Chapter 60
It took a full six months from being dispatched as a secret royal inspector to returning to Hanyang.
That was by no means a short time, but considering how much time I had spent in Anseong County, it seemed I had returned fairly quickly.
That was probably possible because I had set a proper example in Anseong County.
"My lord Inspector—no, my lord Suchan. The officials and clerks who serve under you must have suffered no end."
"I'm not such a bad one, am I?"
Unless something was truly urgent, I generally didn't make my subordinates work overtime.
Rather than insulting or cursing at my subordinates when they made mistakes, I kindly explained how I would do things in their place.
When giving my subordinates instructions, I tried to make them as concise and clear as possible.
For example, if there was a legibility problem with the font in an electronic document, I would tell them to change it to 10-point Batang.
Thanks to that, our party of secret royal inspectors barely worked overtime in Anseong County except when conducting land surveys and processing land documents to implement the Bangjeon Law.
Instead, I merely required them to focus on their work as much as possible during working hours.
"You see through the limits of each person's abilities exactly, so aren't you the kind of person who somehow makes us work right up to those limits? I was quite surprised at first. I became able, in a single day and without making a mistake, to prepare documents that would previously have taken me two days."
"I merely helped you put your abilities to good use, Mandeok."
Kim Mandeok looked at me and sighed. Then he shook his head from side to side.
"You are destined to rise all the way to Chief State Councillor. And you will make Joseon prosper. It was a true honor to assist you at your side."
"If I ever go out again as a secret royal inspector, would you come with me then too?"
Kim Mandeok's expression suddenly changed when he heard my words.
Apparently, he had suffered quite a lot while accompanying me as a secret royal inspector.
But I had made sure he was rewarded generously enough in Anseong County to feel that his hardships had been worthwhile, and I had even let his merchant guild work six new highly skilled people for rock-bottom wages...
I was a decent boss, wasn't I?
I did make them work hard, but I also took good care of them.
"You should hurry into the palace and report to His Majesty, ‘I have safely returned after completing my duties as a secret royal inspector.’ Shouldn't you be on your way? Then we'll take our leave."
Kim Mandeok hurried off toward Unjongga with his party.
It would be a lie to say I didn't feel hollow watching them go, but I shook my head once to drive away my idle thoughts and continued walking toward Gwanghwamun, where King Sejong was.
The curfew had not yet begun, but since the court's workday was over, Gwanghwamun was firmly closed.
Yet when I approached, the gate opened of its own accord.
I must have made quite a name for myself by causing a fuss.
After all, everyone, including the gate guards, recognized the face of a mere junior sixth-rank official and opened the gate for me immediately.
"...... Am I going to end up like Hwang Hui?"
An ominous thought crossed my mind, but I shook my head.
They say that speaking of something can make it come true, and that bad thoughts eventually become reality.
Just thinking about ending up like Hwang Hui was dangerous in itself.
After all, I hadn't committed a single 'crime' by Joseon standards.
Once I reached a suitable age, I could retire and enjoy a comfortable old age.
Hwang Hui had been worked to the bone because he had so many grave sins and karmic debts weighing on him.
"I'm different. Very different indeed."
With no weaknesses anyone could seize, why would I be worked to the bone until I was sixty, seventy, eighty, or ninety?
**
I was summoned to Manchunjeon in Gyeongbokgung under the guidance of a eunuch.
This time too, I had expected Sejong and Yi Bang-won to greet me with bright smiles and ask whether my work had gone well, but...
There was only Yi Bang-won inside.
"Your Majesty the Retired King, have you been well?"
Yi Bang-won received my greeting and gave me a deeply satisfied smile.
Just looking at that smile and gentle expression, it was hard to believe that he was really Cudgel King Yi Bang-won.
"Thanks to you, the court's tax revenue, which had always been plagued by shortages, has nearly doubled. Moreover, the poor people are now better able to make a living than before, and I hear they are singing songs of jubilation, saying they no longer need to worry about starving. The problems that had plagued and troubled me all my life have been solved this way, so these days my body and mind are wonderfully at ease."
"I am deeply humbled, Your Majesty."
"Now that I see you face-to-face, I find myself thinking that this must be the joy and satisfaction Emperor Zhaolie Liu Bei felt when he met Zhuge Liang."
Zhuge Kongming was practically the embodiment of a loyal subject.
After Liu Bei selected him, he considered even mealtimes a waste and ate as little as possible, while fussing over every last trivial detail with the obsessiveness of a paranoiac.
As a result, the various ailments caused by overwork worsened, and he died at Wuzhangyuan.
That was why Yi Bang-won's words didn't sound like praise to me.
No, they were definitely praise, and he was definitely encouraging me for doing well, but...
'I'll run you ragged like an engineering PhD student.‘
Why did it feel as though I was hearing that as an auditory hallucination?
