Chapter 76
One of the most important skills a civil servant needs is the ability to cooperate on the job.
In truth, interdepartmental cooperation matters in any organization, but given the nature of civil servants, who must carry out their work according to fixed rules and procedures, the degree to which it is required is even greater.
As a civil servant of Joseon, I came to the Hanseongbu office today to request cooperation in promoting a new policy called ‘making saltpeter fields’ for the dramatic increase of gunpowder production.
“Left Deputy Mayor, I am Kim Daebung, a junior secretary of the Ministry of War. I have committed the rudeness of asking to see you so suddenly today, so please be generous and forgive me.”
“What is there to forgive? I know it’s because of urgent official business. Hanseongbu is a government office in Hanyang too, so how could I not understand that much? Don’t worry about it.”
The Hanseongbu office and the provincial governor’s office of Gyeonggi Province are both in Hanyang.
So they count as civil servants working in Hanyang—neither local civil servants like those at Seoul City Hall nor central government officials.
If he is the Left Deputy Mayor, that would make him, in Seoul terms, the deputy mayor, and by rank a senior second-rank high official, so there is no way he wouldn’t know about the series of events that rocked the court.
“Thank you for understanding. Since this is urgent and important, I’ll start by telling you why I came. To make saltpeter, we need human waste. So I’d like to receive Hanseongbu’s manpower and budget to gather it. Could you help me?”
Even if I’m one of the more capable people among the fifth-rank officials, showing up unannounced to meet the Hanseongbu Left Deputy Mayor without even setting an appointment in advance is rude.
Joseon is, by tacit agreement, a place where if you don’t observe proper manners, people can crack your skull open and no one will object, and on the village level it is often the case that they beat some rude bastard to the brink of death as a lesson.
So while it wasn’t exactly right for me to show up at the Left Deputy Mayor’s office out of the blue and ask for help... right now I had the protection of the Minister of War.
Not a mere second-rank Minister of War, but a first-rank Minister of War—in other words, a deputy-prime-minister-level defense minister—was backing me.
The Hanseong Left Deputy Mayor probably already knew this.
And the work I was asking for now was tied to increased gunpowder output, the core of Joseon’s national defense.
If you don’t help me, you’re a traitor right there.
“If it’s a matter necessary to increase gunpowder production, then of course I should provide whatever help I can. So what do you need me to do?”
“I need dirt-collecting troops, carts, and wooden barrels to gather feces, urine, soil from forests and mountains, straw, and ash.”
“How much do you need, specifically?”
To gather all the waste from Hanyang, where a population of more than 100,000 lives, on a regular basis, you would need hundreds of carts, and workers equal in number to the carts.
And even if straw could be gathered roughly enough, forest and mountain humus is not easy to collect...
At minimum, the manpower needed to cover all of Hanyang would be around 300 people.
Of course, there were already people working as dirt-collecting troops before, so the actual number of additional recruits would be less than 300...
Still, even if I mobilized all the slaves, soldiers, and runners in Hanseongbu, filling that number would not be easy.
“His Majesty said that first we should build a system to collect the waste from all of Hanyang, and then gradually extend it to every large town at the dohobu level and above. So after running the numbers in advance, I determined that gathering waste and the like in Hanyang would require at least 500 people.”
500 people is, in fact, a complete exaggeration.
But this kind of thing has to be made big at the start.
Then my superior will tell me not to say such ridiculous things and cut it down, and we settle on a compromise while reducing it little by little.
“I can give you a hundred carts if need be, but as for manpower, even if you combine all the runners, soldiers, and public slaves I can spare, the absolute maximum is forty.”
“Could you lend me a few more carts and people?”
“...I can’t give you any more carts... If I really stretch it, I could probably scrape together forty-five people.”
I let out a sigh to show my disappointment.
Then I bowed my head to the Left Deputy Mayor.
“Left Deputy Mayor, making gunpowder is a major affair of the state.”
“The Ministry of War’s gunpowder division... no, come to think of it, the Ministry of War probably doesn’t have much manpower to spare either.”
“The Minister of War has already mobilized the maximum number of people the ministry can use for making gunpowder. Please, sir. Help me just a little more.”
“I’m a Joseon official too, so of course I’d like to roll up both sleeves and help with making gunpowder. But if we squeeze Hanseongbu dry, this is all the manpower there is. What can I do about that? Go ask another office for help.”
“......I have already gone around to every other office. We’ve reached this point, so there’s nothing to be done. I’ll have to ask for help from other towns nearby.”
At the mention of other towns, the Left Deputy Mayor’s eyes changed instantly.
They looked as if they could shoot a person dead with their gaze alone.
Come to think of it, if someone said this to me, I’d get angry too.
No matter how much time passes, a civil servant, when they judge that something is not within their department’s responsibility, immediately hands it off to another division.
At the same time, if it is within their department’s responsibility and another division intrudes, they’ll glare with both eyes and push it back.
The reason is simple.
Because if you get dragged into a case whose responsibility is unclear even once, not only the later responsibility and clean-up, but also every similar future case, all become your department’s burden.
