Mining And Construction Tycoon [EN]: Chapter 174

Betrayal’s End (4)

It was a pardon personally written by Park Jeong-hwan.

Tae-soo slid the pardon across the table.

Park Jeong-hwan glanced coldly at his own signature.

“So, it’s come to the point where you need a pardon.”

Requesting a pardon implied guilt.

The power dynamic was clear; Park Jeong-hwan was the superior.

Only then did the tension ease slightly.

Park Jeong-hwan sank back into the plush chair.

“Shall we discuss this over a cigarette?”

Neither Tae-soo nor Kim Kwang-rok smoked.

Kim Kwang-rok picked up a cigarette case from the floor and offered it to Park Jeong-hwan.

Park Jeong-hwan crumpled the written oath inside and tossed it to the floor.

Park Jeong-hwan wore a satisfied expression.

“A written oath? Meaningless. It would have been better to draw up a contract. Then, at least, I could impose penalties and sue for breach of contract, don’t you think?”

Park Jeong-hwan’s eyes gleamed openly.

Tae-soo had also received a written oath from Park Jeong-hwan.

“What would I do with a contract from you, Your Excellency? It’s not as if we’re entering into a long-term business relationship.”

For a one-time promise, a written oath was sufficient.

“The world doesn’t run on contracts alone, but they’re not useless either. If they were, they would have disappeared long ago.”

Tae-soo tapped the written oath with his fingertip.

“It’s not to punish you. It’s to remind you to reflect on the promises you’ve made yourself.”

“Do I need to look back? I’m too busy looking ahead. That’s for has-beens.”

People look back when they feel their present is difficult and their future is uncertain.

To find solace in the glory days of their prime.

But Park Jeong-hwan was the most powerful man in the country.

His future was too bright to dwell on the past.

“Fire.”

Thus, Park Jeong-hwan rarely lit his own cigarette after becoming president.

Everyone rushed to offer a lighter as soon as he reached for a cigarette.

There was no need to carry a lighter around.

“Here.”

Kim Kwang-rok rummaged through Cha Ki-beom’s pockets and tossed him a lighter.

Park Jeong-hwan glared at the blood-stained lighter.

“Kang Tae-soo, you need to educate your subordinates properly.”

No one should be so arrogant and disrespectful to the president.

He should have wiped the blood off with his clothes and offered it respectfully.

Instead of throwing the lighter, he should have politely lit the cigarette. That was the duty of a subordinate.

But no one there intended to light Park Jeong-hwan’s cigarette.

“Educate my subordinates? Like Cha Ki-beom and Jeon Doo-ho?”

Those guys betrayed him and died at Park Jeong-hwan’s hands just moments ago.

“A smoker who can’t even light his own cigarette. Why not quit while you’re at it?”

“Once you taste cigarettes and power, you can’t quit. Ah, but you wouldn’t know that taste, would you?”

Click.

Park Jeong-hwan lit his own cigarette.

But his fierce eyes remained fixed on Tae-soo.

“Kang Tae-soo, do you think you can look down on me too? Have you seen rock bottom?”

“Let’s see that bottom properly.”

“There’s a fine line between courage and recklessness. Kang Tae-soo, you don’t want to provoke my pride.”

“Have you forgotten this?”

Tae-soo tapped the pardon with his fingertip.

He had promised to forgive everything Tae-soo did at the Cheongil Hotel before midnight tonight.

“A clever one. Fine, I’ll let it go.”

Park Jeong-hwan laughed.

“How did you pull off the Japanese vault job?”

Park Jeong-hwan tossed his wife’s keepsake cigarette case to Tae-soo.

Kim Kwang-rok snatched the cigarette case from the air in front of Tae-soo.

“My daughter took it from the Japanese vault and gave it to you. What do you think that means?”

“It means I saved the First Lady from blackmail.”

But Park Jeong-hwan was more concerned with something else.

“What did you do with my belongings in the vault?”

The vault contained Park Jeong-hwan’s massive hidden wealth and secrets he never wanted revealed.

“This, perhaps?”

Tae-soo pulled a stack of documents from his coat.

