He Became King Sejong’s Lifelong Prime Minister - Chapter 65

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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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Japanese Pirates Can Be Useful Too (3)

 

One of the bound Japanese bastards spat at me and hurled curses.

 

“I’d sooner believe a dog could speak human words than trust what you say. Looking at you, with that pale face and delicate appearance, you’d make a perfect partner for wakashudo! How about it! Why don’t you have the honor of sharing some intimate pleasures with me?”

 

Does he want to die with some bravado since he’s going to die either way?

 

Choice is freedom, I suppose, but what a remarkable bastard.

 

To hurl such curses at me, asking if I want to screw him, when I could torture him in every way imaginable with just a word.

 

If that bastard had been born in the 21st century, he probably would have made an excellent keyboard warrior.

 

As I chuckled, the interpreter looked at me with a very troubled expression.

 

He seemed worried whether there would really be no consequences for him if he relayed such words directly.

 

Of course, I have no intention of penalizing that interpreter.

 

“Kim Hun-do.”

 

“Yes, My Lord.”

 

“It seems these Japanese Pirates here are talking nonsense because they haven’t eaten properly. Bring some rice meal with soybean paste soup, grilled fish, and kimchi. Once they eat, they’ll stop talking nonsense.”

 

No matter what I say, those bastards won’t believe me.

 

According to Joseon’s national law, Japanese Pirates face death regardless of the severity of their crimes.

 

The Japanese Pirate leader gets torn apart by horses, and all the Japanese Pirate underlings get beheaded.

 

Those bastards probably know that much. So they can’t believe my words about sparing their lives.

 

To get some information from them, I need to first show them that I have no intention of killing them.

 

‘Giving food to hungry people can also mean you’re sparing their lives.’

 

Let’s melt their hearts little by little, very little by little.

 

“Understood. I don’t know what’s so appealing about these bastards to you, but I’ll do as Jeongrang My Lord commands.”

 

Before long, the Japanese bastards were given a meal with rice piled high in their bowls.

 

We untied their ropes so they could eat and put them into the prison cell.

 

As soon as they entered the prison cell, they began devouring the food as if possessed by starving ghosts.

 

Some of the bastards even shed tears while eating.

 

If they had been simple subsistence criminals, I might have felt some sympathy for them.

 

How hungry must they have been to eat so ravenously?

 

Of course, these are trash who stabbed and killed Joseon people with swords and even pillaged, so they don’t deserve even a speck of sympathy.

 

After finishing their meal, the Japanese Pirates came out of the Prison Cell again and were seated on chairs with their hands and feet bound.

 

“Now, I ask again. Who among you here holds the highest rank? If you answer honestly, I’ll give you dinner as generously as now. Answer without hesitation.”

 

“The captain was killed by a Joseon army Arrow, and among the companions here, I hold the highest rank.”

 

“What is your name?”

 

“Tanaka Taro.”

 

“I see you have a surname, so you must have been a Samurai.”

 

At my words, that bastard Taro nodded his head.

 

“Who is the lord you serve? And where did you come from?”

 

“I am merely a wandering Samurai and a Japanese Pirate, nothing more.”

 

“What is the reason you became a Japanese Pirate?”

 

“What other reason would a masterless warrior have for turning to banditry? It’s to make a living. The guys here are all similar. They do it because they have no other way to survive.”

 

Historians classify these bastards as subsistence criminals.

 

In fact, until the Edo period, Japan was no place for people to live.

 

The land wasn’t barren, and the climate conditions were much more favorable for rice farming than Joseon, but…

 

The Japanese bastards are constantly waging civil wars then and now, and the shogunate, shugo daimyo, and Samurai are extracting enormous taxes.

 

The current legal effective tax rate for the Japanese bastards is 50%.

 

If you add what they secretly extort behind the scenes, if you earned 2 million won, you’d only have about 400,000 won left in your hands.

