Morning sunlight was clearing away the mist over the marshland.
Sitting on the bench in front of the hut, I checked the bundle of papers in my hand once more.
[Land Purchase Deed]
[Location: Marshland Area, Galsan Village, Gold Province]
[Area: Approximately 3,000 pyeong]
[Buyer: Choi San]
They were the property deeds I had bought from the landowners yesterday, including Scholar Park.
I had even had them notarized at the local office, so the land was now completely mine under the law.
Even if someone came along and said, “This used to belong to our ancestors,” it would not mean a thing.
“Hehehe...”
A laugh slipped out before I realized it.
Three thousand pyeong. Roughly 10,000 square meters. An enormous stretch of land about one and a half football fields in size.
Back when I farmed in South Korea, I had hauled several crates of rice wine to the village headman just to lease a 500-pyeong field.
And now, in Goryeo, I had become a landowner for just fifteen taels.
“Big Brother, you’re going to bore a hole through that paper.”
Chilbok approached while washing his face.
“Hey, Chilbok. Do you know how large 3,000 pyeong is?”
“I don’t know... Big enough to make your legs hurt if you walk around it once?”
“This entire huge plot belongs to us. No one can interfere with anything we do here now.”
I sprang to my feet.
My chest swelled with emotion.
I had a foundation now.
My own kingdom, where I could build whatever I wanted, dig waterways, and plant crops as I pleased.
“Manseok! Bring straw rope and stakes!”
“Yes! Where are we going?”
“To mark our territory.”
We walked around the outskirts of the marshland and drove in stakes.
Manseok led the way with enormous wooden stakes over his shoulder, while Chilbok followed behind, unspooling straw rope.
“This is the starting point. Drive it in!”
“Hyah!”
Manseok swung a huge wooden mallet.
Thud! Thud!
The sturdy stake pierced deep into the wet soil of the marshland.
“Next!”
We drove stakes at intervals of ten paces and tied rope between them.
A long boundary line formed along the edge of the marshland.
It was a declaration that everything inside belonged to the Great Peace Domain.
Villagers passing by clicked their tongues at the sight.
“Tsk. What’s the point of driving stakes into that rotten land?”
“Does he have money rotting away somewhere? Buying that stinking mudflat just to suffer.”
“He must not know how the world works because he’s a noble young master.”
They laughed, certain we would fail.
But I laughed at their laughter.
‘Laugh all you want. Next autumn, I’ll have you rolling around with envy.’
It took us half a day to finish.
The vast marshland was surrounded by white straw rope.
I stood on the highest mound in the center of the marsh.
Chilbok and Manseok stood at my sides, sweating heavily.
“Alright, look closely.”
I drew a picture in the air with my finger.
“Up north, where the wind is blocked, we’ll build our house and warehouse. That’s where construction is happening now.”
“Yes.”
“And over there to the east, near the drainage point. A large brewery will go there. A liquor production facility.”
“A liquor production facility?!”
Chilbok’s eyes widened.
“And in the south, that wide plain with good sunlight. It’ll all become rice paddies. Not ordinary paddies, but modern ones with waterways laid out like a chessboard.”
“And to the west, where all those reeds are.”
“What about there? Are we just leaving it?”
“No. That will be a pasture. We’ll raise cattle, pigs, and chickens there. Their manure will become fertilizer, and we’ll eat the meat.”
Housing, industry, farming, livestock.
It was a perfectly organized layout.
The future of the Great Peace Domain took shape in my mind like a city-building game.
“Wow... You really have every detail planned out in your head, Big Brother.”
Manseok marveled.
“Of course. But to do all this, we need one thing first.”
“Money?”
“We have money.”
“Then people?”
“We have people, too.”
I pointed at the ground beneath our feet.
“Water.”
“Water? There’s water everywhere. It’s so muddy, I’m sick of it.”
Manseok grumbled as he shook mud from his shoes.
“This is filthy water. We need clean water. First-class water for drinking and brewing liquor.”
