During this time, while Joseon merchants and Japanese merchants were constantly looking for opportunities to swindle one another, there existed a group that sought to swindle them all together: the Joseon Officials.
If one sold rice to Japanese merchants instead of turning it over to Joseon people, it left a massive profit.
And if they did not involve themselves in such highly profitable affairs, they were not Joseon Officials.
Every Joseon Official was a Confucian Scholar.
Seen through the eyes of a Confucian Scholar, merchants were beings who lived by swindling the innocent commoners (in truth, this was about half correct).
Therefore, suppressing their activities was the natural duty of a Seonbi living in this country.
Gaining a bit of profit while clearing away such wicked merchant seeds was a small price for their good deeds.
If they treated Joseon merchants this way, there was no need to even mention their treatment of Japanese merchants.
Was the Wae not a treacherous and untrustworthy race that had relentlessly tormented Joseon, starting from the Wae-gu at the end of the Goryeo dynasty to the Imjin War?
Furthermore, the recent opening of the ports was something forced upon them when the Japanese suddenly brought Western-style ships near Ganghwado.
Whether to remember the old grudges of the Goryeo Wae-gu and the Imjin War or to wash away the recent resentment of the Treaty of Ganghwa, there was a need to harass the Wae merchants a bit.
However, since the jurisdiction over Japanese merchants had been handed over to Japan, the traditional methods of the Joseon Officials could not be used.
That is to say, they could not use the most traditional and effective method of pinning fake crimes on them and resolving it with a flogging, so they had to use a different way.
The Joseon Officials were the most talented people when it came to creative ideas for profit generation.
The Joseon Officials realized that the Japanese merchants were not actually merchants trading with their own money, but small-scale merchants trading with funds borrowed from Japanese banks or wealthy magnates.
Borrowed money required interest, and every day of delay meant paying a day’s worth of additional interest.
Thus, if the officials slightly delayed the export of the rice and soybeans these merchants had purchased in Joseon, the Japanese merchants would suffer losses in the process.
Consequently, to resolve this, the Japanese merchants paid express fees to the Joseon Officials.
But there was no way the Joseon Officials would be satisfied with mere express fees.
The greatest method they employed was the Grain Embargo.
A Joseon Official has the inherent authority to enact a Grain Embargo, which prohibits the outflow of grain from the region under his jurisdiction.
This was a pre-modern law meant to prevent famine, a power created to stop people from starving to death by preventing grain from leaving a district suffering from a crop failure.
And this aspect was even recognized in the treaty. However, the Joseon Officials used this Grain Embargo as a creative means to increase their profits.
They abused it to the level of making a killing off Japanese merchants, taking advantage of the fact that grain prices rise when a general Grain Embargo is issued.
In places like Muncheon, Gowon, Anbyeon, and Gosan, which supplied rice to Wonsan, the Grain Embargo was issued with strange frequency.
When a Grain Embargo is issued in a region where no famine has occurred in the first place, the price of grain drops.
When the price drops, the official mobilizes people to buy up as much as possible.
Then, after a month or two, the Grain Embargo is lifted, and when it is lifted, the price of grain rises again.
The grain previously bought cheaply was then handed over to Japanese merchants at a high price.
It was also a common occurrence for the grains intended for the Hwangok, which were stored in case of famine, to be sent over to Japan.
In places where a Japanese merchant had already paid in advance and decided to purchase, an official would suddenly start a dispute, claiming this land was not Wonsan land and that the contract for the Japanese person to buy the crops in the field was fundamentally void.
Naturally, the Japanese merchant would protest that such a thing was impossible, but lawsuits at the government office always took time.
If they could just drag it out for two months, the Japanese merchant eventually had no choice but to offer a bribe due to the burden of interest.
Of course, Joseon people who were accustomed to the various extortions of officials, as well as Japanese merchants, found and used methods to counter this.
If an official hindered the release of grain, they would secretly hand it over to the Japanese and then claim it had been stolen, or they would scam them by lying that the harvest had failed.
In the midst of such events, I entered Wonsan sailing a large ship the likes of which they had never seen.
To the Japanese merchants, a terrifying competitor had appeared, and the Joseon merchants or farmers thought they might be able to find a larger trading partner by abandoning the Japanese.