 

So poor farmers lacking food band together to survive and go raid the prosperous neighboring country of Joseon.

 

Incidentally, when daimyo run out of money, it’s also common for them to do ‘Japanese Pirate cosplay’ and come raid Joseon.

 

“Is the reason you bastards have trouble making a living perhaps because of the maritime trade bans by Ming and Joseon?”

 

At my words, Tanaka Taro flinched.

 

As expected, this bastard is quite different from ordinary subsistence-level Japanese Pirates.

 

He called himself a masterless samurai, but if he’s someone struggling to make a living due to the maritime ban…

 

Even if it’s hard to guess his rank as a samurai, it’s easy to tell which region this bastard is from.

 

“So you serve the Lord of Tsushima.”

 

“Did I not say I have no master?”

 

Hmm, judging by that reaction, this bastard definitely serves the Lord of Tsushima.

 

Now that I’ve laid all the groundwork to obtain the necessary information, let’s gradually end this tiresome probing battle.

 

“Actually, I don’t care whether you serve the Lord of Tsushima or not. Your Lord of Tsushima claims he can control all Japanese Pirates, but did you think the Joseon Court wouldn’t know that’s a lie? We know everything, but we pretend to be fooled because we pity you.”

 

Joseon often bestows precious goods and food like rice and beans to Tsushima Island, telling them to properly control the Japanese Pirates.

 

The reason is that Tsushima Island’s location is in the best place for ‘Japanese Pirates’ to gather.

 

So they naturally misunderstood the Lord of Tsushima, the ruler of that place, to be the leader of the Japanese Pirates.

 

Saying this might make me seem like a madman who wants to disparage Joseon for giving gifts to Tsushima Island based on wrong information, but…

 

Joseon was fanatically obsessed with the Jurchen Tribes, so during King Danjong’s time, they had to find out and report even the population numbers and chieftain family names of Jurchen tribes living near Joseon’s borders…

 

But they judged that Japanese Pirates coming from across the sea couldn’t threaten the nation’s survival, and since they couldn’t plant spies in Japan across the sea, they were very negligent about it.

 

Knowing this background, the Lord of Tsushima acted like he was the leader of Japanese Pirates until just before the Edo Shogunate was established, enjoying enormous profits.

 

The interpreter also showed a momentarily flustered expression.

 

Because the information I mentioned was truly unknown to anyone in Joseon.

 

So I can just make excuses later that this was me ‘bluffing’ to deceive the enemy.

 

“You lied first, so is there any reason Joseon absolutely shouldn’t? So Joseon will just say you’re a retainer of the Lord of Tsushima and protest to your great shogun. Then would the Shoni Clan really leave the Lord of Tsushima alone?”

 

To conclude, the subjugation of Tsushima Island had little effect on suppressing Japanese Pirates.

 

However, it was sufficient to instill fear of Joseon in the Ashikaga Shogunate that ruled Japan.

 

‘The Ming Dynasty bastards didn’t attack the mainland even when small numbers of Japanese Pirates kept raiding Ming’s coastlines, but these Joseon bastards actually fired cannons at us?’

 

According to the actual remaining records, the Ashikaga Shogunate was said to have trembled in fear at Joseon’s military might.

 

Well, the fact that those bastards trembled was almost meaningless when you think about it, so in the textbook conquest of Tsushima Island, there isn’t a single sentence like ‘The Ashikaga Shogunate feared Joseon.’

 

The current Lord of Tsushima is the owner of Tsushima Island and also a retainer of the Shoni Clan, which owns part of the territory in northern Kyushu.

 

So once the Shoni Clan gets crushed by the Ashikaga Shogun, there’s a very high probability that they’ll confiscate the land owned by the Lord of Tsushima’s family in northern Kyushu—the territory responsible for Tsushima Island’s food supply—even if they don’t know about Tsushima Island itself.

 

Moreover, to appease Joseon, which might mobilize over 10,000 troops to attack Kyushu, they’ll probably cut off a few heads of the Tsushima Island Samurai living there and offer them to Joseon.