The marsh water was full of decaying organic matter. It was excellent for farming, but unsuitable for drinking or brewing.
Until now, we had carried water from the village well. But if we were going to operate a brewery, we needed our own water source.
And not just any water source.
Clear, cold bedrock spring water.
“We’re digging a well.”
“Where? If we dig anywhere, won’t we just get muddy water?”
Chilbok was right. The marshland had weak ground, so if we chose the wrong spot, only murky water would seep out.
But I knew how to read the terrain.
In my previous life, I had followed groundwater drilling contractors around countless times while farming.
I studied the area.
Not where reeds grew thick, but where willows grew.
A spot slightly higher than the surrounding land, where the soil was not black but carried a reddish tint of loess.
‘There.’
A gently sloped hill behind the house site.
An old willow tree stood there. Willows loved water, but their roots also grew deep in search of clear water.
“We’ll dig there.”
“Master Carpenter Gong! Please call the stonemasons!”
At my call, Mr. Gong came over with two skilled stonemasons.
Their names were Dolseok and Soedol. Their names alone sounded reliable.
“You’re digging a well?”
“Yes. If we dig here, we’ll find bedrock spring water.”
The stonemasons inspected the ground.
“Hmm... It’s not a bad site, but this is marshland. You’ll have to dig deep. At least thirty ja, around nine meters, before clear water without surface water mixing in comes out.”
“Don’t worry about depth. We have a human excavator.”
I called Manseok over.
Then I assigned five of the workers best at digging to assist him.
“Start!”
The work began.
The first meter was soft soil, so it came out quickly.
But after two meters, they reached a sticky clay layer. At three meters, gravel and rocks began to appear.
“Hyah!”
Sparks flew whenever Manseok drove down his pickaxe.
Ordinary people would have given up on such hard ground long ago, but Manseok did not tire.
The beef soup he had eaten that morning and the boiled pork he had eaten at lunch were pumping his muscles full of strength.
“Haul it out! Get the dirt out!”
Whenever Manseok filled a basket with soil in the pit and sent it up, Chilbok and the workers above used a pulley to haul it out.
The speed was incredible.
By afternoon, the pit had passed five meters.
Moisture began seeping through the earth.
“Sir! Water’s coming out!”
Manseok shouted from below.
“Not yet! That’s muddy water! Dig deeper! Until you hit bedrock!”
I urged them on.
The water coming out now was merely surface water that had seeped down. It would not make the finest liquor.
We had to go deeper and find groundwater rising through the bedrock.
At sunset.
The pit had reached a depth of eight meters.
It was so dark below that we could barely see anything.
Clang!
A dull sound echoed.
It was not the sound of digging soil.
It was metal striking stone.
“Big Brother! There’s rock! A huge rock is blocking us!”
Manseok’s voice echoed from below.
“Good! That’s the bedrock! You have to break through it!”
“How are we supposed to break this?! The pickaxe keeps bouncing off!”
I had prepared for this.
I signaled to the stonemasons.
“Bring the chisels.”
Pointed steel chisels.
The stonemasons climbed down on ropes.
Inside the narrow pit, Manseok and the two stonemasons pressed chisels against the rock and began hammering.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of breaking rock echoed through the marshland.
It was a tedious, exhausting fight.
But they did not give up.
Because I had promised chicken stew for dinner.
Maybe word that twenty chickens were simmering had reached even the bottom of the pit, because a rhythm entered the hammering.
About an hour passed.
Craaaash!
A thunderous roar suddenly erupted from underground.
“Aah! Water! The water burst through!”
Manseok screamed.
Then came the rushing sound of water.
“Pull them up! Quickly!”
The workers urgently pulled the ropes.
Manseok and the stonemasons scrambled up.
The moment they emerged, a column of water surged from the pit.
Whooosh!
It was not muddy water.
It was clear, ice-cold water like crystal, bubbling with foam.
We had struck an underground water vein.
“Waaaah!”
The watching workers cheered.
The water rapidly rose and filled half the pit.
I lowered a wooden bucket and drew up a scoop of water.