It was a secret agreement between the two countries regarding the resource exploration zone set up in the Jeju Sea Basin.

On January 30, 1974, South Korea and Japan signed the Korea-Japan Continental Shelf Agreement to jointly develop this area.

The agreement took effect in 1978 and set a validity period of 50 years until 2028.

‘The resources estimated to be buried here are at least approximately 60 billion barrels, and up to approximately 100 billion barrels.’

Considering that Saudi Arabia’s proven oil reserves are approximately 270 billion barrels, Russia’s are 80 billion barrels, and the United States’ are 30 billion barrels, this was an enormous amount.

‘In my past life, it wasn’t properly developed even by 2020. Due to Japan’s unilateral refusal to cooperate, the waters were abandoned, and joint exploration between the two countries was halted.’

Instead, China installed oil fields nearby and benefited from the siphon effect [where one country extracts resources that drain from a neighboring area].

South Korea and Japan were tied to the agreement and couldn’t touch it.

‘I didn’t know in my past life. The reason was the secret agreement written on the back of this document.’

Tae-soo turned the document over to show the back.

The secret agreement between Park Jeong-hwan and the Japanese Prime Minister regarding the 7th Mining Zone was written in English.

Every phrase and signature was handwritten by the leaders of both countries.

<1. Japan will pay Park Jeong-hwan $5 billion in the name of war reparations. In return, Park Jeong-hwan will transfer ownership of the 7th Mining Zone to Japan.>

<2. The issue of territorial rights will be temporarily suspended in 1978, and the establishment of a joint Korea-Japan development zone will take effect.>

<3. Final payment will be completed by 1980, at which time Japan may claim full ownership.>

<4. Until the agreement is fully implemented, both countries will exercise joint voting rights for reasons of academic research and resource exploration.>

<5. The above special agreement takes precedence over all previously agreed treaties.>

“Your Excellency declared sovereignty over this area by promulgating the Undersea Mineral Resources Development Act in 1970.”

South Korea was one step ahead of Japan.

As a result, all of Japan was in an uproar.

Japan hurriedly proposed an agreement to the Korean government.

“Although oil exploration failed due to a lack of technology, South Korea’s right to establish the 7th Mining Zone was recognized following the North Sea Continental Shelf ruling in ’69. It was a favorable situation for Korea.”

All of South Korea was buzzing as well.

-Oil is coming out of Korea!

-We will become an oil-producing country!

The people were excited, and the media rushed to publish articles about it.

That was the Korea-Japan agreement that was made amidst the attention of the entire nation.

“But you sold it for a mere $5 billion.”

In his past life, the 7th Mining Zone was not developed due to disagreements between the two countries and Japan’s unilateral veto.

Furthermore, as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea came into effect in 1983, the concept of an exclusive economic zone emerged, which gradually became more favorable to Japan.

“Let’s pretend I didn’t hear that. You need to earn the value of that pardon, which you exchanged for a lighter.”

Park Jeong-hwan tapped the pardon with his fingertip.

“Hand over the documents and leave. If you do, I’ll turn a blind eye to this.”

“If I had wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have brought them in the first place.”

“You’ve made up your mind.”

Park Jeong-hwan took a hard drag on his cigarette.

A sigh was mixed in with the exhaled smoke.

“What’s the reason?”

“If you hear the answer, you’ll truly die. Do you still want to ask?”

“I need to hear the answer.”

“Are you a democratic activist willing to sacrifice your life for your country and people?”

“Of course not. It’s a matter of profit.”

“Is there any part of this issue where you can profit?”

“The Taeyang Group will develop the 7th Mining Zone and extract oil.”

It was a direct contradiction of President Park Jeong-hwan’s intentions.

Because he had promised that ownership of the continental shelf would be transferred to Japan once the final payment was completed by 1980.

“With what means?”

Tae-soo didn’t answer.

‘By preventing the conditions from being met.’

What was the reason why development was left unresolved until 2020?

‘In my past life, it was because Park Jeong-hwan died in ’79. The condition was the payment of $5 billion to Park Jeong-hwan, not South Korea.’

