Chapter 94
As Master Park Jega, who wrote *A Critique of Northern Learning*, once said.
‘There are no carts in Joseon.’
Until the early to mid-2010s, historians tended to take that at face value and mistakenly think Joseon was a country that rarely used carts.
In reality, Korean terrain is so mountainous that carts simply couldn't be used for transport; it wasn't because they had no intention of using them.
And relying on ships for most cargo transport was also just the old "if you have no teeth, use your gums" mentality at work.
“I’m truly delighted to be working with Jang Byeoljang and Magistrate Jeong.”
At my words, the two men both flinched and trembled.
Good grief, anyone watching would think I was going to eat them alive.
Far from devouring them, I wasn't even going to bully them.
They just needed to work themselves to the bone with me for Jongmyo, Sajik, Joseon, and the people, keeping to office hours and grinding away until quitting time.
‘Civil engineering is ’Jeong Bun‘, and ’Jang Yeong-sil‘ is a living human 3D printer’
Just hearing those names makes my heart swell; what an incredible combination.
Add Jeong Inji, who will handle mathematics, and everything will be perfect.
At my words, Jeong Bun replied.
“It is true that Lord Jegeom is younger than us, but your rank is unquestionably higher, and your contributions to the country are far greater. Why are you speaking so respectfully to us? Please speak freely.”
“If that's how you feel, then I'll follow Magistrate Jeong's lead. I consider it a true honor to work with two officials renowned throughout Joseon for their exceptional skill.”
Jang Yeong-sil is famous enough to need no explanation, but Jeong Bun’s name may be a little unfamiliar, so...
When it comes to civil engineering, Jeong Bun is the man who could be called Joseon’s best.
If he had only been middling at supervising civil works, then when he was appointed Uuijeong everyone would have rushed to stop him, telling him not to lower his dignity by taking on the job.
Jeong Bun was the kind of man whose skill was so great that, even after rising to Uuijeong, he could make the court grudgingly allow him to personally oversee civil works.
I don't know about actually building ships, but his great abilities would surely shine when it came to building the shipyard that would build them.
“Let’s put any bonding among the officials of the Warship Bureau aside for later and settle the important matters one by one first.”
These two are the kind of people who specialize less in administrative work and more in taking a clear order from me and turning it into reality.
So, as their manager, I only need to give them the direction and the end product, and after that I can go do something else.
No need for some useless liberal-arts nobody like me, who doesn't know much anyway, to come in and meddle unnecessarily.
‘If a half-baked shaman meddles, the ship ends up going up the mountain.’
“Now then, first let’s decide the stipends for the Ming artisans who will start working today. Jang Byeoljwa, how much do you think we should pay the artisans each year?”
“This humble one has lived his whole life only as an artisan, so I don't really know about such things.”
“That is why I’m asking Jang Byeoljwa. To make proper use of the artisans from Ming, we need to understand their feelings and circumstances and pay them enough that they’ll want to work hard.”
Joseon had long treated putting artisans to work as 'yeok,' a duty identical to military service.
So they made the artisans work while paying them only the bare minimum.
Those at the level of chief artisan or deputy chief artisan were given salaried posts and paid a realistic wage while they worked, but the other artisans were essentially worked for free.
By “almost nothing,” I mean they did pay a salary, but it was about the equivalent of only 100,000 won a month.
‘That’s insane, seriously.’
“To be frank, with the stipends the state gives now, the artisans can never feed their families. So when they’re doing the labor the state imposes on them, they just kill time pretending to work and barely manage to meet their quotas.”
In Joseon, artisans were subjected to labor obligations much like military service, yet paid almost nothing.
If the country acted like that, I'd probably slack off too.
Otherwise I'd need to keep enough energy left to moonlight as a designated driver or delivery rider at night.
“At the very least, they should be paid a stipend equivalent to a jong 9th-rank official. That way they can make a living.”
At Jang Yeong-sil’s words, Jeong Bun nodded in agreement.
“As for petty clerks and scribes, they can make quite a lot of money by using the petty authority they have to rake in cash, so they don’t need stipends. The same goes for officials like me and Jang Byeoljwa.”
“Right.”
“But artisans are people who have to live on their stipends alone, and if you make them work while giving them not even twelve seom of white rice a year... it’s no different from telling them to starve to death.”
Soon after I took office, Joseon’s budget execution methods changed quite a bit.
In the past, the Ministry of Taxation had been infected with the Ryu Jeong-hyeon virus, so whenever someone said artisans should be paid properly, they were quick to point fingers and call him a bad guy who was recklessly spending the people’s hard-earned tax money.
On top of that, officials who had been continuously affected by the Ryu Jeong-hyeon virus even argued that their own stipends could be cut by a few tenths each year, and they were obsessed with pinching pennies on taxes.
But now things have changed a lot; if you present a reasonable basis and request the funds, they’ll gladly hand it over.
“Then I’ll submit a memorial to His Majesty asking that the artisans from Ming be given stipends at the jong 6th-rank through jong 9th-rank levels.”
At my words, Jeong Bun asked with a worried expression.
“The Minister of Taxation will surely scold us. Will he really be generous enough to pay stipends that high?”
“I’ll do what I can. If it comes to it, I’ll even submit a memorial to His Majesty.”
“You really do seem to have strong convictions, Lord Jegeom.”
“Isn't all of this for the sake of the country? If things go wrong, I can just resign.”
“...... You resign, my lord?”
Jeong Bun’s gaze at me was deeply resentful.
‘You look like you'd never be able to resign even if you died.’
Seeing that look on his face, which clearly carried that meaning... I guess I need to give our Magistrate Jeong even more work.
He’s thinking such wicked thoughts because he has too much free time and too little work.
There was an old saying:
that if a person has too much idle time, they can fall into depression.
Useless thoughts also come from having too much free time, so if our Magistrate Jeong works hard on building a new shipyard, all those bad ideas will disappear.
“All right, let’s set the wages for the artisans working at the shipyard like that. Now, let’s rebuild the whole shipyard from scratch before we start making ships.”
“You intend to build a new shipyard?”
“The current shipyard is far too cramped, so it can only build small ships. The artisans who came over from Ming were the kind of people who built ships that could carry more than a thousand seok and nearly ten thousand seok of rice... But this shipyard has only ever built large ships that could carry cargo worth a thousand seok of white rice. How could it possibly build a ten-thousand-seok giant ship there?”
The maximum cargo capacity of Zheng He’s treasure ships was said to exceed 800 tons.
That’s about the upper limit for a wooden ship.
Considering that ships like carracks and caravels, which were used to sail around the world, had a cargo capacity of only around 100 tons, those were truly enormous ships.
“I’d like you to build the shipyard according to this design I came up with. Is that possible?”
Jeong Bun’s eyes instantly sharpened, taking on an expert’s edge.
As expected of someone who, even after becoming Uuijeong, would still stand there with a cane, supervising and shouting at the artisans, 'That’s not how you do construction!' while giving sharp advice.
And then, even though I was right there with them, I suddenly became invisible...
They immediately sank into a world of their own, just the two of them.
“Jang Byeoljwa, is this possible?”
“When I made the nokro and geojunggi before, I used a pulley system. It looks like a complicated arrangement of those pulleys... but it’s definitely possible.”
“Good. Then you’re saying building it like this is entirely possible.”
Since those two had said it was possible, next I needed to show them the blueprint for the ship I planned to build.
I’ll show them the conceptual design, and then I need to go to the Ministry of Taxation and secure the wages for the artisans.
If I don't hurry, I’ll end up working overtime, and then the Minister of Public Works, Lord Lee Cheon, will start giving me grief.
“Let’s leave that topic there for now and take a look at this drawing.”
This time Jang Yeong-sil widened his eyes.
“This is a large ship with planks added to form walls and a pavilion.”
“Since it has planks added on and a pavilion like a house, I plan to name it panokseon. Even if that pavilion doesn't seem like much, I intend to have the captain or a military officer board it and survey the battle situation.”
“Building it itself doesn’t seem too difficult. But why do you want to make such a distinctive-looking ship?”
“When I was at the Ministry of War, I heard about the Japanese ships... I was told they’re small and low. They take advantage of that by boarding enemy ships and fighting hand to hand, which they greatly enjoy. But a panokseon is built by adding planks to an already large ship... so they won’t dare to climb aboard.”
“As expected of Lord Jegeom.”
In truth, it won’t just be useful against those Japanese bastards; it’ll also be a huge help if we ever have to face Ming.
Though that’s still a secret only I know.
“And make sure to learn how to build Ming-style bokseon ships as well. From now on, all of Joseon’s transport ships will be converted to bokseon.”
And before charging into the Ministry of Taxation, I succeeded in stopping by Minister of Public Works Lee Cheon first and getting his permission.
Now, it was time for the Ministry of Taxation.
A lowly jong 4th-rank nobody, Kim Daebung, charging in on the jeong 2nd-rank Minister of Taxation to secure a budget...
It’s truly a heart-swelling moment.