It was cold enough to make my hand ache.
I took a sip.
Gulp.
“...!”
Sweet.
It had the refreshing bite of soda water and the subtle sweetness of minerals.
This was not ordinary water.
It was natural bedrock spring water.
“It worked.”
If I brewed liquor with this water, Great Peace Wine would rise to another level.
No, this water alone was valuable enough to sell.
“Alright, work is over for today! Let’s go eat chicken stew!”
“Long live Sir Choi San!”
The workers cheered as they wrung out their wet clothes.
That night.
We held a chicken stew feast.
Tearing into a chicken leg, I looked over the site with satisfaction.
The well had been completed, the warehouse stood finished, and the drainage canals were doing their job.
The workers were already desperate to work again tomorrow.
“Big Brother.”
Chilbok asked as he scooped up chicken porridge.
“What?”
“This marshland soil... Now that the water’s draining, it’s getting darker and darker. And I think it smells richer, too.”
“You only noticed now?”
I scraped the bottom of my bowl.
“That’s all money. It’s leaf mold created from reeds and leaves rotting away for thousands of years. If you sow seeds there, they’ll grow like mad without any fertilizer.”
“Ah... So that’s why the radishes grew so large.”
“Exactly. If we plant rice there next spring, the villagers will probably faint.”
Then someone timidly approached through the darkness.
It was Gaeddong, one of the workers who had spent the day molding earthen bricks.
“Sir...”
“Oh, Gaeddong. What is it? Not enough meat?”
“No, Sir. I ate until I could burst.”
Gaeddong hesitated before speaking.
“Actually... I live in the next village, and I heard something strange on my way here.”
“Something strange?”
“I... overheard Scholar Park’s servants talking. They said Scholar Park regrets selling the land.”
“Regrets it?”
“Yes. After seeing you living so grandly and building things here, he said he was tricked... He plans to go to the local office, file a lawsuit, and take the land back...”
Ha.
Just as expected.
He was jealous. Clear water was gushing from land he had sold for next to nothing, and sturdy buildings were rising on it.
“So what else did they say? When is he coming?”
“They said he’ll come tomorrow morning. He plans to bring some thugs and cause trouble... I thought you should be careful.”
Gaeddong looked worried.
He had come to warn me because he feared that harm might come to the kind master who fed him.
This was another effect of the power of food.
An intelligence network formed.
“Thanks, Gaeddong. I appreciate you telling me.”
I gave Gaeddong another chicken leg and sent him on his way.
“Big Brother, what do we do? Scholar Park is famous for his nasty temper.”
Chilbok was frightened. Scholar Park was a fairly influential man in the area.
But I spat out a chicken bone and smiled.
“Let him come.”
“What?”
“This was something we had to face eventually. He’s only coming at us because I look easy to push around.”
I looked at Manseok, who was even chewing the chicken bones beside me.
“Manseok.”
“Yes, Big Brother!”
“Eat more rice tomorrow morning.”
“Why?”
“Because you need some exercise.”
“Exercise? Is there more than digging drainage canals?”
“No. Human punching-bag beating.”
I fingered the land deeds inside my clothes.
They were documents notarized by the local office. Legally, they were flawless.
But this was Goryeo, an age where fists were closer than law, and power was closer than fists.
If Scholar Park came with thugs, then I needed to show him who stood behind me.
And how thick the arms of our domain’s workers had grown.
“Chilbok.”
“Yes.”
“Put up a flag tomorrow morning.”
“What kind of flag?”
“Write this in large letters and hang it at the entrance.”
I wrote on the ground with a stick.
[Great Peace Domain]
[Unauthorized Entry: You Won’t Leave With Your Bones Intact]
“Big Brother... Isn’t that a little too vicious?”
“If you want to protect your own land, you have to look a little crazy.”
Night deepened.
The sound of water flowing from the newly dug well was like a lullaby.
Another battle awaited tomorrow.
But I was not afraid.
Because behind me stood dependable companions and an army of well-fed workers.