“Aaaah... It’s hot! I’m dying from the heat!”
At dawn, someone’s scream woke me.
When I opened my eyes, Manseok had kicked off all his blankets and lay sprawled out flat. Beads of sweat covered his forehead.
“Big Brother! The floor feels like it’s on fire! My ass is going to cook!”
Chilbok, beside him, was panting in nothing but his undershirt.
I smirked and sat up.
My back was warm. No, hot.
Last night, I had put exactly three pieces of firewood into the firebox. In an ordinary house, the floor should have been ice-cold by dawn.
But our home, the Great Peace House, was different.
“It worked.”
This was the power of the serpentine heated-floor system and double-wall insulation.
The heat had nowhere to escape, remaining trapped inside and turning the room as hot as a bathhouse.
No cold wind entered through the window cracks either. The walls packed with straw and charcoal completely blocked the chill.
“Open the door. Let’s air this place out.”
Chilbok opened the room door.
Whoosh—
Cold morning air rushed in.
Outside, frost lay white across the ground.
It was below freezing outdoors, yet a steam room inside.
That stark difference in temperature proved the victory of technology.
“Wow... It’s winter outside, but summer in here.”
Manseok stepped back and forth over the threshold in wonder.
“That’s technology. Come on, wash up and get outside. We’ve got even more work today.”
After breakfast, I gathered Master Carpenter Gong and the workers.
Perhaps because they had completed the main house yesterday, the workers’ morale was soaring.
They now trusted me completely. If I told them I had brewed soybean paste with red beans, they looked ready to believe it.
“Alright, we’ll carry out two construction projects at the same time today.”
I drew a new diagram on the ground.
“First, the brewery. We’ll build it on the annex site beside the house. The structure will be similar to the main house, but we’ll raise the floor.”
“Raise the floor? Why?”
Master Carpenter Gong asked.
“For ventilation. Temperature is everything for liquor. If moisture rises from the floor, it ruins the flavor. We’ll also build drainage outlets into the floor so it can be easily washed down.”
The core of a food factory was hygiene.
Most Goryeo breweries made liquor on dirt floors or straw mats. Naturally, stray bacteria got in and the liquor often spoiled.
I designed the floor with thin slate slabs set at an angle so that if water was poured over it, everything would wash straight down.
“And second.”
I pointed toward the field.
It was an empty field after the harvest. I drew a huge shape over it.
“We’re building a house there.”
“What? Another house? Who’s going to live in this one?”
Manseok asked.
“The vegetables.”
“Ve... vegetables?”
The workers murmured.
In a world where even people lacked decent homes, we were building one for vegetables. Their expressions clearly said they thought their young master had finally gone mad.
“It’s called a greenhouse.”
I looked at Chilbok.
“Bring all the oil paper we bought yesterday. And Master Carpenter Gong.”
“Yes.”
“We’re not cutting trees today. We’re going to the bamboo grove.”
The bamboo forest on the mountain behind the village.
Bamboo leaves rustled in the cold wind.
“Cut them! Get the longest, thickest ones you can find!”
“Hyah!”
Manseok swung a machete-like sickle.
CRACK!
A bamboo stalk as thick as an arm fell in a single blow.
With thirty workers at it, the bamboo grove rapidly became a clearing.
“What are we going to use all this bamboo for...?”
Master Carpenter Gong tilted his head.
People normally used bamboo to make baskets, not building materials. Because it was hollow, they thought it was weak.
But for a structure that needed flexibility, there was nothing better than bamboo.
“You’ll understand once we take it back.”
We returned to the marshland carrying hundreds of bamboo stalks.
The southern plain of the marshland, where sunlight was strongest.
It was black earth where the reed roots had been cleared away and the leaf mold lay exposed.
“Alright, we begin. Watch closely.”
I picked up a stalk of bamboo.
Then I lit a fire and gently heated the bamboo near its nodes.
As the heat softened it, I applied pressure and bent it.
Creak.
The bamboo bent like a bow without breaking.
It formed a great arch.
“Ooh...”
“Drive both ends into the ground!”
Manseok drove each end of the curved bamboo deep into the soil.
A semicircular frame stood upright.
I kept setting up bamboo arches at one-meter intervals.
Dozens of arches stretched out like a tunnel.
“Is this... the framework of a house?”
Master Carpenter Gong asked in amazement.