“......What did you just say?”
“Isn’t producing saltpeter for making gunpowder a great matter of the state? Then we should carry it out even if we have to borrow people from other towns. I will speak to His Excellency the Hanseong Mayor through the Ministry of War and ask for cooperation.”
This is exactly why I came to the Hanseong Left Deputy Mayor, the number-two man of Hanseongbu, rather than the Hanseong Mayor.
The Hanseong Mayor held the same rank as the ministers of the Six Ministries, and in position he was a senior second-rank official who had been pushed back from promotion to State Councillor, like a colonel who gave up on being promoted to general.
So if he found something distasteful, he could even ignore what the Minister of War said.
But the Hanseong Left Deputy Mayor was a second-rank official, and depending on the circumstances, he could move into an important post like the minister’s seat at any time.
In other words, this was someone who couldn’t ignore the Ministry of War and couldn’t ignore his direct superior, the Hanseong Mayor, either.
'That makes it a little easier to steer him the way I want.'
“But come to think of it. It’s not as if there are no other methods at all.”
“What method are you talking about?”
“There are a lot of bad elements in Hanyang, aren’t there? Gamblers, hoodlums, people who do nothing but drink all day and cause trouble.”
Because Korea has CCTV installed almost to obsessive levels, if you leave a laptop in a café and go to the bathroom, no one will steal it.
In European countries like France, by contrast, it would be common sense for someone to steal it within five minutes.
But the common point of all the contrasting countries is that the thugs meet other thugs and draw knives for turf wars, and they seize every chance to do all sorts of other bad things too.
And that goes doubly in Joseon, where there are no CCTVs and maintaining public order is half left to the people themselves.
The tough guys in Hanyang usually keep things from becoming a big problem because they have to watch out for Joseon’s Ten Divisions of the central army.
But even so, they sometimes cause serious problems, and they always show off their presence as potential criminals.
If you draft such guys and use them as laborers to shovel excrement, who would hate that more than they would?
“You mean mobilize the Chungmu Guard to beat the hoodlums down? So we’re going to round up those bastards, make them produce gunpowder, and put them to shoveling shit.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The Hanseong Left Deputy Mayor fell into deep thought.
However, his hesitation was brief.
“It’s a matter for the country, so there’s nothing to be done. And it’s not just any matter, it’s making gunpowder, after all. If there aren’t enough people, then we should borrow soldiers and slaves from the neighboring towns and get it done.”
“My apologies, sir.”
“Since we’re doing it anyway, mobilize the Chungmu Guard that protects Hanseongbu. If we can round up all the Hanyang hoodlums this way, that would be excellent. Let those who spent their days doing lawless nonsense work for the country instead. All right, I’ll write up your proposal myself and submit it to His Majesty as a memorial.”
And the next day, His Majesty King Sejong, who has a particularly keen interest in gunpowder, immediately accepted my proposal.
**
I went out with the Chungmu Guard soldiers to the back alleys of Hanyang, or more precisely, the slums.
Poverty is not a crime, but those who drink and disturb public order are unmistakably criminals.
And Joseon really likes reforming people like that.
“Hmm... exactly what are you bastards gathered here for at this hour?”
Just as in Korea, gambling is strictly illegal in Joseon as well.
Of course, I can’t catch every kind of gambling, and I have no intention of cracking down on something light like Go-Stop, where people just play casually for 10 won per point.
But guys who gather during everyone else’s working hours to drink and gamble, gnawing away at their families and society, should all be drafted on the spot.
In Joseon, anyone hanging around like that at this hour is either a future gang member or an active gang member.
The ones who were caught, sensing the ominous premonition closing in on them, did not answer me and immediately started to run.
“Shit, run! If they catch us, we’re dead!”
The ones who were caught, sensing the ominous premonition closing in on them, did not answer me and immediately started to run.
As if that would matter, though. What are you going to do, you punks.
A bunch of hoodlums gambling in broad daylight are nothing more than fleas in front of the central army, even if they run.
“I’ll give one mal of rice for each of those guys. Catch them all and give them the chance to work for His Majesty!”
Once a reward of one mal of rice was put on the line, both the military police and the soldiers moved faster.
And they began chasing the bastards desperately.
The ones who were caught were beaten first.
“Aagh, please spare me. I was just gambling... I was only gambling...”
“I’m sorry, I’ll live properly from now on. I’ll become a decent commoner.”
Yeah, I’d rather believe King Sejong would quit meat than believe you guys.
People are not easily changed, so how could you possibly reform yourselves on your own?
“Welcome to the dirt-collecting corps, where you voluntarily signed up to receive His Majesty’s grace!”
Of course, none of the bastards caught here would have actually wanted to do the job of shoveling shit voluntarily.
But soon enough, they’d be volunteering to enlist.
Because to encourage their voluntary enlistment, His Majesty had
granted the Chungmu Guard soldiers permission to give a bit of ‘physical education’ to correct their rotten attitudes.
“Under His Majesty’s grace, you will now become respectable heads of households who earn their own living.”