He Became King Sejong’s Lifelong Prime Minister - Chapter 126

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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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King Sejong’s Enlightenment (1)

The king most renowned for his scholarly excellence in Joseon is naturally King Sejong.

He enjoyed academic discussions so much that he held royal lectures almost every week.

Therefore, I too have memories of often being dragged to royal lectures when I worked at Jiphyeonjeon.

“What did you just say, Chief Minister?”

“His Majesty has specifically commanded that Scribe Kim should also attend this royal lecture.”

“Isn’t it Joseon’s protocol that only Jiphyeonjeon scholars, Senior Officials of rank 2 or higher, and royal secretaries attend royal lectures?”

“Generally speaking, that’s correct.”

A royal lecture is, simply put, a place where people of ministerial level or higher are called together to hold ‘cabinet meetings’ under the guise of academic study.

Of course, since the Ministers are such busy people, only a few Ministers attend in rotation as a basic rule.

Jiphyeonjeon came to be regarded as a shortcut to success partly because serving as a royal lecturer (the role of giving lectures at royal lectures) meant directly lecturing on classics before the king, but also because the king could directly verify a person’s abilities in the process of asking for their views on the lecture content.

It’s also a place where outstanding individuals are kept at Jiphyeonjeon for long periods to study various knowledge and research policies of different departments, putting them on the ministerial track.

“But according to what I heard through a Merchant Ship, His Majesty seems to have something he particularly wants to ask you.”

“I have no idea what he might inquire about.”

“From what I’ve heard, His Majesty has been very interested in the lives of Common People lately. So he ordered local governors to submit Official Reports detailing how they live, but their reports don’t seem to satisfy His Majesty much. Do you know why that might be, Scribe Kim?”

“That’s because governors and Common People live in different worlds.”

Politicians don’t really know how the common people, who are their support base, actually live.

Even those who were desperately poor in childhood and experienced poverty firsthand now find themselves surrounded only by socially successful people.

The impoverished life they experienced in childhood remains only as fragmentary memories…

They become unable to know how common people in the same situation as their former selves actually live.

Once, when I accompanied a minister to a university lecture event, a student said this to the minister:

‘I’m preparing for the civil service exam to become a civil servant in the future.’

Hearing this, the minister said, ‘Ah, by civil service exam you must mean the Administrative Examination or foreign service exam. The judicial exam was abolished. If you do well, you might even come as Secretary Kim’s successor later.’

Later, when I told him, ‘That college student who asked about preparing for the civil service exam was probably preparing for the 9th grade civil service exam,’ he clicked his tongue asking why a college student would prepare for such an exam.

If that minister had been looking down on or despising 9th grade civil servants, I would have thought he was a bad bastard with strong discriminatory attitudes despite being a high-ranking person.

But that minister genuinely had difficulty understanding why a ‘college student’ would prepare for a 9th-grade civil service exam.

Well, back when that gentleman was preparing for civil service exams, it was an era when people would click their tongues even if a college student passed the 7th-grade civil service exam.

Even in a world where class differences have largely disappeared, this is still the case, so how could magistrates understand the lives of poor Common People?

“Well, I’ve never had to worry about food in my entire life. But for the Common People, most of them must worry about what to eat today as soon as they open their eyes each morning. Thinking about it that way, I can relate to your words that it’s inevitable because they and I live in different worlds.”

“This isn’t really due to the magistrates’ lack of ability, but something truly unavoidable.”

“His Majesty knows this fact, so his worries must be great.”

“I see, so when should I attend the royal lecture?”

Hwang Hee looked at me with a wicked smile.

“Scribe Kim, you still have the Four Books and Three Classics memorized, right?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“The royal lecture is after regular work hours today. His Majesty strictly insisted that it must be at that time. Oh, and since you’re not a lecture official, you don’t need to give lectures, so there shouldn’t be any problem, right?”

“…”

I almost let an utterly disloyal statement slip from my mouth.

