There Is No Sejong In My Joseon [EN]: Chapter 89

< The Legend of the Blue Sea (1) >

Lee Seong-gye and I stared in shock.

Lee Bang-gwa, having shaken off the guard who was clinging to his waist, waved his hand confidently.

“What is this…”

I said, at a loss for words, and Lee Bang-gwa replied as if it were obvious.

“There’s a big problem in the country… I have to step in…! I almost couldn’t catch up this time…!”

I was dumbfounded by Lee Bang-gwa’s words.

If he had told us in advance that he would come along, we could have discussed it and left together.

‘Ah, I didn’t tell him.’

Did he find out late and come right away without thinking?

I asked, worrying about the aftermath.

“Does the court know, or rather, does Grand Queen Mother… the Queen Mother know?”

“Ahem…”

Lee Bang-gwa looked away.

Judging by that, he just notified them and came.

Still, my father probably wouldn’t have stopped him even if he knew.

‘From Father’s point of view, it would be safer for the Retired King to come along.’

I don’t know what Grand Queen Mother thinks.

As if trying to avoid a difficult answer, Lee Bang-gwa got angry at me instead.

“Crown Prince!”

“Yes.”

“If there’s something like this… tell me in advance…”

“You rascal, where do you think you’re putting on airs in front of your elders?”

Then Lee Seong-gye, who was next to me, shouted, pointing with his finger.

“No, Father… that’s not it…”

“Quiet!”

Lee Seong-gye slapped Lee Bang-gwa on the back, and Lee Bang-gwa groaned.

“Where did you learn to talk like that and use it in front of your father?”

“I was just trying to look dignified…”

“Cut it out.”

“……”

Lee Bang-gwa lowered his head sullenly.

“So, are we taking His Majesty the Retired King with us?”

When I asked Lee Seong-gye slyly, Lee Seong-gye crossed his arms and pondered for a moment.

Then he came to a clear conclusion.

“Well, wouldn’t it be helpful to take him along?”

“Haha…”

Whether he was happy to receive permission or happy to be recognized, my great-uncle burst into a hearty laugh.

“He’s just wasting food in Gaegyeong [present-day Kaesong, North Korea], so he has to pay for the food he’s eaten so far.”

“……”

Lee Bang-gwa’s expression rapidly faded again.

“…Cheer up. Great-Grandfather probably doesn’t mean it.”

That old man is just a bit harsh.

===

Lee Bang-gwa’s joining didn’t really change the schedule.

Except that I was stressed out because I suddenly had to take care of two elders.

‘Moreover, the two of them together create a synergy effect.’

No, it’s a negative effect, so I don’t know if I should call it a synergy effect.

“Being in Gyeongsang-do [a province in southeastern Korea] brings back so many old memories. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, yes… Haha…”

The Grand Royal Sire and the Retired King recalled the time when they fought against the Japanese pirates who invaded Gyeongsang-do during the reign of King Woo of Goryeo [a Korean kingdom, 918-1392].

“It was May back then, and the Japanese pirates were so rampant that the ones who invaded Ulsan dug into the inland and advanced all the way to Jirisan [a mountain in South Korea]. At that time, which army was in Gyeongsang-do? I quickly received a report from Woo In-ryeol and rushed over.”

And the story of how they moved two days’ distance in one day and crushed the Japanese pirates continued endlessly.

Since the Retired King also participated in the battle, he kept chiming in, and the story went on and on.

“We drove all the Japanese pirates away, but you said the slope was too high and steep to climb, so I stepped in myself and finished it off.”

“Wasn’t it because Father went that I was able to support him from behind and win?”

Lee Seong-gye and Lee Bang-gwa reminisced about the old days and laughed like that.

“Looking back like this, there were so many difficult battles. You need to know that. Me and your great-uncle fought hard to create this Joseon [a Korean kingdom, 1392-1897].”

“Yes, yes.”

But what about Choi Young, who also fought the Japanese pirates together?

I swallowed those words.

‘It’s really killing me to have to take care of two people.’

Do I have to listen to this heroic tale until I return to Gaegyeong?

I wasn’t really interested in listening to this heroic tale.

At first, the old stories were fun, but as the two of them started playing a medley of stories that only they knew, I got bored.

