Chapter 52

Chapter 52

Modernity Is Cold (2)

1853.

Joseon Kingdom, Hanyang.

Recently Hanyang people were suffering from a strange sensation as if a day became 48 hours, or a year became 760 days.

Pre-modern society is mostly similar.

Yesterday is the same as today, and tomorrow is also no different from today.

If no special day or unique issue always that day is that day.

Therefore if there is even a trivial spectacle they flock in groups, and the day of executing criminals becomes a festival day as is and a feast opens.

Really really boring so everyone is starving for dopamine.

But these days there was no leisure to be bored.

Foreign ships came and went and bang war broke out and the Andong Kim clan that seemed eternal was shattered, Kim Jwageun who wielded more power than the king in Joseon’s eight provinces had his head broken by an iron mace, officials who couldn’t even make eye contact had limbs torn and necks separated from the body hung dangling.

Not the end here.

Westerners with blue eyes and yellow hair began coming and going and new buildings began rising day by day and all sorts of systems changed and new laws were promulgated whenever bored.

Something.

Something was happening.

A radical great change these could not even imagine.

A huge change enough for the way of life and way of thinking and way of looking around the world all to cross a path that can never return.

Hanyang citizens more sensitive to the wind direction of power than any Joseon person detected this change with their whole bodies.

“Renewed the court’s laws and newly made a place called post office. From now on anyone if paying a slight cost can send letters and simple luggage bundles to Joseon’s eight provinces through the post office! Those who want to apply to the postal army-”

“Hanyang arsenal was newly established! Craftsmen who want to work here anyone apply!”

“From now on anyone can freely go out at night!”

“From now on prohibit the matter of relieving oneself on the street!”

“All relieving must necessarily be done only in separate toilets! Relieving is soon fertilizer and gunpowder, wasting this is disloyalty!”

“Doing doing now even pissing the country lord manages.”

The police bureau that was in charge of one axis of the Kim clan powerful was dismantled, and instead a new police bureau was established.

And one of the core tasks of the New-police bureau is precisely stamping a hexagonal club on the heads of those who urinate on the street. Discarding urine on the roadside is soon discarding gunpowder so how great an act of treason!

Also the post office became the talk of the town from the time of establishment.

Would Joseon people who like chattering have stayed still until now because not wanting to send letters somewhere. Couldn’t send because no servant to hold the letter and leave on a distant road.

Joseon people made the word postal army instead of the word mailman, this was not because Heonjong loves military-first politics more than anyone but because it was truly a matter equivalent to real soldiers.

Hold all sorts of letters and luggage and go whether Haenam in Jeolla or Samsugapsan in Hamgyeong.

Of course all sorts of fierce beasts swarm on Joseon land, so in these postal armies powerful hunters who can shoot one Hollywood movie alone or former peddlers were greatly treated.

With the establishment of the post office the king obtained many things.

The post office that absorbed the conventional post stations and post soldiers became the king’s personal and independent organ like the Royal Treasury, which meant the army the king can arbitrarily command practically increased much.

Moreover the post office was perfect for inputting into public security work due to its nature.

The secret agency thoroughly hidden under the name of post office, the Ikmunsa was in charge of counterintelligence missions to probe traitors and anti-government organizations that might rise anytime.

The king and his loyal subjects were convinced.

Rebellion will break out.

No way it won’t break out while squeezing scholars so tightly like this.

But.

“Joseon scholar-officials overflowed with loyalty like this?”

“This is all? Where is the great rebellion covering the three southern provinces?”

“No, this doesn’t break out.”

Didn’t break out.

Expected Han River fireworks but a few bean-sized bullets bursting was all.

Only the Ministry of Finance that had already tasted property confiscation once and was excited what to do with that money if crushing new traitors became tearful.

***

Even the lowly things of Hanyang know the world is flipping, no way the yangban who can be called Joseon’s intellectual class don’t know.

“Is His Majesty... truly pursuing hegemony?”

“How can a country where the three bonds collapsed be fine!”

“This country was not only the Jeonju Lee clan’s country but also the scholar-officials’ country how...!”

The king’s policies had nothing to ponder long.

It was clear that the purpose was in trampling and destroying the yangban scholar-official class.

“Execute corrupt officials.”

“Abolish all private academies busy sucking the people’s blood.”

“Introduce the household cloth tax system. Now all commoners go to the army or pay military cloth. Yangban are also no exception!”

“Implement land survey and find all hidden fields.”

“Appoint both southerners and northerners as officials.”

“Prohibit discrimination against secondary sons and collect concubine tax when taking concubines.”

“Abolish palace fields and distribute land to tenant farmers. Royal relatives will separately receive living expenses from the country from now on.”

“Abolish the slave system! Now children of slaves are not slaves!”

Terrifying.

The laws of 500 years of the Joseon dynasty were being uprooted entirely.

The king did not fear a coup.

Did not fear treason either.

“Where are there scholars on Joseon land? Only forsythias full.”

“If Confucius and Mencius come back alive will they say you are excellent scholars or drag hanging on a cart?”

No, rather full of resentment.

Was there another king besides Yeonsangun who sees scholar-officials not as partners operating state affairs together but as objects of hatred? Was there such a malicious king in all of Joseon until now?