That His Majesty deliberately scheduled the royal lecture after regular hours because he didn’t want to do exercise including Mountain Climbing.

If that’s the case, isn’t this exactly like modern office workers who make all sorts of excuses because they don’t want to do PT…?

“Why are you telling me this now, Chief Minister?”

“His Majesty suddenly decided yesterday evening that it should be done this way. So I only heard this news today as well.”

When I came to work today, for reasons I couldn’t understand, King Sejong had poured work on me like a mountain.

To exaggerate slightly, it was at the level of having to finish two days’ worth of work in one day.

I heard that the Minister of Taxation wailed that it was too harsh to have so much work but not even allow overtime…

Why on earth are you doing this to us?

I looked at Right State Councilor Jo Mal-saeng, whom I suspected was the culprit behind this situation.

Sensing my gaze, Jo Mal-saeng suddenly said he had business to attend to and prepared to leave.

“Come to think of it, I forgot that the Ministry of War contacted us saying the weapon called Matchlock Gun that Scribe Kim proposed to make is almost completed. I should go and hear about it directly.”

Then he quickly fled before the sparks could fly.

Hwang Hee looked at me with a wicked smile and said.

“This royal lecture should go smoothly, and it’s all thanks to Scribe Kim.”

… So you’re planning to dump all of King Sejong’s endless curiosity on me.

Even eating crab marinated in soy sauce and dried persimmons at the same time would be less sinister than Chief Minister Hwang Hee right now.

**

For the royal lecture, I was dragged to a quite familiar place.

This is the Gyeongyeoncheong, a delightful venue for academic and policy discussions where various Jiphyeonjeon scholars visible over there, ministers including Hwang Hee and Jo Mal-saeng, and even King Sejong all gather together.

Ah, of course, the only one enjoying it would be King Sejong.

Because ordinary Joseon officials like myself don’t think ‘Kyahaha, studying is the most fun! Studying is the easiest!’

In the midst of all this, I spotted a few familiar faces.

“Vice Chancellor, how have you been?”

Jeong In-ji’s face as he turned around was full of dark circles.

These days, leaving work on time has become common practice, so overtime has been gone for a long time.

So why does he look to my eyes like an office worker who works overtime until 3 AM every day and comes to work at 8 AM, completely worn out…

“Do I look like I’m doing well? Joseon is developing so rapidly that Jiphyeonjeon’s workload has tripled from before… But we can’t work overtime, and during royal lectures, His Majesty asks so many questions… We Jiphyeonjeon scholars are really at death’s door. I’m also desperately thinking about resignation. But do you know what’s really scary? If I submit a resignation letter, His Majesty rejects them all…”

“You must be going through a lot…”

“Scribe Kim, please come back to Jiphyeonjeon… Jiphyeonjeon really needs Scribe Kim right now. Wasn’t it really good when we were together?”

At this moment, Hwang Hee burst into anger.

“Vice Chancellor, Scribe Kim is an indispensable talent for the State Council. You wouldn’t say such things if you knew how busy the State Council is right now, but I’m also concurrently serving as Governor of Hanseong. How much my head aches because of Hanseong’s development…”

“But Chief Minister, you still look like you’re in good health…”

“Oh my, what are you saying? I’m extremely busy handling excessive work, so my body is exhausted from fatigue every day. How bad must my health be that I take tonic medicine every day?”

“Then Minister, please send me to a department other than Jiphyeonjeon.”

“Isn’t the Vice Chancellor barely thirty years old? At that age, you can chew through iron. Just endure with a spirit of loyalty to the king and love for the country.”

Jeong In-ji was shot down by Hwang Hee’s old-fashioned attitude of ‘What’s a young guy complaining about being tired for!’

And looking around, I also saw Choi Man-ri, whom I hadn’t been able to meet lately because we’ve been busy.

From what I could see, Choi Man-ri’s facial condition was almost identical to Jeong In-ji’s.

I should send that gentleman a bundle of tonic medicine later too. At this rate, he might really die.

