King Sejong's Trap (2)

Sejong was climbing Bugaksan with Yi Bang-won again today.

When he first started hiking, once fifteen minutes—one gak—had passed after the climb began, he would pant like someone about to gasp his last.

But after months of steady climbing, his stamina had improved little by little, and now he had enough endurance to hike while holding a conversation.

"Father."

"Yes, Doya. Just a little farther and we'll reach the summit. Hang in there a little longer."

"In the past, just making it to the summit left me breathless and exhausted, but now it isn't so hard even when I climb all the way up."

"Truly, I am proud of you. Isn't this all thanks to Kim Daebung, who risked his life to offer me the earnest advice to take care of your health?"

Even in the twenty-first century, a president's health is top-secret information.

It must be kept confidential just like various military facilities and diplomatic documents that are treated as classified for national security.

So security is tightened to prevent leaks not only about the president's chronic illnesses, but even something as minor as a mere cold.

The only exception is when he is on the verge of death; that is only when it is judged that the public must be informed, and there is no helping it.

Joseon was the same: the king's illness would be disclosed to his subjects only when succession to the throne had to be prepared without delay.

Therefore, for someone who was not even the royal physician to worry about Sejong's health was the sort of remark that could be regarded as treason...

Kim Daebung had truly risked his own neck to offer Sejong his candid counsel.

From Yi Bang-won's perspective, Kim Daebung was a benefactor who had risked his life to save his son Sejong.

"Yesterday the royal physician said that although there had once been clear signs of sogal in your body, now, thanks to losing weight and your bones and sinews having become firm, the condition had disappeared from you entirely. Isn't this all because you've been training so hard by hiking?"

For a moment, Sejong thought, 'Since my body has become healthier, how about reducing the frequency of our hikes a little from now on?'

The words had almost risen to his throat, but he simply couldn't bring himself to tell his father, who was smiling so brightly with such joy, that he wanted to reduce the number of hikes.

It was absolutely not because, after he suggested it and got steamrolled by logic, he feared the "insulting the sovereign" penalty would be applied and some other exercise would be added on top of hiking.

It was restraint born of filial devotion—the kind that made him unable, as a son, to dare forbid something his father enjoyed.

"Father, today I learned from the memorial submitted by the Chief State Councillor that Kim Daebung is thinking of resigning."

"Kim Daebung is considering resigning? Then I suppose he's going to take direct action again to root out some corrupt official possessed by the ghost of the Wang clan or to abolish a bad policy."

Kim Daebung is the kind of subject who, more than anyone, delights in devoting himself to the royal ancestral shrine and the state.

If he weren't that kind of man, he could never have risked his life to submit a memorial opposing the circulation of coinage, the long-cherished project Yi Bang-won was trying to realize for the sake of the royal ancestral shrine and the state.

So anyone who had not heard the reason Jo Mal-saeng had given would have no choice but to think that way.

Sejong, too, if he had not seen only the line Hwang Hui wrote—'Kim Daebung intends to resign like Zhang Liang'—would have thought that Kim Daebung's plan to submit a resignation memorial was meant to push some other matter forward.

"Once he finishes what he must do, Kim Daebung wishes to leave in an instant, just as Zhang Liang did after serving Emperor Gaozu."

Yi Bang-won's expression instantly hardened.

Kim Daebung was, of course, the sort of subject who should devote himself to Joseon until the day he died—Hwang Hui, Maeng Sa-seong, Jo Mal-saeng, no, wait... in any case, that was the kind of subject he was.

For such a man to want to leave like Zhang Liang—it was a shock like being clouted over the head with a cudgel in the middle of the night.

"If you look at what Kim Daebung has shown so far, you can see that day and night he does nothing but serve the royal ancestral shrine and the state, and seek to put the people at ease. There's no way such a man would think of resigning and retiring to his hometown."

"Isn't it because Kim Daebung has accumulated too many merits?"

At those words, Yi Bang-won had no choice but to nod.

Kim Daebung's accomplishments were by no means at the level of overturning the very foundation of the nation.

To reach that level, he would have to be on the level of Yi Seong-gye, who these days is even praised by historians as a "great commander" greater than Admiral Yi Sun-sin.

Yi Seong-gye was also the very man who brought Goryeo down, but he was likewise a national hero who saved Goryeo from the brink of ruin more than once.

But this merely meant that his merits were not yet at a level where they could overturn the country; if he were a retainer serving a monarch like Seonjo, the king of lightning-fast retreat, or the thieving Zhu Yuanzhang...

He had accomplished enough to make it unsurprising if he were purged at any time.

So Yi Bang-won and Sejong's thoughts could only flow in that direction.

'His accomplishments are so great that, just in case, he wants to step down.'

"Kim Daebung's merits may be enormous, but I am not some thief. I know Kim Daebung's sincerity; how could I possibly discard him once his work is done?"

Zhu Yuanzhang, that man purged as many as ten thousand people, including meritorious retainers and even the nine clans of those retainers.

But Yi Bang-won only killed those who had run amok enough to deserve death, regardless of whether they were family or not.

