Chapter 165 — What Should We Do?
"What should we do?"
"You will win the war, but you will be swayed by the influence of the tribal chiefs. When the chance comes, you must suppress them and build the framework of centralized rule. It will take generations. In that process, the empire will weaken and walk the same road as Liao."
"How can we keep that from happening?"
"What I asked for is only one part of that. Stop the atrocities. In that moment, fear may keep people from rushing at you, but later you will surely receive the consequences. Are not some of the atrocities you commit now a reaction against the atrocities they committed?
I do not know this history well. I realized my lack late and have been studying hard. And I do not wish to say that an empire will stand merely by stopping atrocities. Many more conditions will be needed. Each time such a moment comes, you must not try to do things the old way. That is certain defeat."
Books were piled in the direction Youngwoo pointed.
Among the Jurchens, where even those who could read were rare, it was a very unusual sight.
Books were hard to obtain, and there were not many people to ask about things one did not know.
Youngwoo continued.
"And when I do not know something, I ask the wise. There is no need for some extraordinary sage. A person who can look at me as I am now and give counsel is a sage. Ask, and then act. Do not simply do things the way you have always done them. Ask not by the convenience of the moment, but by the conditions needed for an empire."
"Are you perhaps speaking of Kim Yoon-gyeong?"
"Yes. I ask him often. What happens if we do this? What happens if we do that? I ask many things."
"What does he say? About the current state of things?"
"...What meaning would there be in my speaking his thoughts for him? Ask him directly. That is the proper order. I am merely trying to leave because I hate the atrocities."
"Must you really do so?"
"I do not want to become the same kind of wicked man. In the past, I would have simply lived as the current carried me along, but…"
"What is different now?"
"Realization has guided me to another place."
"Ah! Realization… You are already a master."
"No. I have only just placed my foot on the threshold. This is only the beginning. Do you know why there are few true masters among wicked men?"
"Is that not merely a way to tell conquered people to live gently? The logic of the weak?"
"No. From this point on, the study is largely spiritual. If a man's thoughts are rotten, how can it work?"
"Ah… So that is why."
"A study moved by strength may somehow be possible. One may even research crueler methods. But such a man cannot become a true master.
An immortal, seonin仙人, is also a good person, seonin善人. I am a student who seeks to raise the dignity of my own being and become another self.
How could I abandon the original path and seek something else? The deeper my study becomes, the more I feel that I must not do this. Please understand that I cannot go with you."
After saying that, Youngwoo stared blankly toward the entrance.
He did not even seem to breathe.
A silent order to leave can be more frightening than a swinging blade.
Xiyin waited for everything to pass, hardly daring to breathe, until Youngwoo let him go.
"Whew. The tea was good today. I will come again."
"Go carefully."
Youngwoo watched Xiyin leave and turned around.
Not far away, Ogemai was waiting.
These gentlemen seemed to think of him as a tree that would fall if struck ten times.
"Why are you standing there like that, Lord Ogemai?"
"I was waiting for my turn. Ahaha."
Youngwoo scolded the guard on duty.
"You should have told me."
"Lord Ogemai told me not to inform you."
"And you listened?"
Youngwoo guided Ogemai inside and served tea again.
A similar conversation passed between them.
They asked him to understand that they could not change what they could not change.
They apologized, saying they knew they should not treat a benefactor this way, yet still found themselves weighing this condition and that.
"Are you truly leaving?"
"I have submitted my resignation to the Goryeo court."
"Then you will soon be without office."
"I already am. I am worried about how I will make a living."
"You can live for a while on what you have earned so far, but a man needs work."
"That is true."
"What will you do?"
"There was a merchant group I traveled with briefly when I was young. I am thinking of going there. If I can be hired even as a guard, I will at least have a way to feed myself, and I will have some breathing room."
"A temporary means of livelihood can become a lifelong trade."
"That is true. First, I mean to do something about my ruined household and then find a path."
"Ruined?"
"Yes. My household fell, and I entered the army. I must at least put food into the mouths of the family members left at home."
"Your circumstances must have been harsh."
"I have been promoted and received much these past years, so we should be able to endure for a while. Hehe. The best thing would be a fertile field before the gate, one that brings in steady grain."
Ogemai proposed,
"Shall I arrange one for you?"
"No. I know exactly what I would have to do in return. How could I accept that?"
"I will ask for no price."
"There is nothing in this world without a price. Everything is given and received."
"I will not demand payment."
"Hyu. That is even more frightening."
Wanyan Ogemai smiled faintly.
"We have already placed enough for your household to live on for the rest of their lives. We also prepared fertile fields before the gate and had a new house built. You already had the land, so it only took timber and people."
"What? Already?"
"Several months ago. Elder Brother arranged everything. So you do not need to worry about your house."
"My heavens. How can I be so grateful?"
"Compared to what you have done for us, it is a drop of blood from a bird's foot."
"You did it in advance so my heart would feel burdened."
