Chapter 73
Since King Sejong was dragged off by Yi Bang-won and made to climb Bukaksan every day, all the officials of Joseon were now given evenings to themselves.
On holidays they naturally rested, and on weekdays, unless something urgent came up, they were required to leave right on time.
On top of that, working hours were adjusted too, so while in spring and summer they used to have to work a full twelve hours a day to leave on time... now an average eight- to nine-hour workday had taken root.
"I'm home."
Gyeoul came out to greet me when I came in.
"Welcome home, my lord."
"Yes. I got back safely. Anything happen at home?"
In the afternoon, we received twenty dried abalones, five geun of soy-marinated crab, and one seom of dried persimmons sent by the people of Jinhae Hyeon.
"The people of Jinhae really can't be stopped. I keep telling them they don't have to send anything..."
There's a joke that if the dog at a Minister of State's house dies, people come to pay their respects, but if the Minister of State dies, no one comes.
But if you think about it, that joke isn't necessarily wrong.
When the Minister of State is alive, he holds tremendous power, so if the dog in his household were to have a funeral, you'd have to show up in force and make sure you looked good to him...
But once the Minister himself is dead, he no longer has any influence, so why would anyone go out of their way to attend his funeral?
Likewise, the moment I stopped being magistrate of Jinhae Hyeon, the people of Jinhae Hyeon had no reason at all to curry favor with me by offering gifts like this...
And yet, even though no one told them to and I'd kept making it clear that I was refusing, they kept sending these precious things anyway.
"Didn't every person in Jinhae Hyeon benefit from Your Lordship in one way or another? So they honor you, the one who granted them that grace, just as they would honor their parents."
It's troublesome beyond words.
I'm the type of person who wants nothing more than to resign at the right time and retire to the countryside to live in peace...
But when people sincerely express their gratitude like this, I can't help but start thinking I should work just a little longer for their sake.
"Let's share some with your father too. He's often said lately that work at the Ministry of Taxation has been hard, so we ought to look after his health as well."
"My father often comes to see me and says this: that if he had known it would be like this, he never would have gone into government service."
"Really? From what I've heard, on the day you first reported to the Ministry of Taxation in your official robes, you stood in front of the office and cried your eyes out because you were so happy."
"Where did you hear that?"
"Pyeongsi Office deputy Choe Ja-myeong (Choe Man-ri) said so."
He apparently bawled so hard that only after Choe Man-ri patted Kim Mandeok on the back and had him wash his face could he properly report to work.
Your father-in-law probably never imagined this story would make its way all the way to Gyeoul, did he?
"Last night Father sent word that, thanks to His Majesty's grace, he had been specially promoted from Junior Ninth Rank to Junior Eighth Rank. He also said he'd come by tomorrow to catch up with you. What do you think he'll say if I bring up this story then?"
"That would be fun."
"Ever since he became an official, he always acts so solemn in front of me, so I never imagined something like that happened on his first day of work."
The father-in-law who had been so happy about entering office had, at some point, started complaining that the work was hard and that he had only taken the post for nothing.
I didn't tell Gyeoul the details.
In truth, Kim Mandeok was being buried under a massive pile of work from Minister Min Gye-saeng and the other officials of the Ministry of Taxation.
The good thing was that this wasn't some kind of dead-end assignment, where they shoved work onto him just because he'd gotten lucky and landed a government post despite not even being a yangban...
Because he was from a merchant background, they were loading him up with every task in the areas Kim Mandeok knew best and could handle, so he was being worked to the bone.
When I went to the Ministry of War last time, he even asked me to save him.
Of course, since Father-in-law had chosen to volunteer for office—no, to volunteer for government service—I had only given him the minimum help.
But when I heard that he had suddenly been promoted from Junior Ninth Rank to Junior Eighth Rank...
"...Prepare some restorative medicine for Father-in-law."
"What do you mean by that?"
"He's getting on in years, so I'm saying we should prepare restorative medicine in advance so he can maintain his health. That's all."
I heard that in a month some officials would be dispatched because of the matter of building a waegwan in Jeongui Hyeon.
I guess one of them is probably our father-in-law.
Otherwise, there'd be no reason to raise his rank this abruptly.
"Ah, and... that..."
Gyeoul's face flushed red as an apple while she stammered.
Could she be pregnant?
Well, we had worked that hard at it, so it wouldn't be strange if there were some good news soon...
I guess it's about time I became a father, too.
"It's been over a year since our wedding, and I was worried we still hadn't conceived, so I went to a temple. The head monk there said it would be good to try a talisman... so I bought one."
"What good would a talisman even do? This is something that can be taken slowly."
"You may not think relying on supernatural nonsense like that is a good idea, my lord, but I want to have your child as soon as possible..."
I should probably take a proper wife someday, too.
