“Hey! I told you to be careful! Handle them as though they were porcelain!”
Manager Park’s thunderous shout rang through the courtyard.
Workers from the Song Merchant House were loading bamboo baskets filled with cucumbers onto the carriage.
They handled them as carefully as though they were tending sacred treasures.
Afraid that even a jolt might bruise the cucumbers, they had lined the baskets thickly with soft wool and silk cloth, then wrapped them in layers of silk wrapping cloth.
“Hey, Kim! Wrap more straw around the carriage wheels. They must not suffer any impact.”
“No, that bundle is loose! Tie it again!”
Manager Park circled the carriage anxiously.
The great merchant of all people, fretting over a few baskets of vegetables.
I sat on the porch with my arms folded, leisurely enjoying the sight.
‘Yes, that is how it should be. That is how they will sell for a high price.’
The value of merchandise lay not only in the item itself, but in the way it was handled.
If the seller treated it as precious, the buyer would regard it as precious too.
Manager Park already viewed these cucumbers not as vegetables, but as jewels.
“Lord Choi, then I shall be on my way.”
Once all the loading was complete, Manager Park came over and bowed to me.
Nothing remained of the arrogance he had shown when he first arrived. Now, he spoke only with utmost respect and humility.
“The road is slippery, so please travel carefully. It would be a problem if the cucumbers froze.”
“Do not worry. I will take off my padded coat and cover them with it if I have to. And...”
He lowered his voice and whispered secretly.
“You must give the next shipment to me as well. You promised, remember?”
“Of course. I keep my word when it is worth ten nyang of gold.”
“Haha, thank you! Then I will see you again next month!”
Manager Park climbed into the carriage.
The carriage left Great Peace Domain at an exceptionally slow pace, crawling along as carefully as a grub.
It looked as though it were carrying explosives.
Once the carriage vanished from sight, Chilbok’s legs seemed to give out beneath him. He sank to the ground.
“Haaah... Big Brother... They have gone.”
“Yes, they have.”
“Um... Is this really gold?”
Chilbok stared fixedly at the silk pouch in my hand.
I loosened the drawstring and took out its contents.
Two heavy gold ingots.
They gleamed brilliantly beneath the winter sunlight.
“Touch them yourself.”
When I tossed them over, Chilbok startled and caught them with both hands.
“Good heavens! They are heavy!”
He turned the ingots this way and that, sniffed them, and finally even bit one with his teeth.
“Ow! It is hard! This is real gold! Pure gold!”
“Manseok, you take a look too.”
Manseok merely grinned foolishly when he saw the gold.
“Big Brother, how much meat can we buy with this?”
“With one of those... you could eat nothing but meat every day for the rest of your life and still have some left.”
“Wow! That is incredible!”
Manseok began dancing with his shoulders.
It was true.
The value of currency during Goryeo varied, but ten nyang of gold was worth roughly one hundred nyang of silver.
One seok of rice, or eighty kilograms, cost four nyang of silver.
In other words, these two gold ingots were worth twenty-five seok of rice—two thousand kilograms.
From a single harvest in one greenhouse of barely fifty pyeong, we had earned the equivalent of twenty-five sacks of rice.
And in winter, when everyone else was reduced to licking their fingers.
“This is crazy... It is really crazy...”
Chilbok muttered, overwhelmed with emotion.
“Big Brother, we were not farming cucumbers. We were farming gold.”
“That is right. I told you, did I not? Farming is science, and science is money.”
I put the gold ingots back into the pouch.
“Now that you have looked at the money to your heart’s content, let us fill our bellies. Do you not want meat?”
“Of course we do! Nothing comes before a good meal!”
In the center of the courtyard, we set a cauldron lid upside down over a fire.
The wood blazed fiercely, and thick slices of pork belly went onto the heated lid.
SIZZLE—!
White smoke rose with a cheerful hiss.
The pork fat bubbled and crackled, filling the air with a rich, savory scent.
I cut the golden-brown meat into thick pieces with a small knife.
“Here, take these.”
I pushed over a basket filled with freshly picked lettuce and crown daisy.
An outdoor barbecue party in the snow, in the middle of winter.
Even a king would envy such luxury.
Chilbok spread out a lettuce leaf as large as his palm.
He placed a spoonful of rice on it, followed by two pieces of browned pork belly, a generous dollop of soybean paste, and a slice of pickled garlic.
Then he stuffed the whole wrap into his mouth until his cheeks bulged.
“Mmm! Mmmmh~!”
Chilbok closed his eyes.
The moment he bit into the crisp lettuce, fresh vegetable juice flooded his mouth.
Then came the rich flavor of fatty pork, while the soybean paste exploded with umami.
“Big Brother... May I cry?”
Chilbok asked as he chewed.
“It smells like grass in winter. Spring is dancing in my mouth.”
“Do not overdo it. Just eat plenty.”
Manseok did not say a word.
He was practically drinking the lettuce wraps.
He dipped a cucumber into soybean paste and crunched into it, stuffed in some meat, then tore off another lettuce leaf.
“Big Brother, you should eat too!”
Manseok made a wrap and held it out to me.
I smiled and accepted it.
It was delicious. This was the taste of victory.
It tasted even better when I considered that a single lettuce leaf was worth a measure of rice.
Once we had eaten our fill, I set down my chopsticks and spoke.
“So, are you full?”
“Yes! I feel as though my stomach will burst!”
“Then it is time to work.”
“Pardon...?”
Chilbok’s face changed into an expression that clearly said, ