He Became King Sejong’s Lifelong Prime Minister - Chapter 12

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Great Cleanup (1)

Just hearing it makes my head spin and irritation surge up.

When I open a market and enable the exchange of surplus goods that the common people possess, the county’s economy becomes revitalized.

Selling straw shoes to buy rice, selling wild vegetables to buy barley – resources are distributed more fairly than before.

The common people will benefit from this process, not suffer losses.

So only you old fools with brains pickled in Confucianism will be uncomfortable.

You don’t like being uncomfortable? Then change your perspective!

You Confucian Taliban bastard who wouldn’t understand even if I smashed your head with a hammer!

However, even though I’m the magistrate, I can’t just ignore what that bastard is saying.

Joseon is a country of scholars, and that bastard is famous for his high learning in our county.

He’s even a local gentry official who, though he didn’t pass the civil service exam, holds the same rank as government officials.

“I will listen carefully to why you think so.”

“I am well aware of how much the newly appointed Magistrate cherishes and cares for the common people. Didn’t the Magistrate, immediately upon taking office, discover the corruption between the local clerks and the Buddhist temple, punish those wicked corrupt monks, and reform the system to reduce tribute tax?”

“I merely did what a magistrate should do.”

“Despite passing the civil exam as the top candidate, you remain so humble – the Magistrate will surely become a great minister of Joseon.”

I must not let my guard down just because that bastard is praising me now.

In gaming terms, that’s just words to induce complacency before landing a finishing move.

Moreover, it’s also a disguise to gain justification that he’s offering loyal advice purely out of desire for the magistrate to govern well.

“So this old man was very pleased to be able to serve such a good magistrate through His Majesty’s grace… but since the Magistrate is now implementing improper policies, I have come as a scholar of Jinhae County to offer a word of loyal advice.”

Just listening to what that bastard said, I almost think he’s a real loyal subject.

Of course, his real intention isn’t to worry about me and the county, but simply because he finds it very annoying to watch, so he’s pretending to offer ‘loyal advice.’

“As the Magistrate knows, since the market opened in Jinhae County, merchants from surrounding counties including Dongnae County have all flocked here. Furthermore, miscellaneous crowds from all sorts of places have swarmed in like clouds. Most of them were good common people, but among them were some who were not so good.”

“There were those who tried to intimidate women into giving them credit, and those who came to blows after arguments.”

“Though the Magistrate severely punished those who committed evil acts in the market and established proper law, as long as the market exists, such incidents will continue to occur. This will disturb the county’s customs and make life difficult for the common people.”

In the late Joseon period, specifically around King Yeongjo’s era, bastards called Geomgye emerge from Hanyang.

These are the scumbags who act like thugs in Hanyang’s Sijeon, doing dirty errands for the Sijeon merchants, and occasionally killing or raping innocent common people.

Even in Korea, until the war on crime in the 1980s, it was naturally accepted for organized gangsters to collect protection fees from merchants.

If the Government Office doesn’t properly manage the market, it will inevitably end up like that.

Bandits will earn income by selling goods in the market, while threatening honest merchants to pay protection fees if they don’t want to get stabbed.

“That’s why I personally conducted official business inside the market on the day it first opened, and severely punished those who disrupted order.”

“While the situation can be controlled now just by the Magistrate personally stepping forward, in the future, even more bandits will come in and disturb the village.”

I’m not shocked that he’s saying such things.

He came here determined to oppose opening the market unconditionally from the start… so this level of statement is only natural.

“However, all these problems are nothing compared to the issue I first mentioned to the Magistrate – that the common people will abandon their main occupation (agriculture) and become absorbed in secondary occupations (commerce).”

When studying Korean history, one frequently encounters the word ‘Sarim’.

So what is Sarim? It refers to scholars who lived in seclusion in the forests.

It sounds nice to call it seclusion, but these guys couldn’t get government positions because they didn’t directly participate in Joseon’s founding, so they were just holed up in their rooms…

Holed up in their rooms, living off the tenant fees paid by tenant farmers while obsessively studying Confucian classics, and therefore believing that everything in the world operated exactly according to the theories written in books – these idiots.

That’s why when King Seongjong tried to make a water tank for Gyeongbok Palace’s pond out of copper, they made a fuss saying it was extravagant and should be made of stone instead…

Even when the king wasn’t exactly exploiting the people’s backs for his hobbies, if he tried to enjoy even a little hobby, they would immediately fire off dozens of criticism letters of 5,700 characters each, calling it loyal advice.

This fellow also spouts nonsense quite artistically, befitting an ancestor of the Sarim.

The common people coming out every few days to sell wild vegetables and straw shoes makes them lazy?

“Joseon’s foundation lies in farming. Therefore, the common people should naturally wake up early at dawn and sweat until sunset plowing fields, eating the grain harvested from there and paying taxes for the country to be properly governed. But if the common people can earn money just by laying out a mat in the marketplace and sitting still…”

I remember reading such stories recorded in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty and feeling sick to my stomach just from reading them.

Do they think commerce is easy? They don’t know because they’ve never tried it, but commerce is just as difficult as farming.

