There Is No Sejong In My Joseon [EN]: Chapter 209

< Be Fruitful and Multiply >

Looking into Ju So-hwa’s moist eyes as she gazed up at me, a surge of emotion welled up inside me.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

Ju So-hwa asked, noticing the shift in the atmosphere, but I didn’t answer. Instead, I looked up at the ceiling and let out a long sigh.

Then, I shouted.

“Keuheuheuh, I can’t take it anymore!”

“W-wait a minute!”

Ju So-hwa yelled, but I didn’t even pretend to hear her.

In an instant, the room went dark.

I don’t remember if I was the one who turned off the lamp or if it was her.

===

“Chirp chirp.”

A bird chirps outside the window.

It’s morning.

“Heok! What!”

I couldn’t help but shout at No-boon’s face, which greeted me as soon as I opened the door.

No-boon was standing outside with warm water.

“How long have you been there?”

“Who do you take this humble one for? I came out as soon as the sun rose.”

‘He’s only diligent on days like this.’

No-boon looked at me, then patted my shoulder with warm eyes, saying.

“Finally, the Crown Princess has overcome a hurdle. Congratulations.”

He spoke like an older brother, and I replied, my voice thick with emotion.

“No-boon······.”

You don’t even know what that was, you idiot.

No-boon’s misfortune was that he would never know.

Perhaps sensing my gaze, No-boon turned his head and said.

“······Please wash up quickly. His Majesty is looking for you.”

===

“Did you have a peaceful night?”

As I greeted him, Lee Bang-won’s face was filled with a smile that I somehow understood.

“I had a peaceful night, but I don’t know if the Crown Prince did as well.”

As expected, he definitely has an intelligence network set up in the palace.

I looked at Lee Bang-won with a dumbfounded expression.

“Indeed, it’s best to have the first child from the legal wife. When I think about the hardships I went through because of my illegitimate children… Heu.”

Strictly speaking, Lee Bang-beon and Lee Bang-seok are legitimate sons, but let’s just move on since Lee Bang-won seems to want to think that way.

“In particular, the Emperor will also be keeping a close eye on our descendants. Quickly present him with a great-grandson.”

Lee Bang-won said that.

“Don’t worry. Once we join our palms [a euphemism for sexual relations], there won’t be any problems after that.”

“Ho, you seem confident.”

Even excluding the body of Grand Prince Yangnyeong, who was the epitome of lust, isn’t our family originally blessed with many children?

‘Still, blindly throwing it in isn’t the answer.’

As an efficiency enthusiast, I had no choice but to consider the most effective method.

I heard that increasing the frequency regardless of the timing is the most effective method, but not all humans can leisurely enjoy relationships like that.

“If we check and confirm a few things right away and then combine, it will be much easier to conceive.”

This era doesn’t even have a proper menstrual cycle method.

When I was in modern times, I memorized it to prevent pregnancy, but I never thought I would use it in this era where fertility is a virtue rather than contraception.

I could feel Lee Bang-won’s interest being piqued by my words.

“Are you saying that just by matching the cycle, you can make it easier to conceive?”

“Of course.”

I think I knew why Lee Bang-won was showing interest.

Succession is not only important to the royal family.

For the Sadaebu [the scholar-official class], having a child to carry on the family line is important, and isn’t this an era where population is directly related to national power?

In some ways, it might be natural for people in this era to pay much more attention to this than to the tools I create.

“Crown Prince.”

“Yes, Father.”

“You know that we are focused on increasing the number of households, right?”

Increasing the number of households was extremely important for taxes and conscription.

Fortunately, now is a better time than any other to increase the population.

Peace has continued for more than a dozen years after the founding of Joseon, and many of the exploitative systems that collapsed Goryeo have been reformed.

Moreover, yields are gradually increasing.

‘I heard that this increasing trend reached its peak during King Sejong’s reign in original history.’

Of course, there were aspects that could be understood in more detail thanks to changes in the method of calculating households or improvements in administrative power, but the natural increase cannot be ignored.

‘Most of all, the best thing is that we don’t have to worry about the Malthusian trap in the current situation of Joseon.’

Food increases arithmetically, but population increases geometrically.

Because of this, when the population increases, the country falls into chaos, and the turbulent times continue until the population decreases again to a manageable level······.

‘We have Manchuria.’

Even if we throw about a million Joseon people into that vast Manchuria, it won’t even make a dent.

Even though the Jurchen people are diligently increasing their population and yields by applying the New Agriculture Method in Manchuria, it was clear that the Joseon people would increase much more than them, who are basically semi-agricultural and semi-nomadic.

“The eight provinces except for the Northern Frontier will be teeming with people in just a little time, but how many people will be needed to fill even that Northern Frontier entirely?”

The Northern Frontier is comparable to the eight provinces of the interior in size alone.

Of course, the land is rougher and the yield is lower than in the warm south, so the population carrying capacity will also be lower, but on the other hand, there is the advantage of being able to use the vast land for extensive farming.

‘If we’re really short, we can even squat in the Far East and shout that it’s our land.’

Lee Bang-won, who had been listening to my words, said.

“Hmm. It’s certain that there are many advantages to spreading this method.”

“But I don’t know if it will spread as well as we think.”

Even if I make it into a book and spread it, there would be limitations.

It was also ambiguous to make it into a picture and print it like the Samgang Haengsildo [Illustrated Guide to the Three Bonds, a Confucian text].

“Don’t worry about the Sadaebu. They’re the kind of people who would cut off the nose of a Jangseung [a Korean totem pole] and boil it to eat if it meant they could have a successor.”