 

“Even so, I cannot trust you! Just kill me instead!”

 

Hmm, that Samurai Japanese Pirate bastard who’s supposedly the highest-ranking among them seems to be useless.

 

Well, it’s fine since I’ve already extracted all the information I needed from that bastard.

 

The Japanese Pirates captured here are from Tsushima Island, and the reason they came to raid Joseon is because they have no way to make a living.

 

Now I should ask someone else.

 

But first, that socially deficient leader Japanese Pirate bastard has become worthless, so…

 

“Apply Juri Torture to that bastard.”

 

As the brutal Japanese Pirate bastard began to be tortured, the faces of the Japanese Pirates who had just been eating their fill and letting their guard down turned pale.

 

“If you answer my questions well, I might spare your lives. But if you don’t cooperate, I’ll make you beg to be killed quickly.”

 

Even the drill instructors I saw in the military say things like “Depending on how you behave, I can become either a devil or an angel.”

 

After discharge, this sounds like nothing special… but when you’re actually in the military, those words feel terrifyingly scary.

 

Because when that drill instructor bastard decides to be devil-like, he comes up with all sorts of painful and ingenious punishments.

 

I’m giving them a taste of the enhanced version of that.

 

By planting hope that they can live if they obey by feeding them a Feast, and by making them beg to die through all kinds of torture if they don’t obey.

 

“Now, what is your name? And why did you become a Japanese Pirate? If you answer honestly, I’ll give you Rice Meal for dinner tonight too.”

 

The answers that came out from the bastards to the same question were all exactly the same.

 

They answered that they became Japanese Pirates to make a living.

 

They have fallen into my Leading Interrogation.

 

“You’re saying that not only Tsushima Island, but most of those who became Japanese Pirates made their living through trade with Joseon?”

 

“There are two types of Wokou Pirates. One is poor Common People who somehow scrape together money to get on a Small Boat and recklessly go out to sea to plunder. The other is the type of Wokou Pirates led by Samurai from Daimyo Clans like us.”

 

We commonly think of Samurai as ‘officers’ and the soldiers under them as ‘enlisted men’… but the reality is somewhat different.

 

The range of the Samurai class spans non-commissioned officers, officers, and generals.

 

The highest-ranking among these Wokou Pirates, that Tanaka bastard, is nothing more than a low-level non-commissioned officer in terms of our country’s Military.

 

However, those Wokou Pirates are essentially a ‘regular army’ commanded by Samurai, so they’re not opponents that Common People can dare to face.

 

In fact, it’s the latter that poses a real threat to Joseon.

 

In an era with guns it might be different, but in an era without guns, civilians recklessly wielding swords can be sufficiently stopped just by Villages banding together.

 

“If Joseon would just resume trade with us, we would not engage in piracy.”

 

This is exactly the answer I wanted.

 

In actual history as well, when King Sejong increased Tsushima Island’s trade volume through the ‘Gyehae Treaty’… Wokou Pirates invasions dramatically decreased.

 

Up to this point, I can’t say I borrowed the wisdom of those who drink Tea mixed with Milk that shocked Jo Mal-saeng.

 

And I don’t think these bastards will stop their piracy just because trade with Joseon begins.

 

They’ll probably just focus on the Ming Dynasty instead of Joseon then.

 

“Then if we allow unlimited trade not just to the Lord of Tsushima but to other daimyo as well, they would respond similarly.”

 

“Yes, they would… so please spare us…”

 

I didn’t listen to the end of their words.

 

Those bastards are Wokou Pirates who deserve to die, so why would I create ‘room for misunderstanding’ by promising to spare them?

 

And I should send a Secret Letter to King Sejong suggesting that in exchange for opening trade with Japan, we could have the Wokou Pirates go to the Ming Dynasty instead of Joseon to do their piracy.

 

Through Jo Mal-saeng, that is.

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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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