"There was no other intention. He told us to find a way to show gratitude for everything you had done, so we did that. And you remember that heshouwu you obtained before?"
"That too? I was pleased because I thought I bought it cheaply."
"Where would there be a hundred-nyang heshouwu? We happened to obtain it, but if we gave it to you freely, you would refuse. So we made it look like a sale."
"My heavens…"
"We are not trying to burden you."
"Then that wild mountain ginseng too?"
"Similar. We saw you doing your utmost even though you began late and the path seemed impossible, so we did what we could. You do not need to feel burdened."
"How can I not feel burdened?"
Ogemai seemed ready to tell him all the various acts of consideration.
Not one of them had been simple.
He began listing the signs of friendship they had shown from the very beginning, when Youngwoo had been captured in battle because of Seo Ui-taek's scheme.
There had been countless acts of care.
Most of them Youngwoo already knew, but many he heard for the first time.
In particular, most of what had been done for Youngwoo's family home in Goryeo was only now revealed.
It had begun with sending the fruits of war, the so-called spoils.
They had then created a foundation that would allow Youngwoo's household to stand and survive even without him.
This was not something one could do merely because one had power.
It was not something one could do merely because one had money.
It was filled with attention, care, and warm comradeship.
For example, that autumn a large number of sable pelts had been produced.
While the hides were being stripped and dried, they selected the best from each pile and sent them to Youngwoo's home.
Sable fur is still classified among the most expensive furs even today. A single coat can cost tens of millions of won, and rare black sable coats can exceed one hundred million won.
The Jurchens mainly brought furs and Hu horses and exchanged them for the various necessities they needed.
In Goryeo, Hu horses were usually purchased through the Jurchens of the Tumen River region.
Those Hu horses, however, were not produced among the Jurchens. They were stallions produced among the Mongols, the Tatars.
Because they were extremely expensive at the time, Jurchen society made considerable profits through intermediary trade, exporting Mongol horses to Goryeo.
Among those Hu horses, the best were sent to Youngwoo's home.
In Jurchen horse trade, an upper-grade horse was worth thirty bolts of cotton cloth, a middle-grade horse twenty-three bolts, and a lower-grade horse fourteen bolts.
By the prices of the time, they were very expensive.
Of the goods they sold, they sent the best to Youngwoo's home again and again.
The third thing prized among the Jurchens was horses and people.
When they plundered, they seized strong young men and cattle because they valued agriculture.
For their economy to function well, they needed farming.
For that, they imported iron and obtained cattle and slaves.
They sent those slaves to Youngwoo's household.
In other words, they had sent the money and manpower needed for a fallen household to recover.
Youngwoo's family could have sold everything off and squandered it, or used it to recover.
To keep things from going wrong, they even sent a man who would serve as a kind of chief steward over the slaves.
Since there was no use giving things directly to Youngwoo, who wanted nothing, they had effectively invested in his household.
It was the thoughtful arrangement of the experienced Ogemai.
"This is difficult. You did so much for me, yet this fellow is trying to leave."
"No. We have already received far more than that from you."
"Has the account been settled?"
"We must do far more. How could anything compare to what you have done for us?"
Youngwoo, who had often spoken with such confidence in himself, now looked slightly embarrassed.
There had been many things given and received, but at this point, it was a great debt.
"You showed that much care."
Ogemai smiled openly.
"That is not meant to block the road you intend to take. We cannot change, after all. I only hope another chance will come for us to welcome you again. Someday."
"Oh…"
Is there anything more foolish than placing hope in an uncertain future?
"Because His Majesty knows it cannot be done, he does not argue this way and that."
"Ah, do not lean on me. Lean on those gentlemen instead. I like this place too. What greater meaning could there be for a man born into the world than helping to build a nation and contributing to peace under heaven? Even so, I must leave. Because it is evil."
"Where in this world is there a good war?"
Youngwoo poured out what he had been thinking.
"A war that rises against oppression is a good war."
"Ah!"
"A war against one who has lost Heaven's Mandate is also such a war."
"Heaven's Mandate? The command of Heaven?"
Heaven's Mandate天命 is not an external command issued by Heaven. It refers to the moral foundation endowed in human nature. In Mencius, Heaven's Mandate is connected to the hearts of the people. The people's hearts are Heaven's will. This means the rise and fall of a dynasty is decided not by external force, but by moral legitimacy.
Ogemai could not be blamed for understanding the term literally.
How could Youngwoo explain that the qualification of a king is given by Heaven, and that Heaven is the heart of the people?
The moment he added one more word, he would become again an ignorant soldier pretending to know everything.
"I meant to say that they are falling because they failed to win the hearts of the people."
"Not because of military strength?"
It was not good to speak too much while leaving.
Suddenly, Youngwoo felt as if someone else might be waiting to persuade him.
"What more is there to say? You say it cannot be changed. If a monk dislikes the temple, he must leave. I will go now. Thank you for everything."
"You are leaving just like this?"
"When parting, it is better for both sides if one simply disappears."
"That is regrettable."
"Thank you for everything."