King of Commerce, Yeonsan-gun Ch.36
Bright Skies over Joseon
The Farmer's Dilemma
In Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Yi Baek-gil stood at the grain market and sighed deeply.
Once again, the bountiful harvest had filled the grain market to capacity with boats laden with rice.
As a result, the price of rice plummeted.
Given the circumstances, he’d have to sell all his rice just to pay the rent and settle his debts, leaving little to feed his family.
Baek-gil couldn’t fathom the situation. How could a bountiful harvest lead to hunger for his family?
With the abolition of the tribute system, local officials like Yi and ordinary farmers were now allowed to sell local specialties at the grain market. However, unlike other regions, Paju had little to offer.
The local products of Paju were limited to crabs and mullets. The handicrafts traditionally paid as tribute—straw mats, brooms, and paper—were too common to fetch high prices.
Paper was the only product with a reasonable profit margin. However, the paper artisans had already formed a tight-knit group, choosing their own officials and excluding farmers like Baek-gil, leaving him with no benefits.
Baek-gil asked people nearby if they had heard of any upcoming government projects that might require labor.
It was a bizarre reversal of fortune. Just last year, everyone dreaded government-imposed labor. Now, they hoped for it to make ends meet.
But everyone he asked responded the same way: “No, there’s no news of such projects.”
Baek-gil trudged home, dejected.
When he arrived, he found the women in the household gathered and brewing rice wine.
“What are you all doing?” he shouted, his voice full of frustration.
His wife, Seo Un-nyeon, looked at him as if he had gone mad, returning from the market possessed by a spirit.
“It’s a bountiful year, so we’re making wine. Why are you yelling? You complain about not having enough wine to drink, and now you’re mad that we’re brewing some?”
“The price of rice has dropped so much that even selling all of it won’t cover the taxes! You women don’t understand the situation!”
“And why are you drooling over the yeast for the wine?”
Un-nyeon’s retort was spot on. If Baek-gil had really wanted to stop them, he would have done so immediately. Instead, his mouth watered at the thought of the wine.
“Fine... just don’t make too much. We’re going to have to tighten our belts this year.”
As he grumbled, the neighbor women chimed in.
“Why worry about tightening your belt? Sell the wine and buy food.”
Baek-gil looked puzzled at the suggestion.
“What do you mean, sell the wine?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Don’t you know your wife has been selling extra wine to help out?”
One of the women scolded Baek-gil for his lack of awareness about the household affairs.
“Oh, sister! Why did you have to tell him? Now he’ll drink all the wine before we can sell it,” Un-nyeon said, looking worried.
While Un-nyeon was concerned about him drinking up the stock, Baek-gil’s mind was elsewhere.
“Wife, how much money did we get from selling the wine?”
“Hmm? We traded it for rice cakes and meat for the feast.”
“No, I mean, if we took it to the market, how much could we sell it for?”
“I don’t know... I’ve always just taken what the noble households offered.”
“The wine we’re making now—let’s sell it all in Seoul! That money should be enough to pay the rent!”
The idea of selling wine instead of drinking it was so out of character for Baek-gil that Un-nyeon wondered if he was possessed.
“Are you really going to carry all those heavy wine jars to Seoul? You must have legs of steel. No wonder Un-nyeon never runs away!” the neighbor women joked.
“Ha ha ha!”
Baek-gil was momentarily at a loss for words as the women laughed at his expense.
Realistically, he knew it wasn’t feasible to haul the heavy wine jars all the way to Seoul.
However, amidst the chatter, a solution emerged.
One of the women, who had been preparing the yeast, spoke up.
“Why worry? Just distill it into soju and sell it to the noble households. We have a distiller at home. Once the wine ferments, we can distill it into soju.”
The rule of seeking attention to find answers on 21st-century internet forums was equally valid in the 15th-century Joseon women’s network.
A Surge in Demand
Meanwhile, in Seoul, strange events were unfolding.
“What’s with all this stuff? Why is there a mountain of rushes coming in?” the customs officials at Namdaemun (South Gate) were bewildered by the unusual cargo.
Servants were hauling in cartloads of rushes.
“What should we do? There’s no specific tax for rushes.”
“Are you serious? Obviously, they’re trying to smuggle something hidden in those rushes! Search the carts!”
But to their astonishment, the carts contained nothing but rushes.
“Are they planning to weave thousands of mats? Why are they bringing in so much rush?”
It turned out that was exactly what they intended.
Han Chung-soon, a military official at the Gungisi (Bureau of Military Supplies), had discovered the efficiency of division of labor while working under the king's command at Mapo Palace earlier that summer.
He realized that with the right division of labor, they could produce vast quantities of goods.
So, he even had the servants make straw sandals in bulk using division of labor. (*1)
The servants were puzzled, wondering if their master had gone mad, making them produce so many straw sandals.
As expected, making many straw sandals wasn’t particularly useful or profitable.
“Ah, so this is the principle of supply and demand... or something like that, as His Majesty mentioned!” Han Chung-soon mused.
