Black Corporation: Joseon
Chapter 202

The most popular items sold at the royal store were undoubtedly candy and salt.

*

Candy was an item imported from Ming and sold by the royal store, with its import and distribution strictly managed by the court.

“The demand is gradually increasing, but it’s a problem that we have to import all of it. We need to find a substitute…”

As Hyang pondered over this issue, he casually brought it up to Suksu, the head chef of the royal kitchen.

“Hey, Suksu.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“What ingredients can we use to create a sweet taste?”

“There’s rice syrup, isn’t there?”

“Doesn’t rice syrup consume a lot of precious grains? That’s why we import candy in the first place.”

“That’s true…”

Suksu fell silent for a moment, trying to recall something from his memory.

After some time had passed, Suksu’s face lit up.

“Ah!”

“Did you remember something?”

“We have radishes!”

“Radishes? Ah!”

At Suksu’s answer, Hyang suddenly remembered something. It was an old TV program he had watched aimlessly on an internet video site back in the 21st century.

The program was about the origin of the phrase “Eat yeot!” (equivalent to “Eat sh*t!” in English), and one of the origins was related to radishes.

“Radishes are also sweet…”

Although Hyang nodded in agreement, Suksu’s expression wasn’t very pleased.

“However, to obtain sweetness equivalent to candy using radishes, we would need an enormous quantity.”

“That’s true. Anyway, thank you.”

After expressing his gratitude to Suksu, Hyang turned around and continued muttering to himself as he walked.

“Radishes… There was something… Something…”

However, Hyang couldn’t dwell on radishes any longer as he had a lot of pending work at the research institute and Area 51.

A few days later, while sleeping with the Crown Princess, Hyang suddenly woke up shouting.

“Sugar beets! That’s what it was! I found it! Well done, my brain!”

“Your Highness! Your Highness! What happened all of a sudden?”

The Crown Princess, who had also woken up startled by Hyang’s sudden outburst, called out to him in a panic.

“Your Highness! What’s the matter? Did you have a bad dream?”

“Ah, no. I just remembered the answer to a problem I had been pondering over.”

“Is that so?”

Hyang reassured the Crown Princess, who was looking at him with a worried expression, and got up from his seat, heading towards the nearby writing desk. As he wrote “sugar beet” on the paper on the desk, Hyang suddenly panicked and frantically scratched the paper with the tip of his gold pen.

“Argh… Hey, you bastard!”

“Your Highness! What’s wrong?”

“Ah, it’s nothing.”

Although Hyang repeatedly said it was fine, the Crown Princess didn’t back down.

“I’ll call the royal physician.”

“I said I’m fine…”

“No! Hey, eunuch!”

At the Crown Princess’s call, the eunuch waiting outside promptly responded.

“Yes, My Lady. Did you call for me?”

“Bring the royal physician right away. Right now!”

“Yes, My Lady!”

*

In the end, this late-night commotion reached King Sejong and Queen Soheon the next day.

“Take care of your health.”

“Yes, Father.”

King Sejong brushed it off briefly, but Queen Soheon was different.

“What did the royal physician say?”

The Crown Princess immediately answered Queen Soheon’s question.

“He said it’s because His Highness has been exerting a lot of mental energy lately. So he prepared a tonic to nourish his energy.”

“Well done. Listen, Crown Prince.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I hope you will keep in mind that everything about the Crown Prince does not belong to the Crown Prince alone.”

“I will keep that in mind, Mother.”

Queen Soheon’s nagging continued for a long time after that. Of course, the pressure for a second child was not left out either.

In the end, Hyang had to leave the Crown Princess’s palace feeling drained.

“Then, I’ll go and take care of work, so the Crown Princess can go ahead first.”

“Yes. Please take care of yourself.”

“I will do so.”

After sending the Crown Princess ahead, Hyang let out a long sigh.

“Phew~. It’s hard, so hard.”

As he grumbled, Hyang slapped his own mouth with his hand.

“No matter how much you wake up from sleep, this damn mouth of mine is the problem, this damn mouth of mine!”

