Chapter 89
Wang Zhen looked at me as if I were ridiculous.
If I hadn’t been the envoy secretary from Joseon, he looked ready to say right in my face, 'Did some Joseon barbarian take the wrong medicine or something?'
Even for someone as famously gentle and kind as me, that kind of look hurts a little.
I'll have to soothe this pain by planting more wokou along the southern coast of the Ming Dynasty.
It eases my pain, and Joseon becomes even freer from wokou—how wonderful is that.
'Good for Joseon, good for me.'
But misunderstandings clear up quickly if you use a slightly exaggerated compliment filled with sincere feeling.
The fact that I'm kind and good is something even our Gyeoul, my father-in-law, and all the officials who worked with me in the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of War would acknowledge.
This fellow Wang Zhen will soon learn just how warm-hearted I am.
O Great British Empire, you who once tried to fund your war effort by selling opium when you were broke, only to fail at that too—please grant this servant who wishes to admire and follow you a tiny bit of power (lies).
“Why would a distinguished envoy secretary from Joseon take an interest in the handwriting of a lowly eunuch like me?”
You will soon become the crown prince's tutor, in accordance with the Xuande Emperor's wish to strengthen imperial authority by bolstering the eunuch faction.
But fate plays a trick here, and the Xuande Emperor ends up kicking the bucket when his son, the crown prince, is only nine years old.
Then not only will the greatest authority and honor a subject can obtain in the Ming—that of the emperor's tutor—be yours, but the massive eunuch organization, which even holds military inspection authority, will be riding on your back too.
And the Zhengtong Emperor will become a fool who does nothing but play before puberty, and after puberty becomes obsessed only with women.
You'll end up playing the role of the Ten Attendants, the byword for rotten eunuchs from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, to a T.
So I'm only laying on a little flattery in advance; it's not as if I have any other hidden motives.
'In other words, you're a blue-chip stock that is certain to multiply thousands of times over in the future.'
“My name is Kim Daebung. In Joseon, I hold the junior fifth-rank post of Jeongrang in the Ministry of War.”
“You are very young and have risen high indeed. For someone like you to show such great favor to a lowly eunuch like me is terribly bewildering.”
If you convert my rank to Ming standards, I'm nothing more than a seventh-rank nobody, but taking everything into account, 'junior fifth rank' is by no means a low office at my age.
For someone who began official life at the lowest ninth rank, it takes roughly 13 to 15 years of service to get there.
Once I revealed my status, Wang Zhen raised his guard against me a little more, but...
From here on, I'm going on the offensive to clear up this misunderstanding. Grit your teeth and hang on, Wang Zhen.
"My own career in office hasn't exactly been smooth sailing either. But don't worry. I have no intention of holding up a busy man like you with a long-winded tale. So let's skip over the unimportant bits."
The eunuch organization has a hive mind that revolves around the emperor; to put it simply, it's like an ant colony.
You can assume that almost everything a eunuch knows naturally makes its way to the emperor.
Conversely, if something the emperor knows doesn't need to be treated as confidential, a eunuch can easily learn it too.
What kind of person I am will be quickly figured out through the intelligence network the eunuchs have built.
What I say will spread among the eunuchs through Wang Zhen and soon reach the emperor's ears as well.
"I am an envoy from a small country, come to congratulate His Majesty on his accession to the throne."
"Even a humble eunuch like me knows that much."
Still prickly, are we? Fine. Let's see how far that gets you.
"On the occasion of sending out the embassy, His Majesty said that building friendly relations with the Great Ming was Joseon's path to survival. So now that I have come to the Ming, I must, as a Joseon subject, gather information about the Great Ming, and I must also work to earn even greater trust from His Majesty the Emperor."
Technically, for Joseon to come to the Forbidden City and gather Ming information through interpreters or laborers who know a bit of Chinese (merchants in disguise), and even to smuggle goods, is illegal.
However, when Joseon wants to learn about the Ming and make a profit through trade, there is no real reason for the Ming to stop it, so they just look the other way.
So even if I dig up information to build friendly relations with the Ming, there's no real reason to be intimidated.
'As long as it isn't military secrets, I won't say anything.'
"In the process, I heard about a eunuch named Wang Zhen."
"How were people judging a eunuch like me?"
Wang Zhen, who had been wary of me until just a moment ago, changed his attitude, perked up his ears, and asked with keen interest.
Most eunuchs enter this path because their families have no way to make a living and are forcibly castrated by their parents, but this fellow was unusual: he chose to become a eunuch of his own free will.
The reason he became a eunuch was pure madness: rather than stay in the county as a schoolmaster and be called 'teacher', he wanted to become a eunuch, gain power, wealth, and glory, and become a man recognized by everyone.