The men of the Min clan acted far too arrogantly just because they were in-laws of the royal family.

Min Mugu said things like, 'Shouldn't we kill all the other sons except the Crown Prince?' and Sim On, Sejong's father-in-law, behaved brazenly by choosing for himself the people who could meet Sejong the moment it was decided that Sejong would become Crown Prince.

They were openly stirring things up, wanting to dominate politics through their in-law status, so he had them killed to strengthen royal authority and stabilize the state.

"But his worry is not entirely without basis, so I should soothe him well and rid him of his unease. If, as king, I cannot dispel the anxieties of a subject who vows to break his bones and grind his body to dust and serve with dog-and-horse devotion for the royal ancestral shrine and state, how shameful would that be?"

Ministers like Hwang Hui or Jo Mal-saeng have all sorts of corruption and weak points pouring out of them the moment you shake them.

So all he had to do was send a secret letter or secretly instruct the Office of Inspector-General to impeach them for those wrongdoings, then step in as the king and block it himself, and the problem would be solved.

By bestowing the royal favor of personally stopping the impeachment process, he could keep them laboring for him until they died, and even give them the assurance that "as long as you keep working at court, you'll be safe."

But Kim Daebung had no flaws.

Unlike Jo Mal-saeng or Hwang Hui, who would turn up all sorts of shady dealings even under a cursory investigation, he was the type who produced only good stories the more thoroughly you searched him.

Yi Bang-won sighed inwardly.

'It would be nice if he had at least some weakness.'

But in the history without Kim Daebung, Sejong—who had driven all his subjects to the brink of overwork like graduate students and was himself working 120 hours a week—suddenly came up with a brilliant alternative.

Namely, that if there were no weaknesses, the king could simply give one as a gift himself.

"Father, I have heard that Kim Daebung cherishes his beloved concubine dearly. If he values her that much, why else would he have opened the path to office for her father, who was once nothing more than a merchant?"

The process by which Kim Daebung turned Kim Mandeok into a yangban official followed a duly lawful procedure.

Just as there were cases where even slaves like Jang Yeong-sil and Park Ja-cheong were appointed to high office if they had talent, it was only natural for a merchant to enter government when the court needed a merchant.

If anything, it would be strange if it weren't so.

So this alone was not enough to give him grounds to thwart Kim Daebung's resignation, but Sejong could build on this fact and come up with the following method.

"Also, Kim Daebung is already past the age of twenty, at twenty-two, yet he still has no principal wife because he has not properly held a wedding. According to rumors going around, the reason is that his concubine, having not even borne him a son, would find her position uncomfortable if he took a legal wife."

"It seems they love each other even more than I and Wongyeong do."

Yi Bang-won was a man who was extremely fond of women, and Queen Wongyeong was fiercely jealous, so the two often quarreled because of it.

But apart from that, whenever Yi Bang-won was in danger, Queen Wongyeong always stepped forward before anyone else, loving him enough to throw herself into harm's way to protect him.

Because of this, Yi Bang-won even recalled that when he was young, he had owed Lady Min a great deal.

"I have heard that the reason Kim Daebung took his concubine was because her father was not a yangban, but the situation has now changed. That concubine's father, Kim Mandeok, has long since become a yangban, and Kim Daebung still has no principal wife, so..."

A smile appeared at the corners of Yi Bang-won's mouth.

By ritual propriety and social hierarchy alike, it was impossible for Kim Daebung himself to make his own concubine his principal wife.

And it would also be difficult to petition the king to do that.

But if he, as king, knew that the two loved each other and used his royal prerogative to raise Kim Gyeoul to the position of principal wife...?

Kim Daebung would receive an act of grace he could not refuse... and it would give him a reason to serve the royal ancestral shrine and state, just like Hwang Hui or Jo Mal-saeng.

It would solve the problems caused by the gap in rank between a loving man and woman, and it would also put shackles on a subject who must toil like a slave for Joseon's endless development, keeping him from resigning...

What could be better than that for Joseon, for Yi Bang-won, and for Sejong alike?

"Father, how about raising Kim Daebung's concubine to principal wife?"

A smile appeared at the corners of Yi Bang-won's mouth.

He had always wanted to repay the man who had made his son healthy, enriched Joseon's finances, and greatly improved the lives of the common people as well.

But he wasn't especially interested in wealth, and he wasn't the type to crave promotion either, so Yi Bang-won had been frustrated at not being able to find a proper way to reward him handsomely.

Now, thanks to Sejong's suggestion, he could finally solve the problem that had been bothering him, and he was overjoyed.

"With you this wise, your father truly has nothing to worry about."

To Yi Bang-won, a son who resolved such a major concern on his own was unbelievably admirable.

So from now on, he thought, all he needed to do was manage his son's body even better.

"And now that we've built up a decent foundation of stamina, starting tomorrow let's train not just by hiking, but also with horseback riding and archery. We can alternate them. This isn't because I want to take you hunting; it's for your body."

"Really?"

Rather than answer, Yi Bang-won quickened his pace and climbed the mountain.