Chapter 64
Ming had a saying: "Northern barbarians in the north, wokou in the south."
Because the Northern Yuan, descendants of the Mongols, and the Jurchens were wreaking havoc in the north, while the south was plagued by wokou—many of them Chinese—roaming the seas as pirates.
Joseon's situation was not all that different from Ming's.
Up north it was the Jurchens, and down south it was the wokou; getting headaches over them was an everyday affair.
“I really do need to do something about those Japanese bastards. How should I handle it?”
The key to the Bang-won Law is water transport.
Among these, shipping by sea the rice and various specialty goods collected through the Bang-won Law is extremely important.
If Joseon failed to secure control of the seas, the Joseon court's tax revenue would drop by as much as thirty percent.
On top of that, since Joseon is surrounded by mountains and overland transport is extremely difficult, the pace of commercial development would be terribly slow.
That would throw a wrench into my goal of pursuing a comfortable life for all the people of Joseon.
By any means necessary, I have to find a solution and wipe out the wokou somehow.
“If it were up to me, I'd like another expedition to Tsushima, but... no. Honestly, even if we fought a war, it wouldn't mean much.”
Right after Joseon's founding, we carried out two major expeditions against Tsushima with the aim of making sure the wokou wouldn't dare come near Joseon.
In the process, we also secured the Tsushima lord's unconditional surrender and succeeded in showing the Ashikaga shogunate just how terrifying Joseon was.
But the Ashikaga shogun was nothing like a Tokugawa shogun; he had no power to control the local powers.
If you went there right now, you'd see great clans like the Shoni, Isshiki, Hosokawa, and Yamana fighting each other at the drop of a hat.
The state of things was already that bad before the Onin War even broke out; this era of Japan really must have been insane.
With the whole country in a state where civil war could erupt at any moment, there was practically no way to control the wokou no matter what they did.
Tsushima was merely one of the wokou strongholds, and at this time the Tsushima lord was basically just the hereditary head of the Tsushima clan, so even if the vassal families under him went around as wokou, he had no power at all to stop them.
Rather, it'd be like swiping rice and all sorts of precious goods from poor Tsushima, so he'd probably encourage them as long as they didn't get caught.
So pouring effort into another Tsushima expedition just for a bit of cathartic satisfaction wouldn't be worth much.
Launching another Tsushima expedition merely to ease the minds of the Joseon people for a little while would be of little use.
A more fundamental solution is what matters.
“What should I do?”
After agonizing for a long time without coming up with a solid answer, Minister of War Jo Mal-saeng came up to me.
“Kim Jeong-rang, in your opinion, how should we deal with these wokou bastards? Speak freely.”
After serving as a secret royal inspector, my rank had been raised to Senior Fifth Rank.
If those Japanese bastards hadn't been causing trouble, I'd probably be working in the Ministry of Taxation as a Junior Secretary by now...
Right before the Saganwon's approval of my appointment was finalized, the Japanese bastards invaded...
Because of that, the Saganwon decided it would be better to send me to the Ministry of War, and I ended up there as Junior Secretary of War.
“With my meager talents, it's hard for me to find a clear answer to this.”
Jo Mal-saeng kept sighing heavily.
“Well, even if you have brilliant wisdom and deep insight, these Japanese bastards have been tormenting us since the days of Goryeo. It would be hard to say how to deal with them.”
“I apologize, Minister.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. I asked because, since you're the one who laid the foundation of the Bang-won Law, I wondered whether you might already have an answer for how to deal with those Japanese bastards.”
“I will keep looking for a solution while handling the work of the Ministry of War and even after I leave the office.”
“I'm counting on Kim Jeong-rang. If you do well with this...”
A wicked smile appeared on Jo Mal-saeng's face.
A smile like the one you'd make right before pocketing a million bucks' worth of bribes.
What in the world was this guy trying to say to me with that smile?
“I'll use my influence to drag you up to a high-ranking post within fifteen years, no, ten. So if I go to the Ministry of Taxation, come work there with me; if I go to the Ministry of Personnel, come work there with me too.”
Jo Mal-saeng's wicked intentions were plain to see.
He was probably planning to volunteer for all the hard jobs himself to advance his own career, while dumping all the grunt work on me, his subordinate.
What a cruel and selfish idea.
To hand all the work he should be doing to a subordinate and just scoop up the crumbs for himself.