Up until now, I'd kept putting it off by making every excuse I could, but even that trick has its limits.
If this keeps up, King Sejong may end up lamenting that I don't have a proper wife and arranging a marriage for me himself.
I want to have at least one son for Gyeoul.
Come to think of it, I don't seem to be quite that comfortable after all.
"I'm sorry."
"You don't need to apologize, my lord. It's my fault for not being able to have a child."
"We're both young and healthy, so we'll have a child soon enough. There's no need to rush."
The mood was clearly starting to turn that way, but one thing kept bothering me.
Our household servant No. 1, Dolsoe, was nowhere to be seen.
He couldn't have gone off on vacation to go have fun somewhere, so why wasn't he in sight?
"By the way, why can't I see Dolsoe?"
"Dolsoe drank water from the well near the house yesterday without boiling it, and then got an upset stomach. So he's resting in his room right now. Jangdol Abeom said it wasn't serious enough to threaten his life, so you don't need to worry... but I'm still a little worried."
In the twenty-first century, almost nobody dies from diarrhea anymore, but in Joseon, if you caught it wrong, people could die off one after another.
If something like cholera ever spread through Hanyang, it wouldn't be strange for thousands to die.
Come to think of it, even if a child were born between Gyeoul and me, if they happened to catch an infectious disease by mistake...
The child would die young.
A child can somehow get over losing a parent and keep living, but a parent who loses a child has to carry that grief in their heart for the rest of their life.
But in Joseon, where it was so common for parents to lose their children first, you could say people had developed some immunity to this kind of tragedy...
"Is Gapseok there?"
"Yes, sir."
"Right now, go and bring a nearby physician to check on Dolsoe, and no matter how much the medicine costs, have him make the best medicine possible and give it to him."
Taking good care of the servants in my house is the same as protecting my own wealth and safety.
The servants aren't my family, but they're lifelong employees I'll have to keep seeing for the rest of my life, so this much is only natural.
"I'm hungry, so let's eat first."
The night is long. To get through a long night well, stamina is essential.
**
While talking with Gyeoul last night, I had a lot on my mind.
Since I'd spent more than twenty years living in Joseon as well, I'd become very numb to the concept of hygiene.
I tell the people close to me to wash every day, and whenever possible I keep stressing that water should be boiled before drinking...
But even when I see dog poop strewn all over the streets of Hanyang as I report for duty, I don't really feel any sense of urgency; I just pass it off as natural.
And when I see well water that isn't clear and has some impurities mixed in, I only tell them, "The water isn't clean, so don't drink it as it is—boil it first." It's been a long time since I felt any need to figure out why the well water was contaminated.
I'd become numb to hygiene from living in Joseon.
If I put it in the nicest possible way, it meant I'd become that familiar with Joseon; objectively, it meant I'd started accepting things that were wrong as if they were normal.
"The streets are really filthy."
Gapseok tilted his head at my muttering.
To Gapseok, who had lived in Joseon all his life, everything was normal, so he probably couldn't understand what I meant when I said something was dirty.
In modern Europe, when people got dirty from sweating, they would just change out of the sweat-soaked clothes; they didn't even have the idea that they needed to bathe and wash the grime off their bodies.
And those idiots even firmly believed that bathing would actually weaken the body and make them sick.
"How does it look to you? Answer honestly."
Gapseok hesitated for a moment, then answered.
"Isn't this fairly clean?"
"Do you really think this street is clean?"
"I've been to Yangju and Gwacheon, a bit away from Hanyang, and their streets were much dirtier than Hanyang's. So I'm saying this is clean enough."
"I see."
I kept my tone calm, but inside I was seething.
As soon as I reported for duty, I went straight to one of my direct superiors, an assistant minister in the Ministry of War.
"Assistant Minister, I'd like to take a look at the place where saltpeter is made. May I step out for a bit?"
The assistant minister in the Ministry of War tilted his head when he heard me.
"The place where saltpeter is made reeks of a horribly foul, disgusting smell. Are you really saying you want to go there?"
"Didn't the Minister of War say Joseon needed a lot more gunpowder? So I want to see firsthand how the saltpeter-making process works and how much technical skill we have, then look for a new method."
"......I know you're exceptionally talented, but..."
The assistant minister cut himself off and sighed.
"Yes, even someone as capable as you probably sometimes doesn't feel like working and wants to go look around somewhere else. It's fine if you go there and even stop by another place afterward, but don't stay out too late."
The smell at the gunpowder production site was so strong that he must have thought I was just making an excuse to tour that horrible place and then go somewhere else... and that wasn't an unreasonable guess.
But I was going because I really wanted to take a close look at the gunpowder-making process.
And in that process, I'd really just happen to discover how to make a "saltpeter bed."
"Thank you, sir."