He Became King Sejong’s Lifelong Prime Minister - Chapter 152

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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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Joseon Steel Mill (4)

When I thought carefully about building a steel mill, I realized something.

While we do need to build a steel mill, building just a steel mill alone would be too inefficient.

In the 21st century with developed transportation, you could build just a steel mill and let employees who want to commute by car do so, while operating commuter buses for other employees, making it possible to operate a steel mill even with workers living quite far away.

However, Joseon has neither cars nor buses.

Since long-distance commuting is impossible, the steel mill craftsmen have no choice but to live near the steel mill.

Accordingly, various raw materials to be used in the steel mill and goods necessary for the craftsmen’s livelihood…

All sorts of consumption will occur.

If we don’t consider this and just build a steel mill by itself, the operation itself will become very difficult.

“Iron Works Department Director, what is this?”

“Assistant Secretary Jeong (Jeong Bun), when I thought carefully before coming here, I realized there are many things needed to operate a steel mill.”

To properly operate a steel mill, at least one hundred, no, two hundred craftsmen would need to be stationed there at the same time.

Only with that many could we operate not just the blast furnace but also the reverberatory furnace for making steel 24 hours without rest, and handle any emergency situations that might arise.

But since people get tired after working 8 hours a day and need to rest for the next shift, while steel mills by their nature must operate 24 hours, 365 days without rest…

To run a three-shift system, we calculate that we need at least 600 craftsmen.

Adding those who will transport various materials including wood and iron ore to be used in the steel mill, and those who will take the finished iron outside, counting just adult men alone, over 1,300 people will be working at the Jeryeong Steel Mill.

If we assume all of them have families, it means 6,500 people will be crowded together living near the steel mill.

By Joseon Period standards, if this many people gather to live together, it would be classified as quite a large city.

Including harbor workers, iron mine workers who dig iron ore, and their families…

Eventually, wouldn’t this region have nearly 20,000 people living together?

“We’ll need to build a harbor too, and operate iron mines to procure iron ore. Plus we’ll need woodcutters to fell trees.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Then we’ll definitely need merchants to supply goods that those living here will need. Inns will spring up, and a very large market will be established.”

Until now, the Joseon Royal Court hasn’t paid any wages to ironworkers and iron smelting technicians…

But now that there’s some room in the budget, they’ll receive quite substantial wages from now on.

Then businesses targeting them will inevitably do well.

“Considering all these things, I thought it would be right to start with the idea of creating an entirely new large county. So while taking the boat here, I used my spare time to draw blueprints of how to create that district and organized it in book form.”

“… You did all this in less than two days?”

“What couldn’t be done if one sets their mind to it? Colonel Jang over there drew blueprints for reverberatory furnaces and blast furnaces in just 10 days, and two weeks later, didn’t he actually produce steel?”

Though we call it a blast furnace, since it was made small as a trial, we could accomplish making steel just two weeks after the blueprints were completed.

For now, we lack the ability to build giant blast furnaces dozens of meters high, and we don’t have the technology to handle such large blast furnaces either.

So what Jang Yeong-sil made became something closer to an indigenous blast furnace about 3-4 meters high.

Even this represents tremendous technological advancement, but with just this, production will be much less than I expect, so this must be solved with numbers.

“We’ve already arranged workers and materials by requesting cooperation from the Jaeryeong County Magistrate before coming here. So we can start construction immediately according to these blueprints.”

“Yes, Iron Works Department Director. But while building the harbor, steel mill, and market, why aren’t you building houses at the same time? Haven’t you already secured the area to build on? With this scale, it seems you could build thousands of houses. If you widely announce and let those who purchase houses in this region rent them out… wealthy people from nationwide would line up to invest.”

“Ah, there’s a reason for that.”

My goal is to turn the region where we are now, Jaeryeong in Hwanghae Province, into a single city.

To put it somewhat grandly, it would become Jaeryeong New City.

But if we receive private capital investment in advance like developing a new city, and let investors collect monthly rent from residential houses…

“Like during the previous Jurchen conquest, we could receive money from merchants and nobles, then in return build various facilities including a steel mill here. Then we could distribute houses to those who invested, which would make construction extremely convenient. We could proceed with construction using the invested funds without worrying about the Royal Court’s budget.”

Joseon people, or to be more precise, the noble scholar-officials, may not know as much about economics compared to 21st century modern people… but they’re not stupid.