As expected, unlike Hwang Hui, this was the wicked idea of a man who had almost been hanged just for corruption.
“If you help me, I will unconditionally support whatever policy you try to push.”
What was funny was that, ridiculous as that man's offer was, it wasn't actually a bad offer for me.
He didn't seem to have any intention of stealing my achievements; he just wanted his due for backing me.
“Ahem, it's a bit awkward for me to say this, but you, Kim Jeong-rang, are so upright and incorruptible that you probably aren't any good at scheming. I'll fill that part in for you. I can even show you right now. Isn't there a bastard in Saganwon filing a memorial, making a fuss that it was wrong to appoint your favorite concubine's father to office? I can have him dismissed in a snap.”
By the way, the office held by the bastard submitting that memorial in Saganwon is nothing more than a mere Senior Sixth Rank post.
From what I heard, even the chief censor chewed him out, asking what he planned to do if he kept causing trouble and ended up splashing muck all over Saganwon.
In other words, Jo Mal-saeng was trying to do something as easy as pie and then make a huge show of the favor he'd done me.
The moment that thought hit me, a very good plan I hadn't realized before flashed into my head.
'Isn't this only such a serious problem because those Japanese bastards are tormenting Joseon?'
“I appreciate the Minister of War's heartfelt and warm words, but my next appointment will be decided by His Majesty, so I can't give you a definite answer.”
“...... A shame.”
“Still, I can set things up so that you earn a great merit.”
The reason Tsushima—no, the lot known as wokou—plundered Joseon was extremely simple.
There was truly no way for them to make a living.
So much so that, in 1432—about six years from now—there are records of the Tsushima lord, and even the head of the Shoni clan who was effectively his overlord, living as wokou just to make ends meet.
“As expected of Kim Jeong-rang. Well then, what is that solution?”
I whispered only a tiny part of the plan to Jo Mal-saeng.
I left out things like the relationship between the Shoni clan and the So clan that ruled Tsushima, Tsushima's tangled political strife, and the Ashikaga shogunate's pathetically weak hold over its own territory.
I only laid out the small bit of wisdom that even a brat doesn't bite the hand that feeds him.
At first Jo Mal-saeng laughed, but as I went on, his face went pale.
What I told him was borrowed from the wisdom of some country that peddled opium as a cure-all, so it was probably a little much for a Joseon official of a Confucian state.
Even so, Jo Mal-saeng didn't tell me that such an atrocity was wrong and must never be done.
Instead, he pushed me from behind.
“You say you want to interrogate those wicked Japanese pirates directly? There's nothing for it. It isn't normally allowed, but I'll specially permit it with my authority.”
“Thank you, Minister.”
**
The captured wokou were still full of energy, probably because they hadn't been tortured yet.
Another strange thing was that the Japanese they were speaking came through perfectly clear to my ears.
I had studied Japanese pretty deeply in Korea too, but I had thought the medieval Japanese of this period would be completely different, so I expected we wouldn't understand each other at all. It's truly strange.
“We may be nothing but pirates, but did you think we'd be afraid of a bunch of Joseon bookworms like you?”
“Go on, kill us if you can!”
They're shouting with all the bravado in the world, but their voices are trembling, so they must be terrified of what kind of torture they'll be put through.
I mean, they're sitting in chairs with their arms and legs tied tight; what can they do? If they're tortured, they'll just have to take it.
“Kim Hundo.”
“Yes, Junior Secretary.”
“From now on, no matter what I say, don't be surprised, and translate it exactly as it is, without adding or leaving anything out. Think of yourself as my brush. Just relay what I say calmly.”
In the Foreign Ministry, officials sometimes serve as interpreters at international events and the like.
And I once had a chance to talk with someone who did protocol interpretation at an event, and he told me this.
An interpreter is just a microphone.
They only have to relay what they heard exactly as it was.
Even if the other side said something too vile to put into words, they must still convey it exactly as it was.
Even if a government official from our own country made a terrible slip of the tongue, and it was obvious that the blunder would badly damage national interests and cause a diplomatic disaster.
But because Joseon doesn't ask interpreters to do that kind of thing, I know there are many cases where the message doesn't get through properly.
So I gave the interpreter a warning first, then opened my mouth.
“If you want to live, then honestly tell me why you plundered Joseon.”
If I got the information I wanted out of their mouths and then used these bastards on that basis?
Wouldn't that be killing two birds with one stone?