King Sejong's Trap (1)

In the military, there are certain assignments you have to go through if you want to rise.

To earn stars, you have to pass through command posts like platoon leader, company commander, and battalion commander, as well as staff positions in a regiment or division.

The same is true in Joseon: if you want to become a high-ranking court official, you have to go through a number of good posts.

I mean posts such as officials of the Three Offices, scholars of the Hall of Worthies, local magistrates, and so on.

I had already gone through all the posts needed to become a high-ranking official, so I had no reason to be fixated on going to the State Council.

“If I can use my meager ability to serve the Royal Ancestral Shrine and State Altar, then I’d be fine spending my whole life drifting through the lowest of posts.”

“If another official had said that, it would have sounded like nothing more than false humility. But when our Kim Jeong-rang says it, it feels completely sincere. The same words mean something entirely different depending on who says them.”

Unlike when I first entered government service, these days my dream had changed to working only until retirement age, then moving back to my hometown and living happily with Winter.

Ever since His Majesty King Sejong decided that overtime was one of the rotten practices poisoning public service and cut all officials’ working hours down to about eight or nine hours, the work environment had become much more comfortable...

Still, anyone would dream of working for a while and then retiring...