Before I knew it, the royal carriage had reached its destination, Dongnae [present-day Busan, South Korea].

“Spread out the camp quickly!”

When Lee Seong-gye said, holding up his riding crop, the soldiers of the Training Command moved in an orderly fashion.

…Of course, I relayed the orders from the middle.

The magistrate of Dongnae ran out barefoot and asked us to stay at the government office, but Lee Seong-gye firmly refused.

“We raised an army to fight the Japanese pirates, so how can we stay at the government office? We will set up camp and stay there, so tell the magistrate that too!”

“…We’re not here to fight the Japanese pirates in name, but to comfort the people, right?”

“Yes, so it’s important not to cause trouble, isn’t it?”

Lee Seong-gye said that, and I had nothing to say.

Perhaps because of the Grand Royal Sire’s actions, the people of Gyeongsang-do cheered for us.

Having suffered severely from the Japanese pirates last year, they were greatly relieved to see the Grand Royal Sire and the Retired King, who had already shown their prowess during the Goryeo era.

Even though it was easily decades ago, the people here remembered it like it was yesterday.

“Haha! It’s worth coming down to Dongnae!”

Lee Bang-gwa said that, waving his hand at the people who welcomed him.

As he said that, the people who looked at him cheered even louder.

“Waaaah!”

“His Majesty the Grand Royal Sire!”

“Please look over here!”

“His Highness the Crown Prince is here too!”

“His Highness the Crown Prince? Where, where?”

“Isn’t that His Highness the Crown Prince wrapped in tiger skin over there?”

But why do more people seem to be looking for me?

The Retired King’s expression instantly crumpled.

I was wearing the tiger skin I had caught in the Northeast, so I was easily noticeable.

‘Actually, it’s a bit hot.’

Now that the weather is getting warmer and we’re going south, it’s actually getting sweaty to wear the tiger skin.

But I didn’t take off the tiger skin.

“They say he’s so brave that he cut down a great tiger in the north with a single sword?”

“I heard he beat it with his bare hands?”

“They say the tiger collapsed on its own when he shouted once…”

‘Isn’t the last one a bit of an exaggeration?’

Still, it feels good.

Spread the rumors more diligently.

I glanced at the Retired King next to me.

“Cheer up.”

That’s how I comforted my great-uncle.

In fact, the Retired King mainly served as a subordinate general of Lee Seong-gye, so he felt overshadowed by the Grand Royal Sire’s existence and achievements.

I was the Crown Prince who would inherit the next throne, so the story was a bit different.

Lee Bang-gwa lowered his head and muttered gloomily.

===

When I arrived in Dongnae, I said to Lee Seong-gye and Lee Bang-gwa.

“I’m going to go down to Tongyeong [a coastal city in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea].”

“No, didn’t you come down to Dongnae to command the Jurchens [a Tungistic people who lived in Manchuria]?”

“That’s right, but I have other things to do too.”

That’s what I said.

It was something that had been planned since I left Gaegyeong.

Honestly, it was also a chore to be the one to listen to the two of them talk about their memories.

‘Ugh, military affairs are really not my specialty.’

I held my head and thought that.

Wouldn’t it be better to leave everything to the two military experts who came?

“The weather is getting warmer, so you don’t know where the Japanese pirates will invade. Are you okay being alone?”

I then pointed to the tiger skin wrapped around my body.

“I’m so brave that I can even catch tigers, so how can I be defeated by Japanese pirates?”

“You son of a bitch, you’re good with words.”

Lee Seong-gye said.

“Anyway, I’ll leave this work to you for the time being.”

That’s what I said.

===

“Do you still work even when you come down to this southern sea?”

“That’s why I came all the way down here. I have to take care of everything while I’m here.”

I said to No-bun.

So I gathered as many people as possible who were engaged in fishing near Gaegyeong.

‘It cost me a lot of money to bring them all the way here.’

It was costing me a lot of money just to move every day.

“From now on, you will have to raise clams here.”

“Rai, raise clams?”

The gathered people blinked and asked.

“Clams aren’t cows or chickens, so how can you raise them with human hands?”

“We have made a living by catching clams, but we don’t know how to raise them.”

That’s right.

The ones I brought from Gaegyeong were the ones who dug up clams from the coast near Gyeonggi [a province in South Korea].

