress my anxiety with random thoughts, before I knew it a eunuch had brought me to Gangnyeongjeon, where King Sejong was waiting.

“Lord Suchan, Their Majesties have been waiting for you.”

“Did you say two?”

“Yes, Your Majesties.”

So Yi Bang-won and Sejong were waiting for me together—what on earth are they going to make me do? If I'd known, I would have taken some Cheongsimhwan before coming.

Suppressing my nerves, I went inside, and Sejong and Yi Bang-won welcomed me very warmly.

Facing those two serene smiles...

my spine went cold and the backs of my knees started to tremble.

Just how many work bombs were they planning to toss at me to be smiling like that? I couldn't even imagine.

Yi Bang-won looked at me and grinned. It was a smile that gave me goose bumps all by itself.

“Kim Suchan.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Do you know why I accepted your resignation memorial and allowed you to retire to the countryside?”

“Your humble servant does not know.”

“Because when I look at you, Kim Suchan, I am reminded of my younger days.”

Just hearing that makes my head hurt.

To say that retired King Yi Bang-won was telling Sejong, in front of Sejong, 'Seeing him reminds me of what I was like when I was young'...

How cruel a thing is that?

It's so cruel that it makes me think of some king stacking up a box each of freshwater crabs and dried persimmons and then performing a quantum mechanics experiment on his own child.

Of course, that's only cruel from my perspective, the one getting torn to pieces by it; if someone else heard it, they'd be moved to tears.

Just looking at King Sejong listening from the back makes the answer obvious.

King Sejong was smiling so brightly that, like when I look at Winter, the corners of his mouth seemed about to hook all the way to his ears.

“I passed the civil service exam in the Byeonggwa category at the age of one year younger than you were when you passed. Just as Chief State Councilor Ryu Jeong-hyeon tormented you, I too was bullied a great deal by the powerful aristocratic families of late Goryeo when I was in office. So you don't feel like a stranger to me.”

Looking at Yi Bang-won's expression, it seems every word of it was sincere.

My plan is still to stay in office only for a while, find the right time to resign, and enjoy retirement life...

For some reason, looking at that smile gives me the feeling that I'm going to get the Hwang Hui and Jang Yeong-sil treatment too.

I haven't even done anything wrong, so what possible pretext do they have for grinding me down until I die?

“When I served in office in late Goryeo, the initiation rites imposed by the powerful aristocratic families were so harsh that I sometimes secretly wiped away tears, and it was not easy to endure when my superiors looked down on me for being the son of a military family who had passed the civil service exam at a young age.”

At this point, I'm a little—no, a lot—scared. What on earth are they laying all this groundwork to make me do?

Ah, that was the part I wrote at the end of the memorial I submitted, wasn't it?

Evil officials would cheat on weights and measures to embezzle taxes, exploit eunyeol (land omitted from the land register to avoid taxes), and even fake the sinking of grain transport ships.

I said that to catch those kinds of things, King Sejong would have to implement some system or other. I know what it was, but I don't want to think about it.

Whether my head was filled with ominous premonitions or not, Yi Bang-won's words kept coming.

“More than once I thought about quitting office, returning to my hometown, and going back to the Northeastern Circuit (Hamgyeong-do), but I was able to hold out to the end by thinking of King Taejo, who was happier than anyone when he heard that I had passed the exam.”

According to the records, Taejo Yi Seong-gye was happier than anyone when he heard about Yi Bang-won's passing the civil service exam.

So happy, in fact, that he had someone read the contents of the passing certificate to him over and over again, and he even bowed toward the direction of the Goryeo palace.

“I let you return home for a time in the hope that you would be the same. And as I expected, after going back home, you anticipated the things that would hinder the implementation of the Bangwon Law, which was for the sake of the people, and submitted a memorial, did you not?”

“Your humble servant merely does his best, though lacking, to serve the Royal Ancestral Shrine and the State and to uphold the great will Your Majesty holds.”

Sejong and Yi Bang-won laughed heartily. Their smiling faces somehow looked exactly like those of professors who drive science and engineering doctoral students to do nothing but research and study for fourteen hours a day.

“Your Majesty.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Now, let us get to the point.”