While the scarcity of straw sandals was more about rarity than supply and demand, it was related enough to give Han a rough understanding of economic principles.
Moving beyond straw sandals, he saw potential in something more profitable: the mat-making loom the king had devised.
He realized that by slightly modifying the loom, they could also use it to weave rush mats.
Thus, Han set his servants to work, weaving mats on the newly adapted looms. This marked the birth of Joseon’s second highly industrialized factory.
Even hiring job seekers to weave mats, the heaps of rushes rapidly turned into mats.
If the king had witnessed this, he might have thought, “Is the Industrial Revolution happening here with mat weaving?!”
New Ventures in the Market
In a quiet mountain village south of Chungju, the Malheulgeum (ironworking) community lived much as they had for centuries, quietly smelting iron.
However, news of a new market in Chungju soon reached them.
Since the previous harvest, signs had been emerging that a market was forming in Chungju. By the time the harvest was over, merchants from Naju had collaborated with local residents to plan and launch the market.
Bored from his time in the rural village, Kim Nap persuaded his old friends to visit the market with him.
“You’ve been sitting at home, clueless about how to spend your money, paying whatever price the traders demand for rice and other goods. Even if the magistrate promises to protect us from overcharging, it’s useless to hoard money at home. Let’s go to the market and have some fun.”
As they traveled down to Chungju, the Malheulgeum ironworkers were astonished by what they saw.
“There are so many people here! It looks like everyone from all over Joseon has gathered.”
“Look at that! There’s a guy walking on a tightrope!”
“Oh, you bumpkins. This is nothing compared to Seoul,” Kim Nap teased.
The market was a spectacle with entertainers, food vendors, and dice-throwing con men. Everything was new and fascinating to the ironworkers.
The street performers especially caught their interest.
As they watched, one of the performers, a shaman-turned-clown, began selling amulets.
“If you don’t donate after watching the performance, all the ghosts will be angry and bring misfortune upon you! We are spreading the blessings of Buddha, so anyone who enjoyed the performance should donate! These amulets are from a temple established by Master Muhak...” (*2)
Given the pervasive superstition of the era, few would recognize these as cheap, fraudulent charms. Everyone eagerly handed over rice and various goods in exchange for the amulets.
Swept up in the atmosphere, the ironworkers tossed a few notes into the basket and received their charms.
“Generous donations will surely bring greater blessings from Buddha... gasp!”
Seeing the unexpectedly high value of the notes, the performer was taken aback. This group of performers traveled from market to market and understood the value of the paper currency better than the ironworkers did.
Kim Nap, realizing his friends had carelessly handed over a small fortune, quickly reached into the basket to retrieve the money.
“Oh no! My friends gave you too much. Here, take it back!”
But before he could retrieve the notes, the performer’s toughs grabbed his wrist with a vice-like grip.
“Didn’t you hear the performer? If you take that back, you’ll anger all the spirits in the land.”
“You... you bastards...”
Meanwhile, other members of the group began luring Kim Nap’s friends into another scam.
“You look like fine gentlemen who haven’t been to a market like this before. How about trying your luck at a dice game?”
Although calling the mountain-dwelling ironworkers “fine gentlemen” was absurdly flattering, the con men delivered it with practiced sincerity.
Having experienced similar scams in Seoul, Kim Nap foresaw the trouble his friends were walking into.
“No! You scoundrels! Where are you taking them? Stop!”
But it was too late. Kim Nap was forcefully dragged away and tossed into the Namhan River.
Meanwhile, his friends were led into a classic gambling trap, complete with a planted shill.
The Malheulgeum ironworkers might not have known the exact value of money, but they did understand the thrill of gambling.
Following the predictable pattern of such scams, the shill pretended to lose a few rounds and then, feigning frustration, placed a large bet with counterfeit money. This was the signal for the con to begin in earnest.
Soon enough, the ironworkers realized they had been swindled out of all their money.
Even though they didn’t fully grasp the monetary value, they understood the frustration of having everything taken from them.
“This is clearly a trick. Return our money.”
“A trick? You came here, placed your bets, and now you’re crying foul? What nonsense.”
Naturally, the bystanders who had seemed like innocent onlookers were part of the con, ready to support their fellow scam artists.
But the ironworkers weren’t the type to be intimidated by appearances.
They tried to reclaim their money by force.
“What’s this nonsense about losing? Give us back our money, or else.”
Violence ensued. One of the thugs stomped on the ironworker’s wrist.
“Did we force you to play with a knife at your throat? You came of your own free will, and now you want your money back? Get lost.”
These thugs assumed they would use the money more wisely than these clueless men who couldn’t even distinguish between a seom and a mal of rice.
However, the thugs overlooked two crucial facts:
First, their targets were Malheulgeum ironworkers, a group intimately familiar with metal.
Second, they were messing with a group that even the government handled cautiously.
KANG!
“Arrgh!!!”
A vivid red mark appeared on the thug’s shin where he had been struck.
“Who the hell do you think you’re messing with?”
The ironworkers wielded their tools with deadly precision.
As blacksmiths, they always had their metal tools at hand, and their temperament was as hard as the iron they worked with.