“Your Highness?”

“It’s just me talking to myself! Go on ahead!”

When the eunuch called out to him with a worried expression, Hyang staggered away with a look of nothing happened.

*

That night, King Sejong summoned Hyang. In a situation where even the eunuchs were sent out, let alone the royal historians, King Sejong confirmed the truth with Hyang.

“I didn’t say it in the morning because it was awkward, but what did you write on the paper last night that made you react like that?”

“I was writing down something I remembered, and I made a mistake in writing the characters…”

“You made a mistake in writing?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm…”

When King Sejong narrowed his eyes and glared at him, Hyang furtively averted his gaze.

King Sejong, who had been glaring at Hyang, threw another question.

“Have you finished reading the phonology books that were brought in some time ago?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll go borrow them soon.”

“Yes.”

“Go and rest.”

“Yes, Father, please get some comfortable sleep as well.”

King Sejong watched Hyang politely bow and leave, then muttered softly to himself.

“That guy, I need to catch him one day and interrogate him…”

Meanwhile, Hyang, who had come outside, let out a long sigh.

“Phew~. I’ll have to be damn busy for the time being.”

It was a fierce battle of wits between a father who wanted to make his son work and a son who didn’t want to work.

*

Despite the commotion, Hyang, who had remembered sugar beets, sent out proclamations not only throughout Joseon but also to the eastern pioneer region.

Of course, it was natural that he had to go through various hardships while creating the proclamations.

“What’s the Chinese character for radish?”

As Hyang pondered over the word for radish while writing the document, Jeong-cho, who had come to report at that moment, intervened.

“It’s called ‘nabok’ (蘿蔔). It uses the character ‘na’ (蘿) for mistletoe and ‘bok’ (蔔) for radish.”

“Ah! I see! Thank you!”

As Hyang looked delighted and searched for the character dictionary, Jeong-cho asked a question.

“What’s the reason for suddenly looking for the Chinese character?”

In response to Jeong-cho’s question, Hyang promptly explained the reason.

“Hmm…”

Hyang’s explanation made Jeong-cho stroke his beard and become lost in thought. After briefly recollecting his memory, Jeong-cho soon opened his mouth.

“Come to think of it… I remember eating a similar vegetable in Ming. The name was probably… Ah! It must have been written as ‘chamchae'^[1]”

“Is that so? Thank you!”

As Hyang expressed his sincere gratitude, Jeong-cho smiled. Although Hyang was his superior and the Crown Prince of this nation, he sometimes gave the impression of being like Jeong-cho’s own grandson.

While smiling warmly, Jeong-cho soon remembered the purpose of his visit and held out the book he had brought.

“This is a report documenting the development progress of the steam engine.”

“Ah! Thank you. Were there any good results?”

“The performance has improved a little compared to the last quarter, but there are still many parts that need further improvement.”

At Jeong-cho’s answer, Hyang clicked his tongue.

“Tsk! It’s fortunate that the performance has at least improved a bit. Although there are various rumors circulating from all directions, there is a saying, ‘Ubo cheon-ri’ (牛步千里, walking a thousand li at the pace of an ox. Slow but steady). Please encourage the craftsmen and officials not to give up.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Jeong-cho bowed his head and answered Hyang’s request.

*

In this way, a proclamation seeking ‘chamchae’ was distributed nationwide. However, there were several types of vegetables with that name. This was because the term ‘chamchae’ itself meant ‘sweet vegetable’.

“The conclusion is that I have to go through some physical hardship.”

Looking at the vegetables that had been brought up, Hyang began to taste them one by one, dividing them by type.

Through this process, Hyang was able to find sugar beets—to be precise, primitive sugar beets before the development of improved varieties.

After tasting the result of boiling the juice extracted from the sugar beets he had found, Hyang shook his head.

“It’s bland. There was a reason why sugarcane beat it.”

In fact, sugarcane showed an ‘insurmountable’ difference in profitability compared to sugar beets, which is why it maintained its dominant position even in the 21st century.