“That’s true, but······.”

I wondered if I could expect a meaningful increase in population since there weren’t many Sajok [noble families], but my expectations went awry in an unexpected place.

“Couldn’t this also be used to increase the number of slaves?”

“The slaves’ working and resting is all up to the owners, so I think it would be easier to increase the number of slaves.”

The reactions of the scholars who read the booklet I had temporarily written were like this.

‘No, as soon as I teach them the pregnancy cycle method, they start thinking about increasing the number of slaves?’

Is this the madness of the pre-modern era?

However, just as the meritorious subjects pushed for the Daedong Law [a tax reform law] for their own benefit, people can do anything if it is beneficial.

It was only natural that such opinions would come out of the Ministry of Taxation, which was always short of funds, even if it wasn’t about their own slaves.

“If the country increases the number of government-owned slaves well, can’t we use that money to run the country’s finances?”

“Or, send them to the Northern Frontier to develop it on the condition that they are released.”

“That’s a good idea!”

I was momentarily dazed as I listened to the officials’ opinions.

‘I need to fix the slave issue at some point.’

They’re not human, really.

===

Since the Crown Prince promulgated a method of nurturing the people for the sake of the incompetent, such knowledge was mainly circulating in the form of booklets in Hanyang [the capital city of Joseon].

However, only a thin layer of literate people can acquire knowledge through books made of text, not comics.

These people alone were not enough to implement a population increase project targeting the entire population.

In addition to this, what was mobilized was hygiene reform, the shamans who were at the forefront of the movement they called Wijeongcheoksa [a movement to defend orthodoxy and reject heterodoxy] among themselves.

“You came to ask the spirits to bless you with a child?”

The shaman asked the couple who were kneeling respectfully in front of her in an overbearing manner.

It was funny that the couple, who had been stealing rice from the shaman’s rice pot following others until recently, were now kneeling down asking her to offer prayers to the spirits because they were desperate, but if a shaman cared about each of these things, she wouldn’t be able to do business.

The shaman, having finished her petty revenge by taking her time and making the couple anxious, soon said as if she were doing them a favor.

“Good! I’ll ask my spirits to pray for you.”

“Really? Thank you, thank you!”

The couple repeatedly expressed their gratitude.

However, behind the shaman, who was chanting and shaking a bell to receive divine inspiration, there was a strange painting.

The ears were elongated like those of the spirits of other shamanism, but the robes were azure and looked like those of a high-ranking official.

“Excuse me, Bodhisattva.”

“What?”

The shaman, who had been shaking the bell with her eyes closed, glared at them and asked, and the husband flinched but answered.

“I think this is the first time I’ve seen this spirit, but who is it······?”

Clearly, this shaman said she was serving some general.

But all the shrines and paintings that she had always displayed were gone, and only that picture, which she didn’t know where she got it from, stood out.

“You know that I went to Mount Gyeryong to practice asceticism after receiving a call from the heavens the other day, right?”

‘Was that so?’

I definitely remember her being dragged away like a dog by the police.

The couple was also in that procession, so that’s for sure.

However, it was clear that it was a miracle that this shaman, who I thought would be beaten with a club and come out crippled, had returned with all her limbs intact, and since then, she has been in charge of the ‘Wijeongcheoksa Movement County Branch’ and has been clearing her throat, so I just assumed that was the case.

“At that time, I obtained a connection and came to serve this Crown Prince Daewang God. He is much more miraculous than the general I used to serve.”

‘A Crown Prince is a Crown Prince, and a Daewang is a Daewang, but what is a Crown Prince Daewang?’

It was a strangely mixed title, but they didn’t have the courage to point it out since they were there to ask for a child.

Moreover, it was not easy for the couple to argue with the fierce shaman because they didn’t know her well.

As the troublesome interference disappeared, the shaman, who had been shaking the bell for a long time, opened her eyes wide.

“The Crown Prince God says he will bless you with a child, so choose an auspicious day to combine.”

“Really?”

“Of course, of course. Would the spirits say two different things with one mouth?”

The shaman patted her chest and assured them as the couple’s faces brightened.

“Carefully observe the date of your menstruation and work hard to combine from about fifteen days before that. Especially the thirteenth to sixteenth days before are the most auspicious!”

The couple momentarily questioned the strangely broad yet subtly specific range of auspicious days.

“Is, is the auspicious day different for each person?”

“Heo! How dare you doubt the words of the spirits!”

The shaman scolded, and the couple flinched.

“If you don’t have the heart to believe and follow, you won’t be enlightened even if you seek the spirits in every way. With that kind of mindset, you won’t be able to see a child easily!”

“Oh my, you’re saying useless things again······ Oh, I’m sorry, Bodhisattva.”

Unaware that the shaman’s remarks were for hedging her bets just in case, the couple were greatly surprised and repeatedly apologized.

“And when you receive the child, be sure to wash your hands with the soapberry fruit hanging there. You know this, right?”

“Yes, yes······.”

The shamans who returned from Mount Gyeryong planted a soapberry tree in their yards as part of the Wijeongcheoksa movement.

The reason was that the soapberry tree was a spiritual tree that chased away ghosts, and almost no one in the county was unaware of this because they had been talking about it so much.

After the couple, who had listened to the spirit’s precious words and paid a generous fee, left, the shaman spread out her fan.

Then, she looked at the painting hanging behind her and muttered.

“It’s amazing how a child is conceived well after saying this······.”

What else is miraculous power, this is miraculous power.

Although the way ‘divine messages’ are delivered is a little different from other spirits, the effect alone is certain.

< Be Fruitful and Multiply > End