"Your Majesty values this humble servant so highly that I scarcely know what to do with myself. However, one thing is clear: the Bang-won Law has only just taken its first step. There is still a very long road ahead."
"The road ahead is long?"
"Gyeonggi is right next to Hanyang, so there was little room for the local yangban—or those who withdrew into seclusion rather than support Joseon during the transition from the former Goryeo dynasty—to scheme. In contrast, in remote regions such as the Lower Three Provinces, Pyeongan, and Hamgyeong, the distance from Hanyang makes it easy for wicked and exploitative people to collude with magistrates and clerks and undermine the purpose of the Bang-won Law."
Even in the remote countryside of the twenty-first century, rules taken for granted in Seoul, the capital region, or the major cities often failed to apply.
When a young man who knew nothing tried to settle in the countryside, burning with the determination to try farming, villagers would make up all sorts of excuses to exploit him like an unpaid village slave.
And when a woman in her twenties moved in, it was apparently common for people to pressure her to marry a local forty-year-old bachelor, saying the two of them would make a good match.
If she protested that this was sexual harassment, the villagers would often isolate and ostracize her so thoroughly that she could no longer live there.
And this was Joseon, without even the internet or television. What good would complaining about it do?
"That is correct."
It was said that Yi Seong-gye's family had practically ruled all of Hamgyeong-do by the end of Goryeo.
People who study history sometimes chuckle that if you ask who the Northern Grand Duke in a romance-fantasy novel is, the answer could be Yi Seong-gye.
Yi Bang-won must have seen Yi Seong-gye directly during his days as the Grand Duke of Hamgyeong-do, so he would sympathize with what I was saying even more.
After all, even when all of Goryeo was a blazing hell, only Hamgyeong-do, the land Yi Seong-gye actually ruled, was said to be a place where people could live. What else could have made that possible?
It meant that the region enjoyed a certain degree of political independence as well, since it was so far from the capital, Gaeseong.
"If the amount of land in Gyeonggi increased by two or two and a half times, then in Gangwon it would increase by more than two and a half times. In the Lower Three Provinces, it may increase nearly fivefold, which would hardly be surprising. So won't the yangban of the Lower Three Provinces, faced with a massive increase in their tax burden, try to buy off the magistrates?"
"...... So you're saying we have to send secret royal inspectors to every county across the country, including the Lower Three Provinces?“
"If we don't, they will somehow hide enormous tracts of land to avoid paying taxes. And Joseon won't even be able to find them."
A secret royal inspector cannot uncover every hidden plot of land. But if we use the Bangjeon Law and secret royal inspectors together, we can probably uncover around 95 percent of it.
It isn't perfect, but this is the best method available to us right now.
"And I am also concerned about the tribute from Jeju."
Yi Bang-won's expression darkened. To be honest, even in Pyeongan and Hamgyeong, we could force people to pay in rice through sheer brute force, or accept substitutes such as myeonpo (hemp-fiber cloth).
But Jeju's land was highly unsuitable for farming, and the island produced many extremely expensive goods such as abalone, sea cucumbers, shiitake mushrooms, and citrus fruit... The Daedong Law was never implemented on Jeju before Joseon fell.
"Do you have a way?"
"Of all the specialties produced in Jeju, the court should purchase everything beyond the amount that must be collected as tribute, and pay for it in rice."
The specialties produced in Jeju were so precious that people on the Joseon mainland could not eat them because they were unavailable. So even if the court purchased the entire supply, it would hardly be a losing proposition.
Then someone might ask what would happen to the merchants who had previously bought goods in Jeju... but the merchants who dealt in Jeju specialties were masters of lowballing.
Most of them were the sort who would throw a fit and refuse to provide rice unless the people, already starving after having their tribute extorted and being unable to obtain rice, sold them dried abalone at a 95 percent discount.
But if the court stepped in and purchased Jeju's specialties from its people at a fair price, those merchants would lose their foothold and be wiped out.
"The Chief State Councillor once said that if the court encountered a difficult matter, it could generally solve it by seeking Kim Daebung. Indeed, he was right. You have identified the matters that both I and my officials failed to notice and even proposed solutions... You truly are Haedong's Zhuge Wuhou."
Haedong's Zhuge Wuhou... For some reason, that reminded me of the unanimous assessment King Sejong had received from his ministers.
They had called him Haedong Yao and Shun, so did that make me Haedong Kongming? I appreciated the praise, but the impure intention hidden behind it was obvious.
"Your talents and abilities far exceed those of ordinary men, so I think it would be right to promote you without applying ordinary men's standards. What do you think?"
...... I didn't hold office in order to get ahead.
"It is enough for this humble servant to serve the ancestral temple and state, and care for the people."