And the Joseon Officials began to scout whether I was someone they could shake down or not.
Seeing the fluent Joseon language I spoke, the Joseon Officials suspected whether I was a Joseon person who had escaped the country.
It wasn’t that they thought of bringing back a commoner who had fled the country in violation of the law.
They simply thought there would be a lot to take if they shook me down.
However, it was for that very reason that I had specifically hired Sugiyama.
Sugiyama was a very timid person, but in these situations, he knew how to act quite brazenly.
“Just because he speaks the Joseon language well, you’re asking if he’s a Joseon person? Then, since this fellow speaks Japanese well, is he not Japanese? He is also incredibly fluent in English and Chinese; so are you saying he’s English or Chinese?”
The hired President Sugiyama got angry with an expression as if he were hearing something utterly bizarre, and the Joseon Officials who had doubted my identity had no choice but to let it go.
I didn’t come to Joseon for something as petty as buying cheap rice.
My purpose was rather to meet Joseon merchants, specifically the Songsang.
Many Joseon merchants crowded into the building I rented at the port to see and buy the Western goods I had displayed.
“Calico also comes in many different qualities. Among them, this can be called a top-grade product. Look at this fine texture. Does it not truly rival silk?”
“Where did you bring this from?”
“This is Calico that I brought directly from the United Kingdom. Where is the United Kingdom? Do you mean to say you don’t know the United Kingdom that fought and defeated the Qing Dynasty in this age? Don’t go around calling yourself a merchant. And the next Calico is this one. This was brought from India. India refers to Cheonchukguk, and recently India has begun to produce Calico similar to that of the United Kingdom. So, I will give you this one a bit cheaper. Hey now, even if I say I’m giving it to you cheaply, I mean cheap among Calico; why are you comparing it to the price of Joseon Oseungpo cotton? If I sold it at that price, I wouldn’t even cover the cost of the coal for the ship I came on.”
“What is this thick hemp?”
“That is Kwangmok. As you can see, the width is wide, making it easy to make clothes, and the material is thick, so it won’t wear out much even if you do laundry by pounding it with a club as you do in Joseon. Honestly, Calico is difficult to wash because the fabric gets damaged, doesn’t it? This doesn’t have that problem. Moreover, the price is really affordable. I’ll truly give this to you for the price of Oseungpo cotton.”
Calico captivated all Joseon people with its soft texture and white luster, but it had one drawback: laundry was difficult. In Joseon, laundry is done by soaking the clothes in lye and then pounding them with a club.
Clothes made of Oseungpo cotton or hemp, which had been primarily worn until then, could be washed this way.
However, Calico’s fibers were so thin and soft that the fabric would be damaged if washed like that.
Kwangmok is a machine-woven wide cotton cloth, and because the material was thick, the fabric was not damaged even if washed in the traditional way.
On top of that, its price was the same as general cotton, further devaluing regular cotton.
And I also brought materials that would bring a revolution to Joseon’s laundry.
Was it laundry soap?
No, that was still too expensive for Joseon people to use.
What I brought was the material for Western Lye, namely Sodium Hydroxide.
“This is something called soda. If you put a spoonful of this into water, you don’t have to go through the trouble of making lye; something called Western Lye is created. It’s about ten times more effective than regular lye. Oh, it’s dangerous, so don’t touch it like that. If it gets wet, it will melt the flesh on your fingers. You’re asking how you can do laundry with something so dangerous? That’s why I brought these things called Rubber Gloves.”
Western Lye was incredibly more effective at cleaning compared to traditional lye, but touching it would make your hands sting terribly.
If it accidentally got into your eyes, you could even go blind.
Until laundry soap was introduced, people suffered from stinging hands all day after doing laundry with Western Lye.
That’s why I made Rubber Gloves.
If you do laundry while wearing Rubber Gloves, your hands won’t hurt even if you wash with Western Lye.
Furthermore, you can do laundry even in the middle of winter.
Since it was an era when rubber was still expensive, I made them much thicker than those in the 21st century so they wouldn’t tear.
The Joseon merchants were also fascinated by the waterproof Rubber Gloves and all gathered to watch.
“Since these are gloves that water cannot pass through, if women wear these while washing, their hands won’t be damaged even if they use strong Western Lye. Moreover, they can do laundry even in freezing ice water in the dead of winter. Do you not feel pity for the wives who break the ice to do laundry in midwinter? Then please buy this.”