Joseon’s government had once considered giving these blacksmiths official positions, but abandoned the idea due to their reputation as brutish thugs.
Recently, the Malheulgeum ironworkers had been applying the mass-production techniques taught by the government to produce high-quality steel tools.
These ironworkers weren’t driven by capitalist motives; they prioritized their needs and sold any surplus.
Thus, everything in Malheulgeum was made from steel, from axes for cutting wood to picks for mining ore, and even the hammer that had just struck the thug’s shin, and the tongs they threatened to use on the remaining con men.
The thugs, who were more about bluff than actual combat skills, quickly lost their nerve against these fierce opponents.
The thug who had been struck wasn’t dead, only because he was hit on the shin and not a vital area.
In the blood-soaked chaos that followed, the con men were too terrified to prevent the ironworkers from reclaiming their money.
Modern viewers, familiar with period dramas featuring law enforcement, might wonder why the local constables didn’t intervene. But constables mainly existed in Seoul, only forming temporary offices during special situations in the provinces. More often, pre-modern soldiers disrupted rather than maintained peace.
Moreover, most provincial soldiers had been discharged and only a few remained, currently undergoing training in Seoul.
As the remaining thugs retreated in fear, the ironworkers brandished their tools and shouted, “What are you looking at, you scoundrels?” causing the rest to flee.
Meanwhile, Kim Nap emerged from the river, cold and wet, to see his friends, armed with their tools, walking triumphantly from the market.
Uneven Progress
While some people were adapting to the market economy, others remained untouched by the changes sweeping Joseon.
“Wasn’t there talk about abolishing the tribute tax?”
“Yeah, I heard that too. So why are we still working so hard?”
“Silence! Where did you hear such treasonous rumors? Get back to work!”
Life in Jeju, a land historically burdened by the tribute system, seemed unchanged.
Despite the abolition of the tribute tax and the establishment of the Hwamaeso (auction houses), Jeju’s situation remained peculiar. While they could now sell local specialties, the island’s unique products, such as tangerines, horses, and abalone, had no direct substitutes on the mainland.
Even though deer, shiitake mushrooms, and carrots were also produced on the island, these were more common and faced competition from other regions.
The nationwide introduction of auctions at Hwamaeso revealed the purchasing power across Joseon. The liberation from the tribute system led to a decline in the production of some irreplaceable items, causing their prices to skyrocket.
Consequently, the rights to sell Jeju’s specialty products became as lucrative as those for the mink pelts of Hamgyeong Province.
Moreover, Jeju was dominated by powerful local elites. The Minhoe (local councils) of Jeju had been taken over by these elites.
The profits once extorted by the central government through tribute taxes now filled the pockets of the local gentry.
Even the magistrates tolerated this, as they couldn’t govern without the cooperation of the local functionaries. The position of a local official was undesirable, so without these perks, no one would want the job.
Additionally, these functionaries could contribute to local finances (including bonuses for the magistrates) with their profits from selling tribute items.
While the defiant resistance from the people of Hamyang might seem exceptional, this sort of collusion was the norm across much of the southern provinces.
Still, not all hope was lost for the common people.
The abolition of the tribute system meant that Jeju’s production was no longer arbitrarily set by the government but could now adjust to within the island’s sustainable limits.
Knowing that excessive exploitation would lead to desertion, the local gentry began to favor labor-efficient, high-value products.
Tangerines and horses quickly became the most lucrative products in Jeju.
Abalone was difficult to harvest and often resulted in deaths, making it unsustainable in the long term.
As for the black cattle, while Jeju’s horses were unmatched nationwide, the cattle faced more competition.
Forward-thinking gentry began expanding tangerine orchards, converting unused lands into pastures, and seeking merchants to contract with at the Hwamaeso.
Concerns about feeding the increased number of horses could be addressed by buying fodder with the proceeds from selling tangerines.
The gentry considered it more profitable to grow tangerines and buy rice from the mainland than to continue struggling with subsistence farming on Jeju’s barren land.
Additionally, they could now sell tangerines not just to Seoul but to other regions nearby where the fruit could reach before spoiling.
The emerging mindset among Jeju’s gentry was not quite capitalist but was undoubtedly something new, a departure from the stagnant conditions of old Joseon.
Notes:
Han Chung-soon, a minor historical figure, appears briefly in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. He served as a low-ranking military official without significant achievements or notoriety, and his detailed records are sparse.
Mats were a crucial commodity in Joseon. While plain mats had little value, intricately woven ones like the Hwamunseok from Ganghwa or the Yongmunseok from Boseong were valuable enough to be traded with China and Japan, even offered as tribute to China.
In Joseon, entertainers and performers, such as clowns, were often associated with shamanistic or Buddhist traditions. These groups frequently mingled with monks and shamans, reflecting the syncretic nature of folk religion and performance arts.
Jeju Island historically suffered under the heavy burden of tribute taxes, providing unique products like tangerines and horses to the central government. Even after the introduction of the Daedong law, Jeju remained an exception due to its essential contributions.
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