He Became King Sejong’s Lifelong Prime Minister - Chapter 77

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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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Gunpowder and Hygiene (6)

Three months had passed since Kim Dae-bung rounded up all the ruffians in Hanyang and turned them into the Soil Collection Corps that scooped up excrement.

At first, when people saw the village troublemakers being dragged away by soldiers, they worried that some kind of bloody purge was taking place.

Though these were men who only did bad deeds, most of them were just drunkards who only gambled and played games.

They weren’t men who had committed terrible crimes, so people thought it would be too much to drag them away and kill them like that.

However, now all the citizens of Hanyang were raising both hands in approval of His Majesty’s bold and decisive measures.

Kim Dal-su, who lived on the outskirts of Yeonggyeonbang, was one of them.

“I used to be scared of what might happen even in broad daylight because of those ruffians who only caused trouble. Now I don’t have to worry about those ruffians at all, which is really good.”

In the past, when he took shortcuts through alleyways on his way to work at the merchant guild, on unlucky days he would run into ruffians.

They didn’t kill people since they knew that if they shed blood, they would be arrested by the Loyalty Corps and executed by hanging or beheading for murder charges…

But they were bad men who would steal all the money you carried and the clothes you wore.

Furthermore, other merchant guilds competing with the one Kim Dal-su belonged to would sometimes hire ruffians to completely destroy their shops.

However, now those men had long been reformed into the Soil Collection Corps by His Majesty’s grace.

“Today is a day off, so I should take some rice and go have a drink.”

When he was newly married, he would enthusiastically engage in building the Great Wall with his wife even during the day, but now the passionate love of their honeymoon had long since cooled.

Even so, his manly vigor hadn’t died, so he was still properly demonstrating his strength at night.

As he was thinking of going out and trying to scoop some rice from the rice jar, a familiar voice reached his ears.

“Here to collect excrement! Here to collect excrement and take ash!”

As soon as Kim Dal-su heard those words, he flung open the door of his thatched house and quickly let the Soil Collection Corps inside.

Though they smelled a bit because they did the work of collecting excrement… unlike the men who used to collect nitrate-rich soil before, the excrement-collecting Soil Collection Corps didn’t cause trouble.

“Finished collecting the excrement. Where is the ash?”

“You see it gathered over there, right? But excrement aside, why do we have to go through the trouble of collecting ash like this…”

“It’s an important ingredient used when making saltpeter. And the law changed recently, so if you carelessly throw away ash, you get 10 lashes, so you must collect it well like this.”

Cheol-su, who lived next door to Dal-su, was caught by a passing Posol while carelessly throwing away ash.

Since he was caught red-handed with no excuse to make, Cheol-su was immediately arrested by the Posol and taken away, going to Hanseongbu where he received 10 lashes before being released.

Rather than suffer that fate, it’s better to properly collect and hand over the Ash.

“Go ahead then.”

“Yes, then I’ll come back in two weeks.”

As the Soil Collection Corps member who scooped up excrement left the house, his wife, who had been napping in the room, woke up rubbing her eyes.

“Did the Soil Collection Corps just come and go?”

“Yes, they came, scooped up the excrement, and left.”

“They’re truly grateful people who do such hard and dirty work for us. Thanks to those people, we don’t have to go through the trouble of scooping excrement and carrying it far away to dump it.”

“It’s really gotten much better since we don’t have to carry the Night Soil Jar.”

In the past, Kim Dal-su had to personally carry the Night Soil Jar on his days off to dispose of all the excrement and urine, but now it’s become very convenient since the Soil Collectors take care of scooping it all up.

“Since the Soil Collectors take away all the excrement and urine, there’s hardly any smell of excrement in the neighborhood these days.”

“The well water doesn’t have that bad smell like before either.”

When the well water smell was mentioned, Dal-su recalled that there were unusually few people with stomach troubles this summer.

Usually during summer, it’s common for people to suffer from diarrhea after drinking contaminated well water, and some even lose their lives.

This year, none of the people around Dal-su suffered because of water.

Moreover, recently he learned from physicians who keep talking about it that you must wash your hands with water before cooking or eating, and wash your body with ash water and regular water once every 2-3 days.

They say this prevents all diseases.

Thinking he might as well try it, he’s been following this for a while now, and not only himself but even his children are living without minor ailments.

“When I was young, my mother used to say that even the king cannot remedy poverty, but these days that’s become completely wrong, hasn’t it? I work for a merchant guild so that’s understandable, but my brother-in-law who lives in Gwacheon and works as a tenant farmer says his life has completely improved because taxes dropped dramatically.”

The taxes paid by tenant farmers have been reduced to only about 20% of what they used to pay, a massive reduction of 80%.

Thanks to this, in Joseon now, as long as there’s no famine, people don’t have to worry about starving to death, and the Common People spontaneously shout “Long live His Majesty” without anyone telling them to.