After confirming the results, Hyang made a decision.

“It’s not profitable as it is. I’ll have to breed improved varieties.”

Hyang passed on the sugar beets to the department in charge of breeding various grains.

“Oh my goodness…”

The researchers in the department that had been given a new assignment by Hyang became perplexed.

“Just like the oriental melon last time, why is he always looking for sweet things?”

“Whether it’s oriental melons or this, it’s like trying to catch a cloud.”

The officials who received the assignment from Hyang muttered in a perplexed tone.

*

Anyway, the main products of the royal store were undoubtedly salt and candy.

However, as the year of Giyu (1429) arrived, a powerful product emerged that threatened the status of these two items.

The name of that product was ‘goyak (medicinal plasters)'^[2].

The invention of goyak was also Hyang’s work.

*

One hot summer day in the 10th year of King Sejong’s reign (the year of Musin, 1429), Hyang, who had come out to take a short break, noticed a soldier of the Inner Palace Guard.

“Hey, what’s wrong with your walking?”

The soldier answered Hyang’s question, which was prompted by curiosity at the sight of him walking unsteadily, with an embarrassed face.

“Some time ago, a boil appeared on my buttocks, and it got badly inflamed, so…”

“Oh dear! Go see the royal physician right away.”

At Hyang’s words, the soldier replied with a troubled expression.

“I already went to see him, but he said it needs to be lanced…”

“Ah…”

At the soldier’s answer, Hyang unknowingly nodded his head.

“I’ll write an order for you, so go home and recuperate for a while.”

“I am deeply grateful!”

The soldier sincerely thanked Hyang and bowed deeply at his words. However, his posture was awkward due to the pain from the boil.

Hyang, who had returned to his room and written the order to give to the soldier, muttered with a serious expression.

“I had forgotten about this…”

At that time, boils were a fatal disease in Joseon. The best treatment was to lance them, but considering the hygienic conditions in Joseon at the time, this was a dangerous gamble.

“A little safer, a little cleaner!”

Exclaiming this, Hyang spread the method of disinfection using alcohol (ethanol) and improved hygiene by supplying soap. However, surgical procedures were still the last resort.

This was not just a problem in Joseon.

In the West, the situation was similar until the introduction of modern disinfection methods in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Surgery or procedures were considered ‘putting one foot in the grave’.

“Come to think of it… Father also suffered from boils, right? And wasn’t it said that the cause of death for King Jeongjo was a boil?”

Hyang muttered with a serious expression.

Hyang didn’t know, but in the history before his intervention, some scholars even mentioned abscesses as the biggest reason for King Munjong’s short life.

How much did Munjong suffer at that time? King Sejong, who could no longer bear to see the Crown Prince writhing in pain, issued a royal order with a heart of praying to the heavens to unconditionally pardon criminals with sentences below hard labor among the criminals nationwide. (Note 1)

However, Munjong’s boils recurred frequently, and he eventually died just two years after his enthronement. (Note 2)

“I need to find a solution…”

As Hyang walked around trying to find a solution, he soon stopped and snapped his fingers.

“That’s it! Medicinal plasters!”

*

The place where Hyang had set up a blacksmith shop in the 21st century was a rural area on the outskirts of Yangsan.

It was a place where elderly people with an average age easily exceeding 70 gathered, so it was common to see people with various ailments.

If you went out a little, there was a hospital in Yangsan City, but the place most frequented by the residents was a nearby traditional Korean medicine clinic.

It was run by a traditional Korean medicine doctor who was as old as the residents, ‘aging together’ with them, and the residents would visit this clinic whenever they felt even slightly ill.

The most famous thing at that clinic was medicinal plasters.

*

Note 1) The very thing that made the kings of Joseon tremble. The Hankyoreh. 2014.07.25

http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/science/science_general/648527.html

Note 2) Joseon, fighting a battle against boils. Written by Bang Seong-hye. Window of the Era.

1. 甜菜[↩]
2. medicinal plasters[↩]

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