There Is No Sejong In My Joseon [EN]: Chapter 452

453. Side Story – In Search of the Prosperous Nation of the East (4)

Upon hearing the news that Prince Sim, Yi Hwan, would be taking his daughter, Pachacuti clapped his knees with joy.

“It was worth cherishing my daughter as Aclla [chosen woman]!”

To carelessly touch an Aclla was an act punishable by death, but since they were going to marry anyway, it was fine to consider the order of events reversed.

From the start, he couldn’t actually behead the Emperor’s own brother.

Now that he had established kinship with the Joseon Imperial Family, he decided to fully accept Joseon’s demands while he was at it.

“It is undoubtedly true that our ancestors are descendants of the sun, but Joseon has deemed it presumptuous, so we need to make some adjustments.”

Although Pachacuti, the ruler of the Inca, called himself the son of the sun, it was not a very old tradition.

To be precise, it was the result of a religious reform during Pachacuti’s time, and in fact, equating the ruler with the sun god wasn’t that old.

If he started it, he could also take it back.

Pachacuti subtly withdrew from the deification process that was well underway.

To be precise, rather than withdrawing, he slightly changed direction. He didn’t stop worshiping the sun god, but a re-establishment of the hierarchy took place, positioning him as a ‘Son of the Sun’ appointed by the Emperor of Joseon.

By equating Viracocha, whom the Inca had previously worshiped as the supreme god, with the Joseon Emperor, he succeeded in escaping the contradiction of the son of the sun calling himself a subject of someone else.

Furthermore, this type of doctrinal revision had much more attractive advantages for him.

Pachacuti himself was enthusiastic about worshiping the sun god, but there was a blind spot.

The Emperor – Sapa Inca [the Incan King] is the son of the sun.

To ascend to the throne, one had to be recognized as the son of the sun, so naturally, the personal property of the previous generation had to be distributed to those around him, not to his son.

Naturally, the foundation was unstable in the early days of the ruler’s reign, and this succession law became the seed of endless internal strife in the future.

‘Indeed, it would be better to leave a solid foundation for future generations.’

Without going far, Pachacuti himself had usurped the throne from his brother, Inca Urcon.

Like all usurpers, Pachacuti wanted to kick away the ladder of usurpation in his own generation and continue ‘legitimate’ succession.

He was just worried about suppressing the backlash from those around him that would inevitably arise if he changed the succession law.

However, after the arrival of the Joseon people, the story changed a bit.

They had iron, horses, and gunpowder, and they also had much more advanced military experience.

Just by pledging allegiance to Joseon and accepting its civilization, he could have more power than anyone else in the country.

In return, a huge amount of gold and silver was siphoned off as tribute to ‘repay the grace of the Great Joseon Emperor,’ but in any case, it was truly a win-win situation.

In addition to this practical power, the ideology and system imported from Joseon also became a great force.

Although usurpation was frequent even in countries with patriarchal clans, it was much better than nothing.

For that reason, Tupac Inca, the heir to the throne, was able to solidify his position as crown prince.

In addition, Pachacuti began to drive ‘Religious Reform Ver.2’ to further the royal family’s exclusive status.

Now, the Sapa Inca was no longer the sole mediator connecting heaven and earth, but the one who legitimately ruled this land by receiving the appointment and mandate of the Emperor.

Even the Emperor acknowledges the legitimacy of hereditary succession, so why would others covet the Emperor’s property?

Of course, there was a backlash, but they could not defeat the Inca’s central army, which was being elite-trained with Joseon’s support.

However, apart from the fact that the Inca’s central army had become stronger, the desire for territorial expansion had rather decreased.

Since there was less need to wage wars of conquest to build up his own wealth instead of the king’s depleted royal treasury, he became engrossed solely in internal politics and organization.

Thanks to that, there was a country that was able to extend its lifespan unexpectedly.

===

The Chimor Kingdom, located on the coast of present-day Peru, was flourishing in its golden age, just like the Inca, in the 15th century.

However, there cannot be two suns in one sky.

The Chimor Kingdom would be defeated and destroyed in the Chimor-Inca War waged by Tupac Inca, who succeeded Pachacuti.

However, the Inca is now preoccupied with establishing religious reform and patriarchal clan order.

The king, Pachacuti, as well as the crown prince, were engrossed in internal strife, and expansion would likely be delayed accordingly.

Although no one knows it yet, thanks to that, the Chimor Kingdom, which had already heard rumors that something was happening in the Inca, had time to cling to Joseon as a latecomer.

Prince Sim, Yi Hwan, who happened to be nearby, was also in the same situation.

He didn’t want to hear that he had come all the way here and only brought back a woman without gaining anything.

Thanks to the alignment of interests between the two sides, Yi Hwan was able to achieve the great feat of subjugating Chimor by sending a letter.

His letter, which sternly questioned the principle of serving the greater power with references to ancient events (the Ju Gi-jin and Ju Gi-ok brothers suffered), probably didn’t have much of an impact, but in any case, Chimor submitted to Joseon as if they had been waiting for it.

“Those guys are our enemies. We submitted to Joseon first, so why is Joseon taking their side?”

Of course, Tupac was furious, but Yi Hwan said nonchalantly.

“Our Joseon is like the parent of all nations, so how can we discriminate between our children and give them love?”