“On top of that, isn’t it that His Majesty even takes care of the Common People’s illnesses so they don’t get sick?”

King Sejong is also receiving reports that this year there has been an unusual decrease in people suffering from waterborne infectious diseases or diarrhea in Hanyang.

However, he has no idea what the cause might be.

All of this is just like how Kim Dae-bung blackmailed the Lord of Tsushima with Japan’s top-secret information that no Joseon person of this era could possibly know, turning him into a docile sheep, no, a slave.

It’s because Kim Dae-bung secretly spread health guidelines disguised as superstitions that frequent bathing is good for one’s health.

The Common People who know nothing are just happy that they don’t get sick anyway and are living good times, saying it’s all thanks to the king’s grace.

“No matter how good our king is, surely he can’t even stop the evil spirits that spread plagues, right? Stop thinking such nonsense and don’t even think about going out to play just because it’s your day off. Instead, go get some straw from the barn and make straw shoes. We need to save some money to buy at least a small plot of farmland near our house.”

“Can’t we do something just for today?”

“No. Just make straw shoes.”

“But there’s a rumor that the new fish market in Noryangjin is selling cheaply, so I thought I’d get some dried pollack that you and the kids like…”

In the original history, fish shops outside Hanyang, the outer fish markets, didn’t appear until the late 17th century, but due to the rapid development of commerce from implementing the Bangwon Method, fish markets were established even in Noryangjin.

Thanks to this, the Hanyang Market Guild encountered unexpected competitors.

“You think I don’t know you’ll use buying dried pollack as an excuse to drink alcohol until just before curfew? Forget it, just hurry up and make straw shoes.”

Kim Dae-bung’s gunpowder policy was gradually changing the daily lives of Hanyang’s Common People like this.

**

Thomas Edison said that fools and geniuses are separated by a sheet of paper.

Similarly, genius investors who became rich through bold and decisive coin investments and fools who ruined their households with coins and frequently go to look at the Han River waters are also separated by a sheet of paper.

If you succeed in investing, you become a god of coin investment, and if you fail at investing, you become human trash.

Even if you do exactly the same thing, if the results are good you receive praise, and if the results are bad you get ignored – that’s the human world.

People say that while results are important, the process is also important. But reality isn’t like that.

If the results are good, as long as you didn’t commit crimes in the process, you receive praise from everyone.

The person who first made Potato Chips was a restaurant owner, a gentleman whose hobby was tormenting customers, so he committed the outrageous act of slicing potatoes ridiculously thin and frying them for fun.

The funny thing is that it was so delicious that he succeeded in turning his life around as the inventor of Potato Chips and managed to take five wives.

To put it differently, if the results are good, no one really cares how the process went.

“What’s important is the result that washing hands and managing hygiene prevents infectious diseases. What’s so important about revealing germs and such?”

I don’t intend to ignore the hard work of those who research the causes and treatments of diseases while creating various antibiotics and therapeutic medicines.

It’s because of their hard work that 21st-century humans can enjoy health and longevity.

However, that’s one thing, and I’m someone who doesn’t know much about medicine.

As such an administrative bureaucrat, rather than arguing for the reasons and necessity of maintaining hygiene, which would be difficult to explain and impossible to convince others of.

I think it’s right to establish a hygiene management system based on the result that people who practice ‘hygiene management’ get sick less often.

To put it bluntly, even if I enthusiastically explain the importance of hygiene management, people other than King Sejong wouldn’t be particularly interested and wouldn’t even pretend to listen.

King Sejong is someone who pursues new knowledge endlessly, to the level of someone who would devour even AI-written novels, so he might listen to my story for a long time and understand it… but…

‘Why should I bother going through all that?’

And coincidentally, the institution I belong to is none other than the Ministry of War.

Joseon’s Department of Defense, a department that can make all soldiers obey when ordered to do so…

I decided to use a Secret Technique that only I among the 5th rank officials could use.

That is, for me, a mere 5th rank Jeongrang, to make a suggestion directly to Jo Mal-saeng, who is 2nd rank, no, 1st rank Minister of War.

You might think that’s no big deal.

But in company terms, this is no different from me, a manager or deputy manager, ignoring the entire chain of command and entering the CEO’s office of a Large Corporation to make a report.

In Joseon, where your head gets cracked immediately if you don’t observe proper etiquette, this is an unimaginable atrocity, and if I pull this stunt, the beautiful traditional custom of hierarchical scolding would follow… but…

“Minister of War.”

Jo Mal-saeng smiled as soon as he saw my face.

“Well, if it isn’t Kim Jeongnang, our Ministry of War’s lucky charm. So, what can I do for you?”

“… I recently heard about some superstitions circulating among the people, and it doesn’t seem like something we should take lightly and pass over.”

It was none other than the superstitious story I had spread.

Specifically, that if you keep your body clean, evil spirits won’t cling to you and you won’t get sick.

The time had come to spread this throughout all of Joseon.

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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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