When it comes to finding areas where land prices will obviously skyrocket and where they can collect hefty monthly rent, their skills are absolutely no less than 21st century speculators.

Just looking at the late Joseon period during King Yeongjo’s reign, real estate prices soared so severely that Hanyang house prices differed by several times between the early and late periods of King Yeongjo’s reign…

Would the current Joseon be any different?

“However, the problem comes after we give away all the houses in the surrounding area to the investors in return for their investment. The investors will know that the workers here receive high wages, so to recover their invested money and even gain profit, they’ll try to charge expensive rent. Through collusion among the investors.”

When Market Guild merchants collude to raise prices in Hanyang, that’s monopolistic behavior to gain unfair profits.

Since Market Guild merchants didn’t contribute to founding the nation or achieve any merit, the Royal Court can impose sanctions under the justification that ‘collusion’ is harmful.

However, the Royal Court has no justification to sanction someone for charging slightly higher rent on a house they bought with their own money.

They are people who spent their private funds to contribute massive amounts when the nation said it would build a steel mill, and they are contributors to the development of Jaeryeong New City.

“Rent, that’s certainly a big problem.”

“That’s part of it. Actually, I’m thinking of building houses for those who come to work here using the national budget. Instead, I’m considering collecting part of their wages over 10 years to pay back the house price.”

Work at the steel mill is dangerous and difficult, plus it requires quite high expertise.

So we have no choice but to give high salaries to those working here.

Many of the workers here will think like this while receiving these salaries.

‘I’ll work hard here for about 2-3 years and then return to my hometown. There I’ll buy some land, get married, and live while taking care of my parents.’

It’s similar to how Southeast Asian foreign workers in Korea work hard for a few years to earn money, then return to their home countries and build two or three-story houses in their hometowns to live as wealthy people for life.

While this would be beneficial from an individual’s perspective, it’s a huge loss from the nation’s perspective.

We’d go through the trouble of teaching them skills, but just when they become somewhat useful, they’d all return to their hometowns.

“People will flock here thinking that if they work hard for a few years, they’ll receive good wages and even get a house to live comfortably. And those who get houses will never think of moving elsewhere, if only out of consideration for all the hardships they’ve endured.”

“Exactly. In that sense, the government should step in to help young men who come to Jaeryeong find matches with local maidens. We should also encourage married men to bring their families.”

The method used by ancient Roman armies when developing regions like France and other European areas that were essentially undeveloped territories at the time was quite unique.

Roman armies established military camps in the regions they conquered, and had soldiers marry local women to start families.

So they lived in military camps on weekdays and returned to houses near the camps on weekends to live with their wives.

Then when they reached retirement age, they were given two choices.

Either return to their hometowns or continue living here.

But most Roman soldiers had married and established roots here, so they refused to return to their hometowns and chose to continue living in this region.

French wine became famous because of that tradition where retired soldiers grew grapes, made wine, and supplied it to the Roman army.

While Joseon couldn’t copy this system exactly…

What I focused on in this system is that if someone has their own house and family here, they have no choice but to ‘settle down’.

“So that’s why you’re deliberately planning to build without houses for now.”

“Since it’s still difficult to predict how many people will work at the steel mill, we can build houses after the steel mill is completed. For now, build dormitories like where soldiers stay in military camps, where several people can shelter from the rain.”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“I’m counting on you.”

Jeong Bun took the blueprints I gave him, unfolded them, and sighed.

He seems troubled because the work looks difficult, so I should take every opportunity to keep telling him how important this work is to ensure proper motivation.

Then I went to find where Jang Yeong-sil was.

Jang Yeong-sil happened to be watching the craftsmen building the blast furnace while scolding them.

“Hey, didn’t I tell you several times that the wall thickness there needs to be at least 2 cheok (60cm)? I remember even telling you that you can’t become rich by saving on bricks.”

“I apologize.”

“The future of Joseon hangs on this! Do you still not understand why we pay you people who make this so much? Let me tell you the reason once more. It’s because you cannot make mistakes, that’s why!”

On one side, Lee Soon-ji, Joseon’s mathematical genius who had passed this year’s Civil Service Examination, was diligently calculating the expected consumption of construction materials.

“The expected consumption of current materials is about this much, but considering the consumption patterns so far, it seems we could use about 10% less materials than predicted…”

Seeing everything running perfectly at the site, it seemed this Steel Mill would also be completed without major issues.

Three months later, a large-scale Steel Mill that could be called the culmination of Joseon Period technology was completed in Jaeryeong.

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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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