In addition to the great achievement of bringing a country under Joseon’s rule, he also achieved the minor goal of messing with his brother-in-law, and soon he took Ma Yu and went on a tour disguised as an inspection.

He was fed up with the Inca and didn’t want to see Pachacuti and Tupac, who had dumped their daughter on him, so his destination was Machu Picchu, a new city being built as a planned city, rather than the capital, Cusco.

Strictly speaking, it was like a temporary refuge palace, and it was not a place where people lived permanently even in peacetime, but still, about 700 people lived there to wait on the king.

Yi Hwan was purely impressed when he saw Machu Picchu.

“Amazing! It’s not comparable to Hanyang [old capital of Joseon], the capital built by my royal father, but it’s a really elaborately built city!”

He shouted while sipping coca tea to relieve altitude sickness.

Yi Hwan’s subordinates, including the Ju Gi-jin brothers, were also wide-eyed.

In fact, the walls of Hanseong were magnificent in their own way, but for those who had seen and lived with them since birth, this side tended to look more mysterious.

In terms of the aesthetic sense of the builders, Machu Picchu seemed better.

Ma Yu also had a proud expression when she saw Yi Hwan’s reaction. This city was started by her father.

She felt good that her husband seemed to be praising it.

However, Nam-yi, who was close to a pure warrior, thought in a slightly different direction.

“But it’s just a pile of stones, so it doesn’t seem very sturdy. Wouldn’t it be better to apply lime soil to each gap and pour concrete? That way, it would take much less effort, and the sturdiness would be indescribable and last for ten thousand years.”

The people around were shocked by Nam-yi’s suggestion to cover Machu Picchu, which was built with the Inca’s advanced technology, with cement and concrete.

They didn’t know about the wonders of the world, but they had a bad feeling that if they left Nam-yi alone, the aesthetics of this city would be ruined.

Fortunately, his superior, Yi Hwan, was negative about Nam-yi’s claim.

“The recipe for lime soil and concrete is a family secret created by my royal father and should only be used within the country. How can we arbitrarily hand it over, even if Tawan is a loyal vassal state? We cannot do it without asking my older brother, the Emperor, in the home country.”

In fact, the recipe itself had long become an open secret because it was being used everywhere in the home country, but Yi Hwan didn’t want to do anything good for the Inca.

For that reason, Nam-yi’s grand plan to completely cover Machu Picchu with concrete was fortunately thwarted. Nam-yi became sullen.

Instead, he reminded himself of the original purpose of the tour and offered a hopeful observation.

“If they are able to build a city of this size, they will be able to repel the White Dals [Westerners] even if they invade.”

“Do you think so too?”

“The only things lacking in this country were iron and gunpowder. By accepting Joseon’s civilization, they will overcome diseases, plant five grains, and the population will greatly increase in the future. How can a handful of barbarians invade?”

Everyone thought so too.

The late Emperor’s warning that the White Dals might dominate the Eastern Land and grow greatly was too excessive.

Even if Joseon hadn’t planted its flag here first, how could such a great power perish so futilely?

However, since they had already informed the Emperor, they planted a boundary marker and gave them instructions to guard the Emperor’s border and always be wary of the barbarians before leaving for North America.

===

Meanwhile, those ‘White Dals’ were focused on reclaiming the holy land in front of them, rather than the distant New World that they didn’t even know existed.

The holy city of Constantinople and the holy ‘sex’ city of Suez.

Jerusalem was excluded because it had somehow become an ally of the Mamluks, but fierce battles were taking place over those two.

Rather, this was a more realistic goal for them than the New World, which would only appear after crossing the vast ocean.

Even more so in that victory was in sight.

When the Suez route became a mess, there were those who had crazy ideas of going around the world to find Joseon, but the wise blue bloods supported the crusades, which had immediate results, rather than investing in them.

Once the Suez is stabilized, wouldn’t that damn Bi-ak [Silk Road] be able to cross over without having to go around the world?

Thus, the final blow was struck against the Ottomans, who had fallen into the quagmire of war due to one wrong step.

Old King Yi Gyu, who had conquered Moscow, began to move south.

“The Oirat are firmly guarding the rear! Neither the road nor the thief can stand together, and the royal enterprise cannot be biased! Let’s drive out the Ottomans who destroyed Rome!”

By recovering Constantinople, the holy city of faith, he could win the trust of the Orthodox Church and make them his own, and also strengthen internal unity through war.

Even though he had converted, this was the best way to dispel the suspicious eyes on him as a foreign conqueror.

The Ottomans, who were already bickering with the Mamluks, who were of similar stature to him, were unable to withstand the crusades of Venice and the Papal States, followed by the Grand Duchy of Moscow, or Russia, from the north.

The triple walls of Constantinople collapsed under the attack of the Joseon artillery led by Joan of Arc.

The Suez route regained stability.

Most of the participating countries – especially Venice and the Papal States – were satisfied with that, but that didn’t mean they refused to scavenge the delicious corpse.

It was ‘liberated’ by chance, but the most popular part would have been Constantinople, the thousand-year-old capital and the new capital of the Ottoman Empire.

As such, it was an important subject of negotiation in itself, and it also had symbolic meaning, and geographically, it was a place connecting the East and the West, and it was also a newly liberated ‘neutral zone’.

It was the perfect place for the participating countries to gather and discuss the aftermath.