Even if you don’t use your body 24 hours a day, whether it’s a market stall or shop, you must use your labor or wealth to stock and display goods to sell. After that, you must keep waiting until someone comes to buy those goods.

Is that all? You lose sleep at night worrying about what to do if business fails.

That bastard ignores all of that and doesn’t even try to understand…

A Joseon scholar, a member of the privileged class, dares to lecture me? Damn it, this is why Prince Yeonsan started the literati purges.

Whether he knows my insides are churning this way and that… the bastard continued his bullshit, burning with what he considered his mission to offer loyal advice.

“The people will become lazy, focusing only on easy ways to make money. Then won’t agriculture, the foundation of the nation, collapse? Though the Magistrate opened the market with the intention of looking after the people’s livelihood, this is no different from giving seawater to a thirsty person to drink. So please judge correctly…”

“… What nonsense are you spouting?”

The old fogey before me is a scholar.

He just failed the civil service exam, but he’s older than me and has a very high reputation in Jinhae County.

So I’ve been using respectful language with that bastard until now.

Joseon is a country where etiquette and the crime of insolence sometimes matter more than law.

But listen. I’m not some guy obsessed with official position… should I bow my head to a bastard who spouts such nonsense?

“Guanzi said that the people regard food as heaven! And Confucius also said that feeding the people well is the way to protect the nation rather than building a strong army, and that the virtue of Shennong and others who taught farming and saved the people from starvation is supreme.”

“But losing the principles and morals that people must uphold in life is like death itself. Right now the Magistrate looks favorably upon the people doing only easy work like sitting comfortably and trading, but if that happens, the people’s nature will gradually change to become like thieves.”

What merchants do in this era is honestly a complete mess – no, just a complete mess itself.

That’s also why I’m focusing so hard on market management.

This era without commercial law, food safety law, or consumer protection law was rampant with all kinds of fraud.

Passing off roughly made silk as the finest Chinese silk was considered mild.

But what can you do…? What matters is that the people eat and live.

“What you’re saying is no different from saying we should ban kitchen knives because they can be used to kill people when they’re meant for cooking. What you’re saying is no different from saying that making soybean paste itself exploits the people because maggots might grow while fermenting it.”

The story about banning kitchen knives is from the Yuan Dynasty. Those bastards actually took away kitchen knives because they were afraid the Han Chinese would rebel.

The dish created from that was ‘dao xiao mian’ – noodles made by cutting dough with iron fragments.

So what I said was openly cursing him, saying you bastard, you’re no different from the Yuan Dynasty bastards who clung to Goryeo.

It’s among the harshest insults a Joseon scholar can give.

“His Majesty loves the people. Being such a ruler, he always tries to embrace all the people with a fatherly heart.”

King Sejong is someone who creates Hunminjeongeum for the people and devotes himself to his duties, even at the cost of his own life.

Even if he were a bit careless, even if he took things a bit easier, no one would say anything about it.

Though he would make all sorts of strange mistakes while implementing economic policies in the future, at the center of it all was a heart that loved the people. Always, always.

“It is said that one knows propriety when there is enough to eat and enough to wear. I have received a royal command to feed the people well and teach them morality to civilize them. That is why I am opening a market so that the people can eat even a little more abundantly.”

That fellow is nothing more than a disheveled scholar, while I am a top graduate and a county magistrate.

If the logic of my words is more sound, that fellow will have no choice but to remain silent.

“I have heard that after the market opened, poor people who could barely feed their children porridge became so happy that they could now feed them rice. The people’s lives have become more prosperous as they exchange surplus goods with each other. If this is not realizing the principle of yeomindongrak (the ruler and people rejoicing together), then what is it?”

The fellow who had been quiet, overwhelmed by my eloquence, seemed to have thought of something and raised his head again to protest.

“Opening a market violates national law. Though the law prohibiting commoners from filing complaints prevents me from directly reporting the Magistrate’s actions, do you think I have no other means?”

Right, since he’s someone with a reputation in Jinhae County, he probably has connections with my direct superior, the second-rank provincial governor.

If not that, then he might be in contact with other ministers in Hanyang.

When they hear news that I opened a market on my own authority, they’ll think this is their chance and the ministers will start talking about impeachment. Then I’ll be dismissed or stripped of my position.

Actually, if that happens, it would be rather good for me.

If I get dismissed for making repeated efforts to improve the people’s lives and don’t serve in government anymore, I could legally escape from being King Sejong’s lifelong slave.

Then I could use my family’s wealth to marry a beautiful wife, have children, and live happily like that.

“I have not one bit of shame about what I have done. Even if I bear the disgrace of being stripped of my position, even if my name becomes a laughingstock for future generations. I am not afraid! It would only be shameful for a scholar to compromise his convictions because he values his mere life, honor, and power.”

**

And not long after, the accusation by Jeong Hak-so, a renowned scholar of Jinhae County, was delivered through a Saheonbu inspector.

This news naturally reached Lee Bang-won’s ears as well.

“… Remnants of Goryeo still remain to corrupt Joseon.”

Lee Bang-won put on his black gonryongpo and decided to take up his iron mace.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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