This time, he planned to prevent the conditions from being met even before the statement was issued.

‘Park Jeong-hwan, you have to die today.’

Isn’t the price of betrayal harsh?

Han Cheong-ho, Cha Ki-beom, Jeon Doo-ho, and Oh Seong-hoe had to pay the price.

Then what price would Park Jeong-hwan, as the leader of a country, pay for betraying his country and people?

“It was for the country and the people.”

“Is selling the country out for the sake of the country and the people?”

Tae-soo pointed to the Korea-Japan agreement documents.

“The 7th Mining Zone, 82,000 square kilometers [approximately 31,660 square miles]. A treasure trove of resources equivalent to about 80% of the total area of South Korea. And you’re talking about the country and the people after selling it off at a bargain price?”

“I’ve done oil exploration. There was no oil. If there’s no oil, isn’t $5 billion a good price?”

Park Jeong-hwan nervously smoked his cigarette.

“This country is poor. Cities and facilities have been completely destroyed by the war, and the national income is meager. We’ve taken out as many foreign loans as we can. There’s no money coming out.”

Park Jeong-hwan complained.

“We have $6.8 billion in unpaid loans. But the GDP per capita isn’t even $1,000. This country is desperately poor. If we don’t quickly switch to heavy industry, there’s no future for the country.”

Park Jeong-hwan staked everything on the heavy industry promotion policy.

That’s why he squeezed labor wages, turned private loans into scraps of paper in an instant, and pushed the chaebols [large, family-owned industrial conglomerates].

“How much have you received so far?”

“I was supposed to receive $1 billion at the end of each year.”

“So you’re saying you’ve received a total of $1 billion.”

“I didn’t just fill my own pockets. I used that money to build highways, construct ports, build bridges, and build factories. Thanks to that, the country has developed.”

Tae-soo scoffed.

“You have a lot of money in your vault. There must be at least $1 billion.”

He knew well from robbing the vault.

How much money was there, not only from pro-Japanese collaborators but also from bribes?

How many such vaults did Park Jeong-hwan have?

“Don’t make cowardly excuses by saying there’s no money to develop the country. If we empty all your vaults, will $5 billion come out, or not?”

Another piece of paper came out of Tae-soo’s pocket.

It was part of the ledger Song Secretary had written.

“Han Cheong-ho has found seven secret vaults.”

Park Jeong-hwan twitched his eyebrows.

‘Is this why Han Cheong-ho volunteered to take care of the dirty work until now? Is he after my vaults?’

The reason why Park Jeong-hwan and Han Cheong-ho had maintained a close relationship.

It was because they were doing what each other needed.

Han Cheong-ho handled Park Jeong-hwan’s secrets, provided bribes, and monitored and reported on the chaebols.

Park Jeong-hwan gave Han Cheong-ho work, backed him up, and provided convenience.

‘There’s another reason why Han Cheong-ho has to die.’

Now that he had been dragged to the Central Intelligence Agency, he had no intention of letting him go.

Han Cheong-ho had to die there.

‘You know too much.’

Park Jeong-hwan glanced at his wristwatch.

-May 19, 1975. 12:01 AM.

“The pardon time has passed.”

Park Jeong-hwan stubbed out his cigarette on the pardon.

‘Kang Tae-soo, you’ve learned too much too. You have to die today too.’

Park Jeong-hwan glanced at the floor.

One of the three guns that Jeon Doo-ho and Cha Ki-beom had taken out was visible.

But Kim Kwang-rok picked up the gun first.

“Are you going to use a gun again?”

Kim Kwang-rok quickly detached the magazine.

Then he grinned, showing his gums.

“Do you think I’d let that happen? I don’t care if you’re the president.”

He was now Kim Kwang-rok, the head of security for the Taeyang Group.

Park Jeong-hwan clapped.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

“I like this friend.”

“I’m not doing this to please you.”

“How about it? The position of Chief of the Presidential Security Service is vacant.”

Park Jeong-hwan smiled meaningfully.

“Why don’t you work under me? I guarantee you more money and power than the Taeyang Group.”

Kim Kwang-rok, who had been grinning, stopped smiling.