Although I made Rubber Gloves, I had not yet made rubber shoes. I planned to release rubber shoes in a few years.
The Rubber Plantation in Singapore, which I had entrusted to Hira Singh, now had over a million Rubber Trees growing, so rubber production is expected to begin in earnest in three or four years.
I thought I would need to bring more seeds from Brazil to increase the number of trees, but Hira Singh, whom I put in charge of the Singapore plantation, increased the trees through the cutting method and planted Rubber Trees across the entire 60,000-acre plantation.
Since rubber is not yet produced in Singapore, the rubber used to make the Rubber Gloves is all natural rubber collected from the forests of Brazil.
When I presented the Rubber Gloves, even the Japanese merchants’ eyes widened with desire, but it would be difficult for them to make them.
For one, the amount of Brazilian rubber being produced wasn’t much, and I was buying it up as soon as it came out.
Therefore, the item known as Rubber Gloves was something only I was releasing in Joseon.
That wasn’t the only item I brought. I introduced Kerosene for the first time in Joseon.
“Now, look at the oil inside this tin can. This metal box might look like something amazing, but what I intend to sell is the Kerosene inside. While Joseon people light lamps with castor oil or camellia oil, Westerners light fires with an item called a Lamp that uses this Kerosene. It’s not dark yet, so I can’t show you how bright it is, but I’ll light it and show you later when night falls.”
It hadn’t been long since Kerosene began to be widely distributed as lighting fuel, so whale oil and other oils were still used quite a bit in the West.
However, it was a fact that the distribution of Kerosene was spreading at a terrifying speed, and in a few years, Kerosene derived from petroleum would dominate the world’s lighting oil.
When night fell, Kerosene Lamps were lit in the building where I resided, and a crowd of people gathered to see the bright light.
However, at that time, I was meeting with the Songsang inside the building.
They were the very Songsang with whom I had traded Ginseng.
Gu Cheon-baek, the Songsang I had traded with for a long time, said, “I thought we had been trading for quite a while, but do you now intend to deal with other merchants besides us?”
“How could that be? You brothers are always the merchants I can trust the most.”
Another Songsang, Park Yu-won, said, “If that’s the case, why didn’t you show those goods to us first instead of showing them to other merchants?”
“That’s because the quantity is too much for you brothers to handle alone. Do you think you alone could have processed the volume I released today?”
Gu Cheon-baek and Park Yu-won had gained many profits while smuggling Ginseng with me and were making names for themselves as quite large merchants in Gaesong, but they were not at a level to handle the volume I had brought today.
Park Yu-won apparently had nothing to say to that, as he cleared his throat and spoke.
“Ahem, ahem. Even if that’s true, you could have shown them to us first. I thought our relationship was at least that deep?”
“If I had brought so many Western goods and only called you brothers to show them, wouldn’t people suspect the relationship between us? That’s why I simply stepped forward in front of people to introduce the goods. In return, I will lower the price for you.”
Gu Cheon-baek and Park Yu-won looked delighted and asked, “How much will you lower it?”
“I will give you a 5 percent discount.”
Five percent meant 5%.
Gu Cheon-baek said with a slightly disappointed face, “Is that not a bit stingy considering our relationship?”
“Instead, I will give half of it to you on credit. You can just bring the remainder in Ginseng next time.”
When I said I would give half on credit, the two of them finally showed complete joy.
Gu Cheon-baek asked, “But how do you plan to receive and take the Ginseng?”
Until now, we had smuggled it through the coast in Myeongcheon.
However, even though Wonsan here had been opened as a port, inspections were strict to see if forbidden items were being traded.
Ginseng was a representative forbidden item, so if the smuggling of Ginseng was discovered, both of them could have their heads cut off.
“I have a method for that. You brothers just need to bring a lot of Ginseng.”
“Don’t worry about that. In fact, we brought 2,000 geun this time.”
Maneuvering to prepare as much as 2,000 geun of Ginseng while avoiding the eyes of the authorities was truly no easy task.
“My, you’ve prepared quite a large amount. I shall specially add even more goods for you.”
“In exchange, don’t forget that it’s your role to get this out.”
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