For someone like him, there was no way he wouldn't care about how others judge him.
“The civil officials say that a eunuch strutting around because he can read a few characters is a vile traitor of the world bound to become one of the Ten Attendants someday. They didn't hesitate to sneer, saying that anyone so greedy for power that he would cut off his own genitals and become a eunuch would be nothing but trash.”
As someone who knows the future, I can say the civil officials' prediction was dead on.
Because this madman, who willingly made himself a eunuch after reaching adulthood in pursuit of wealth, status, and glory, would eventually ruin the Ming completely.
That brought them to the point where even Beijing was on the verge of falling, but at that moment, the Ming's ill-fated brilliant general Yu Qian barely managed to stop it, sparing the Ming from being split in half.
“On the other hand, among the eunuchs, there are many who call you teacher and respect you because you can read and write.”
“As expected, the civil officials don't like me after all.”
“I think it's simply that they failed to recognize your true worth.”
This, too, is sincere.
If this guy had been a Joseon schemer instead of a Ming eunuch, I would have found some way to make him die of natural causes and send him off to the next world.
A lunatic like this has to cause chaos while staying in the Ming in order to do something useful—namely, create an opening for Joseon to recover its beautiful territory.
If he were in Joseon, he'd meet some twisted Sejo-like bastard whose desire for recognition had gone crooked, and he'd become trash who would lead the charge in every kind of evil deed.
Wang Zhen tilted his head after hearing my evaluation and asked.
"Then how do you see me, sir?"
"You will become a man like Sima Qian someday."
At the mention of Sima Qian, Wang Zhen's pupils shook. Then a smile spread across his lips.
His grin stretched so wide the corners nearly reached his ears.
But if I were to say the wrong thing here, the foundation I'd built up so far would collapse in an instant.
I need to keep my wits about me.
"You and Sima Qian have remarkably similar life paths. Of course, strictly speaking, Sima Qian offered loyal remonstrance and was unjustly subjected to castration as punishment. You, on the other hand, lowered yourself personally and became a eunuch in order to pursue your own goals."
As someone who studied history, honestly, comparing someone of Sima Qian's stature—a legend of East Asian history and a great statesman—to trash like Wang Zhen... does sting my conscience a lot.
But as a Joseon official, I uphold the British Empire's collective wisdom and imperialism, and just as those bastards dressed colonial plunder up as the 'white man's burden'...
For Joseon's glory, I can do anything if it means justifiable revenge on China, which tormented and exploited countless Joseon people.
"But Sima Qian endured every kind of hardship in order to record history properly, just as his father had instructed. As a result, he left behind the book called 'Records of the Grand Historian,' which can be said to contain his whole life, and Sima Qian's name has shone for more than a thousand years."
"Those words are indeed correct."
Wang Zhen had once served as a schoolmaster at the county office.
By twenty-first-century standards, you could think of it as having been a professor at a local four-year university.
That is why someone like him could hold the position of gukrang (the crown prince's literary tutor) for nearly ten years.
Even if the Xuande Emperor wanted to strengthen imperial authority by empowering eunuchs, he couldn't keep the title of 'teacher' for long in the hands of someone who wasn't properly literate.
"And to my mind, you will be the same. Isn't that true in practice as well? Right now, without an official rank, you are already teaching writing directly to many eunuchs in the Naeseodang. Why do you think that is? Isn't it because His Majesty recognized the patriotic devotion in your heart and your scholarly attainments, making it possible?"
“Sir.”
Tears began to fall from Wang Zhen's eyes, drop by drop.
Right, I had lifted up a guy who volunteered to be castrated just because he wanted recognition to this extent...
It would be enough to make anyone cry. I understand completely.
"When you have time, could you write me a piece of calligraphy that reflects your convictions?"
“Of course, sir. Even though you are a subject from a foreign land, you have looked kindly upon me and praised me so highly. How could I possibly refuse to write you even a single piece of calligraphy?”
“Thank you. I really am lucky.”
Confucius said that if you're going to do something half-heartedly, it's better not to do it at all.
So if I've decided to flatter him, I need to land the finishing blow properly.
"Right now, if I ask you like this, I can get your calligraphy without much trouble, but I have a feeling that later on, even a thousand gold pieces wouldn't make it easy to obtain. In that sense, I'll also give you a very generous gift in return."
That day, not long after parting with Wang Zhen, I was able to receive calligraphy he had written himself.
The message written there was surprisingly good, not at all what you'd expect from a future corrupt official.
'Unyielding'
It means that even if you are broken a hundred times, you never bend.
In return for the calligraphy, I gave Wang Zhen no less than two geun of ginseng.
The rumor naturally spread throughout the entire imperial palace.