Eastern architecture was built around square structures of pillars and beams. He had likely never seen a curved structure like this.
“It’s called an arch structure. It distributes force, so it can withstand most winds and the weight of snow. And more importantly...”
I pointed at the sky.
“It doesn’t create shadows.”
There were no pillars to block the sunlight.
That was the key to a greenhouse.
Once the skeleton was complete, we tied horizontal bamboo poles across it.
A sturdy, lattice-patterned tunnel was completed. It was fifty meters long and five meters wide.
“Now let’s give it clothes.”
Chilbok brought over rolls of oil paper.
Paper yellowed from being treated with perilla oil. It was tough and translucent.
But the sheets were too narrow to cover such a massive tunnel.
“Join them together!”
The village women crowded around and used paste to join the paper sheets.
A single enormous membrane was made.
“Cover it!”
The workers lifted the oil-paper sheet and climbed onto the roof.
As they carefully draped it over the structure, the bamboo skeleton disappeared beneath the yellow paper.
“Tie it down!”
They secured it tightly with straw rope.
The edges were covered with soil so the wind could not get in.
Completed.
In the middle of the marshland stood a giant building like a silkworm cocoon.
It looked exactly like a modern plastic greenhouse, except this was an oil-paper greenhouse made with paper rather than plastic.
“Let’s go inside.”
I opened the straw-mat door at the entrance and stepped in.
Warm air washed over us.
“......!”
Chilbok and Manseok, who entered after me, stood with their mouths hanging open.
A biting wind blew outside, but the inside of the greenhouse was pleasantly warm.
The wind was blocked out, while sunlight passing through the translucent paper was trapped inside, raising the temperature.
This was the greenhouse effect.
“Big Brother... It’s warm in here. Really warm!”
Manseok jumped up and down in amazement.
“With this... we can farm even in winter.”
Master Carpenter Gong said as he touched the soil.
While the ground outside was freezing, the soil inside the greenhouse was soft and moist.
“Of course. Here, we’ll harvest green gold.”
I took out the seed pouches I had prepared.
Lettuce, spinach, crown daisy, and mallow.
Leafy vegetables that grew quickly and endured the cold.
And my secret weapon.
[Great Peace No. 2 (Cucumber)]
“Cucumbers? Can cucumbers grow in winter?”
“They can in here. And one winter cucumber will probably trade for a whole sack of rice.”
The workers’ eyes gleamed.
The chance to earn money in winter, when they normally had no choice but to sit idle.
To them, it was revolutionary.
Meanwhile, construction of the brewery annex was in full swing.
Now accustomed to modular construction, the workers assembled wall panels like machines.
“We’re making the walls a little different here.”
I pointed at the brewery walls.
“Make the windows smaller and the walls thicker. No sunlight can come in.”
Liquor hated ultraviolet light. It had to ferment in a cool, dark place for its flavor to deepen.
And the most important thing.
“Pay attention to the floor work! Get the drainage slope right!”
I personally checked the angle of the slate slabs being laid on the floor.
When water was poured over them, it had to flow straight into the drains without pooling.
That way, alcohol lees would not rot and flies would not swarm in.
“Sir, at this angle, not a drop of water will remain.”
The plasterer foreman declared confidently.
“Good. And make the firebox here very large. Big enough to hold five cauldrons at once.”
Expanded firebox capacity for mass production.
To brew liquor, we needed to steam rice into firm steamed rice, and that process could easily become a bottleneck.
I designed a continuous firebox system with five cauldrons placed in a row and connected to a single chimney.
***
Three days later.
The brewery was completed.
A floor laid with clean slate, cool air, and immense cauldrons standing in imposing rows.
Then fifty large brewing jars, ordered from the village potter, were brought in one after another.
“Wow... This is a kitchen?”
Chilbok marveled.
Liquor brewing had moved beyond household handiwork and entered the stage of industry.
“Now we need to fill it with people.”
With the building completed, we needed workers to run it.
“Chilbok.”
“Yes, Big Brother.”
“Choose ten village women with clean hands and tight lips.”
“Women to brew liquor?”
“Yeah. Men handle the heavy work, while women handle delicate tasks. Washing rice, mixing fermentation starter, and straining liquor.”
“And their wages?”
“Pay them the same as the men. One-tenth of a tael.”
“What?! The women too?”
Chilbok was shocked. At the time, women were customarily paid half a man’s wage.