“His Majesty has become blind with anger, treacherous officials and profiteers far from assisting His Majesty are rather fanning there.”

“If sparing life how can be called a scholar?”

“Must prepare immediately.”

Does not even hide the intention of taking everything.

Even a mere insect wriggles if stepped on how would a person sit still and lose everything?

The discussions of those who hid in the house corner and lamented the times reaching the conclusion of replacing the king did not need that long time.

But.

‘How to raise a coup?’

Surprisingly from here difficulties were full.

Raising a rebellion is not just possible.

If setting the intention on ‘coup’ not raising a dynastic revolution, must enshrine an excellent royal who will replace the king currently sitting on the throne.

But the candidate group was not remarkable.

Heonjong and the crown prince are the only surviving bloodline of the three ancestors.

This meaning is that the moment excluding them there is no proper royal relative close to Joseon’s royal line.

Not for nothing that Joseon crossed the last eighth ridge when Cheoljong ascended.

At the point when the Ganghwa boy who was Heonjong’s 7th cousin, ignoring that it must always be succeeded only in lower generations and was uncle level to Heonjong in generation became king the king’s legitimacy fell to the level of wriggling king or frog king eyes. Not to mention Gojong who had 17th cousin difference with this Cheoljong.

Yet the reason Lee Wonbeom and Lee Myeongbok became kings in the original history is simple.

Because that was the closest to the best.

In the situation where the Ganghwa boy is cultivating Eton spirit in London and Heungseon-gun is wielding the blade of purge, those dreaming of a coup suffered from the beginning at the cold reality of <​no royal to enshrine>.

Even if deciding to enthrone a nobody royal dozens of cousins away from Heonjong, securing physical force to raise a coup was also not an ordinary problem.

“The country lord said will abolish slaves?”

“No! You and I remain slaves but from our children slaves are not!”

“The country lord is looking after our children!”

Even in the post office strictly selected special postal army ride horses and race day and night conveying news. Mostly the country’s official documents are conveyed this way, but if only paying several times expensive express post fees can also send letters by these relay.

The news of slave system abolition and palace field abolition was widely known as the highest urgent report to various places nationwide, and especially the news that the Royal Treasury holding vast land distributes land to the people made almost all farmers half hypnotized.

“The country lord is distributing land, of course other yangban lords will also do so?”

“They say will distribute all the land of the traitors who died this time too.”

“Gannan living in the next village received land this time.”

The people are thinking of Heonjong as about the incarnation of the Jade Emperor, even if village influential people say ‘the king has gone mad so let’s go replace!’ no way they budge. Rather had to tremble in fear that household slaves might report their masters and try to change fate.

Nevertheless even if somehow gathering servants and slaves and preparing rebellion.

The problem was that the true power of the current king does not come from scholar-official support or whatever.

“Present, arms!”

“Loyalty!! Sincerity!!”

The new-style army established after the five military camps were disbanded.

Starting from the 1st Guard Infantry Regiment established in Hanyang new defense units were established in various places like Busan, Pyongyang, Jeonju, Wonsan instead of the local armies that became nominal.

Now the Joseon court has a lot of money. The vast gold silver treasures and land confiscated from traitors are all money.

They invested a considerable part of this vast funds into weapons and military expenses, and by British army standards could not even reach third-rate colonial armies but in Joseon land a powerful elite unit never seen before.

“His Majesty is vowing northern expedition and lying on brushwood and tasting gall so as subjects must assist.”

“When Britain burned Beijing the Jin Khan was startled and fled. Britain repaid the grudge of the Chongzhen Emperor and bestowed re-creation grace so truly a suzerain worth serving?”

“The king is violent and pursuing hegemony so truly fearful and bewildered, but at times like this shouldn’t go out to the official path and remonstrate? Since Joseon was established when else was the Central Plains this weak and Joseon this strong?”

Even if somehow defeating that powerful government army by raising rebellion, the British army that crushed Kim Jwageun with one finger point coming in again is obvious like seeing fire.

The news of Qing’s miserable defeat broke even the last spirit.

They lost the power to resist reform.

Those who dreamed of rebellion until the end were reported one after another and immediately arrested, executed.

“His Majesty is right!”

“Enrich the country strengthen the army and repay the grudge of the Injo reign and conquer Liaodong!”

“Land must return to farmers not scholar-officials is also words Confucius emphasized. If whining not wanting to return land quit being a scholar!”

Rural yangban, residual yangban who originally had nothing.

Those who dreamed of Joseon’s revolutionary great reform.

These classes enthusiastically joined the king and transformed into fighters.

When Lee Hangro and Gi Jeongjin who can be called the biggest big shots of Confucian scholars on current Joseon land came to hold official posts according to the king’s order, practically Joseon Confucian scholars perfectly surrendered white flag to the king. Now Heonjong grasped absolute power as much as the Ming emperor in his hands.

And above their heads.

Western new-style learning was moistly scattered like baptism.

“Greetings to His Majesty the King of the Joseon Kingdom. The French Second Empire for friendship and amity with the Joseon Kingdom-”

“The United States hopes for free trade for the prosperity of your country and our country!”

Joseon led by Heonjong opened the firmly closed door even wider.

Modernity was waiting for them.

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Author's note

Thank you to Arctic Bear for your sponsorships!!