Clams have been produced as local products in Namyang and Bupyeong since ancient times, so they had to be offered as tribute, so naturally these people had no choice but to appear.

‘Actually, I don’t know how helpful it will be, but they probably know more about clams than other people.’

They were the best experts I could get right now.

“There are many other seafood, so why do you want clams?”

The answer was simple.

“You know that clams contain treasures, right?”

“Su, surely you’re talking about pearls?”

Their expressions changed.

They were looking at me like I was a reckless young master who was trying to do something reckless after hearing that clams contain pearls somewhere.

“Not all clams have pearls. It’s fortunate if one out of a thousand, or even ten thousand, has a pearl, and you can only get it if the sky gives it to you. If you just want to get the meat…”

In their eyes, it didn’t seem to be worth it at all.

If it was, they would have sold all the pearls and changed their fate.

But I shook my head.

“Clams are spiritual creatures, so when impurities enter their bodies, they shed tears to flush them out, and these tears gather to become pearls.

Then what if we artificially put impurities into the clams?”

“Pearls… are made?”

“That’s right.”

Even after explaining this far, people still looked doubtful.

‘I guess it’s hard to understand right away.’

I came up with the idea of pearl farming when I was selling Baekja powder [white porcelain powder, used for cosmetics].

The luxury market in Ming [a major dynasty in Chinese history (1368–1644)] was much bigger than I expected.

‘It would be nice to have other luxury goods to sell to Ming.’

Gold and silver are limited in quantity, but if pearl farming is successful, you can make money every time you farm!

And if you were to farm freshwater pearls and seawater pearls, it would naturally be the latter.

This is because freshwater pearls lose their luster quickly, so their quality is poor.

Seawater pearls, on the other hand, are of better quality, but can only be farmed in warm seas.

So I wondered if it would even be possible in Korea, which is at a fairly high latitude, but I was confident that I could succeed if I found a way.

‘I saw it myself.’

I was deeply impressed by the pearl farming episode of Documentary 3 Days or Extreme Job.

It clearly showed pearl oysters being farmed in the South Sea, especially in Tongyeong.

‘At one time, the ratio of A-grade farmed pearls produced in Korea was higher than in Japan.’

The problem was that even in the South Sea, the oysters would all freeze to death in the winter, so they had to be moved further south to Jeju Island [an island in South Korea].

There was no way to move the oysters that far in this era without killing them.

‘But there are solutions.’

First of all, it’s important to build up know-how.

I know the method, but it was up to the gathered artisans to make it a reality.

“Now, I will tell you how to farm clams.”

===

Soda Saemontaro, the Manho [a military title] of Tsushima [an island in Japan], summoned his subordinates to his base in Tsushima.

It was for this year’s ‘task’.

“Now that the winter sea has calmed down, shouldn’t we raise an army once again to conquer Joseon?”

It was similar to the tone that Toyotomi Hideyoshi [a preeminent daimyō in feudal Japan] of later generations would have used, but in reality, it was insignificant.

It was just that he was expressing the annual looting as ‘conquest’.

The subordinates nodded and agreed, but there were also voices of concern.

“But Manho, I heard that the lord is greatly worried about the fact that Doju was scolded by Joseon last time. Wouldn’t he be closely monitoring our movements now?”

“The lord is timid. What will he do even if I go to war? If I give him a little bit of the spoils I brought from Joseon, he will shut his mouth.”

Soda Saemontaro shouted so loudly.

The subordinate who expressed concern closed his mouth when he confirmed that his lord’s will was firm.

All that remained were those who agreed with their master’s will.

“Where are you planning to go this time?”

“We robbed Jeolla-do [a province in southwestern Korea] last time, so let’s go to Gyeongsang-do this time. We can start from Geoje [an island in South Gyeongsang Province, South Korea] and slowly rob each island and return, right?”

“Good!”

The subordinates repeatedly shouted their approval at Soda Saemontaro’s declaration.

They had no doubt that they would loot Joseon people who could not even put up a proper resistance this time and make a lot of money.

Someone who had been silently watching the meeting eventually slipped out.

His steps headed for the lord’s castle.

< The Legend of the Blue Sea (1) > End

ⓒ Pitkong