“The flavor of liquor comes from the fingertips. People have to work happily for the liquor to taste good. And don’t forget to provide lunch.”
“Understood! The women will probably fight over these jobs.”
Just as expected.
Once word spread that the Great Peace Domain was hiring women workers, village women lined up.
It was winter, and even their husbands had little work. Naturally, the men welcomed the thought of their wives earning money with open arms.
Through interviews, I selected women with strict hygiene practices.
Then I gave them white aprons and headscarves.
“From this moment on, you must work thinking of yourselves as Great Peace Wine artisans.”
I instilled pride in them.
They were not simple laborers, but skilled workers. That awareness was the beginning of quality control.
***
A fortnight passed.
The scenery of the Great Peace Domain had completely changed.
At the center stood a stately tiled-roof main house spanning roughly 200 square meters.
Beside it, the neatly maintained brewery ceaselessly sent up white steam.
The fragrant smell of maturing liquor pushed away the marshland mist.
And three giant oil-paper greenhouses gleamed softly across the southern fields.
Inside them, green shoots were breaking through the soil.
“Big Brother.”
At sunset, Manseok called out to me while washing beside the well.
He was pouring cold water over his back and humming, seemingly unbothered by the cold.
“What?”
“I’m happy.”
“Out of nowhere?”
“Just because. I’m full, my back’s warm, and I have work to do... I never could’ve imagined it before. I used to get beaten by my older brothers every day and starve.”
Manseok grinned.
It was a foolish but pure smile.
“I like it too.”
I smiled as well.
It was not simply about making money.
There was joy in watching dying land come alive and dying people regain their strength.
It was the thrill of creation that only a farmer could feel.
Then it happened.
Chilbok came running from the village entrance, gasping for breath.
“Big Brother! Big Brother!”
“What now? Did someone invade again?”
“No! A guest has arrived!”
“A guest?”
“It’s... Manager Park from Pine House! He brought ten carts with him!”
Ah.
What was due had arrived.
The day the first batch of Great Peace Wine reached full maturity, just as promised.
I straightened my clothes.
“Let’s go collect payment.”
When I stepped outside the gate, Manager Park stood there with a grin stretching from ear to ear.
Behind him, carts pulled by porters stood in a line. They were not empty carts. Each was loaded full of something.
“Young Master! No, Captain! I’m here!”
Manager Park bowed at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
His form of address had changed. He no longer treated me as a mere young master, but as the Captain of a merchant company.
“You’ve come. You keep your appointments precisely.”
“Of course. Gaegyeong is in uproar right now. An absolute uproar!”
“Uproar?”
“Those fifty bottles of liquor from last time. They all sold in a single day! For six taels per bottle!”
“Six taels?”
That was more than my expected five taels. Those merchants really were capable when it came to business.
“The nobles are clamoring for more. I even heard it was served at Lord Choi Woo’s banquet. They say he praised it and asked, ‘Who made this liquor?’”
Choi Woo had praised it?
A chill ran down my spine, but it was thrilling. The day my name returned to the main family was not far away.
“So how much are you taking this time?”
“Give me everything you have! And...”
Manager Park pointed at the carts behind him.
“This is an advance payment and a gift.”
The servants pulled back the covers over the carts.
Silk, salt, the finest charcoal, and... chests filled with gleaming silver coins.
“Goods worth one hundred sacks of rice, along with five hundred silver taels.”
Five hundred taels.
More than triple the 150 taels from last time.
The workers around us could not close their mouths.
All that money from selling liquor?
I nodded with a calm expression.
“Good. Open the warehouse doors!”
Creeeak.
The door to the brewery’s aging room opened.
Two hundred black earthenware bottles stood in rows as though on parade.
A rich liquor fragrance poured out.
“Load them all.”
Manager Park’s eyes shone with greed and joy.
“Manager Park.”
I called to him.
“Yes, Captain.”
“See those greenhouses over there?”
I pointed to the oil-paper greenhouses in the distance.
“What are those? Tombs?”
“Tombs? They’re treasure vaults. When you come back in a month, you’ll need to bring more gold with you.”
“What? Is there something besides liquor?”
“Winter cucumbers. And winter lettuce.”
“......!!”
Manager Park could not speak.
Green vegetables in the middle of winter. Those were even rarer than liquor, goods whose price could be anything.
“Look forward to it. The winter of the Great Peace Domain will be warmer than spring in Gaegyeong.”