At Sejong's gesture, a eunuch carrying a royal decree, a yucheok (Joseon's standard measuring device), a horse badge, and other items approached me.

The moment I saw them, I almost screamed.

Judging by the mood, even if I committed the grave offense of screaming, Yi Bang-won and Sejong would probably forgive me coolly...

'Oh dear, you've committed a grave offense, so strictly speaking we'd have no excuse even if we killed you. But we're magnanimous.'

'If you've sinned, all you have to do is work even harder, like Hwang Hui~!'

They would definitely say that and work me to the bone like wringing out a dry rag.

Thinking that, I looked at that horrifying "Secret Royal Inspector full set" and managed to hold back my scream.

King Sejong started to set the tone.

“I, being young and lacking in ability, have many shortcomings when it comes to examining whether the Bangwon Law truly benefits the people equally.”

In historical dramas, kings are always busy referring to themselves as gwa-in.

However, in Joseon's actual records, there are only two cases in which a king refers to himself as 'gwa-in.'

One is when he is furious enough to say, "Goodness, I'm lacking in virtue, so I should just die already," and the other is when a huge problem has come up and he needs to make his remorse abundantly clear.

This situation is closer to the former.

Which means there must be plenty of rotten bastards doing things bad enough to make King Sejong want to say that.

“So, Kim Dae-bung, in my stead you will patrol the eleven counties and prefectures of Gyeonggi Province and thoroughly look into whether any wicked magistrates are exploiting the people.”

“I will obey Your Majesty's command.”

I have only one complaint about Yi Bang-won and Sejong.

They work their servants too hard. That's it.

Other than that, I don't really have any complaints. To put it a little strongly, what those two want to do is the same thing I'd want to accomplish even if I had to risk my life for it.

Especially the Bangwon Law—I've thought for quite some time now that it's something I have to see through even if I have to stake my life on it.

“I will also look into whether the newly made farming tools are being properly produced and put to use by farmers, and whether deceitful yangban and clerks are meddling in land surveys under the Bangjeon method.”

There's no need to explain how great the Bangjeon method is. In 1804, in parts of Hwanghae Province, it was used as a pilot to survey land in just three counties...

It is said that the areas of exempt land, royal estate land, and dunjeon (fields owned by government offices) increased by at least double compared with before the survey.

Of course, land that didn't exist suddenly wasn't created out of nowhere.

That just means it was an excellent method that could measure land that accurately.

The eunuch handed me the royal decree, the horse badge, the yucheok, and the other items.

“Go outside Dongdaemun and open the decree.”

Since you've already spoiled the contents, I think I can guess what's written in it without reading.

Well then, like it or not, since I have no choice, I guess it's time to go be a secret royal inspector.

I should start by looking for someone who can help me.

**

Some shows have wrongly portrayed secret royal inspectors as some kind of extreme job—basically a profession where you have to put your life on the line.

I saw one depiction that claimed the secret royal inspector survival rate was under 30%, but that's utter nonsense.

Across the entire Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, there are a total of 613 records stating that a secret royal inspector was dispatched, and among them there were only three cases in which the inspector actually died.

In fact, if the magistrates didn't know a secret royal inspector was coming, fine, but once they found out, they would use every possible method to escort the inspector safely into their county.

Because if the inspector died, in the worst case it would be treated as rebellion.

Then the magistrate's entire three clans would be wiped out, the clerks would be beheaded, and the yangban of that county would be condemned to a life where they could never even take the civil service exam.

Ah, although records of corruption or anything that might cause trouble were removed in advance through evidence destruction and a bit of record tampering.

“So you don't need to worry about being assassinated on the way.”

The problem is that I have to protect myself from bandits who don't even care who I am but still want to kill me, and from Joseon's mascot—the giant cat, in other words, the tiger—and so on...

On top of that, I need to secure people to help me identify the signs of countless cases of corruption and gather evidence.

When I set out, I can probably round up a certain number of people for errands by going to a post station and showing the mappa, but finding someone to review administrative documents and help with inspections is an urgent matter.

In times like this, there's only one thing to do.

This is Joseon, where blood is thicker than water and family ties are proof that people can usually be trusted, so let's go find Kim Man-deok, who is like my father-in-law.

He'll definitely introduce me to a good person. If I rise high, that gentleman will rise high too.