Just as I was about to ask how he’d been since it had been a while since we met, King Sejong entered.

“Today’s royal lecture will use Daehak Yeonui as the text, and you shall lecture on the Chaemi and Guna chapters.”

At King Sejong’s words, the one who stepped forward as the royal lecturer began teaching earnestly.

Since the Books being lectured contained content everyone knew well, they were all probably half-listening.

Myself included.

However, King Sejong was listening intently to content he already knew as if it were a Martial Arts Secret Manual he was hearing for the first time.

And when listening to parts that spoke of the Common People’s hardships and sorrows in life, he listened even more attentively with perked ears.

“I have listened well to the lecture by Eunggyo Kim Man-su who served as the royal lecturer. Now I shall ask all those attending the royal lecture. Until now, knowing that the Common People’s lives are difficult, I have continuously pondered only ways to help them. Therefore, in civilizing the Butchers, I pitied their difficult circumstances and tried to embrace them into Joseon’s bosom through generous giving. However, to embrace them into Joseon’s bosom, I should have known how to think from their perspective, but failing to do so, I experienced great failure. Through that incident, I learned the lesson that to properly care for the Common People’s lives, one must think from the Common People’s perspective. Thus, I ordered the magistrates to write in detail about how the Common People live. However, the Official Reports submitted by the magistrates did not contain the detailed lives of the Common People to the degree I desired. I wish to hear your thoughts on what might be the reason for this.”

King Sejong’s love for the Common People can be seen just from the Gongbeop system alone, which was the core of tax system reform.

When trying to create a system of taxation based on that year’s harvest and the fertility of the land, he consulted the opinions of over 150,000 people before implementing it.

Of course, it’s a system that will never be implemented in the Joseon where I exist.

While I acknowledge the intent of the Gongbeop system, if it were introduced, magistrates would report “average level” even during good harvests to line their own pockets.

Even if we constantly send Secret Inspectors, catching such things would be extremely difficult.

“Also, even now among Joseon’s Common People, there are more than a few who are poor and skip meals. What might be the reason for this?”

At King Sejong’s words, the Left State Councilor answered.

“The reason there are destitute people without clothing or food among the Common People is because those who govern the Common People have failed to properly observe this. Please command the magistrates to examine more carefully whether there are such people within their counties.”

“When civilizing the Butchers, I observed them, provided food support, and even gave them land. However, the results were truly disastrous. Would it suffice for magistrates to merely observe the lives of their County’s Common People carefully?”

At King Sejong’s rebuke, the Left State Councilor’s mouth could no longer open.

“It is a sin for me as king to not know the Common People’s hardships. Even if I reflect that I didn’t know or made mistakes due to misunderstanding, to the Common People in difficulty, it would only appear as meaningless actions. That is why I commanded the magistrates to learn in detail about their circumstances and difficulties. So that I would no longer commit the sin of not properly knowing their hardships.”

During our student days, we learned that mistakes or errors were absolutely unacceptable.

Even if you know the correct answer but mark it wrong on the Test Paper, points are deducted.

In company life too, if you make a mistake and ruin work that you could have done well, you must pay the price for it.

What about a politician’s mistake?

It can truly kill dozens, hundreds, thousands of people.

That must be what King Sejong wants to say.

“How can we prevent the poor from arising, and how can we rescue them from poverty?”

To that question, I decided to present a very realistic alternative.

“Your subject, State Council Minister Kim Dae-bung, humbly reports.”

Since the seeds of capitalism have already been sown in Joseon anyway, let’s talk about capitalism to our heart’s content.

Capitalism isn’t absolutely right, but among various social forms, it is at least the best option.

“No matter how excellent a king may be, he cannot save all the poor in the nation and completely prevent the poor from arising within the country. However, reducing their numbers is the best we can do.”

As long as humanity exists, it’s impossible to completely eradicate absolute poverty.

However, we can reduce the number of those suffering from absolute poverty.

However, we can reduce the number of people suffering from absolute poverty.

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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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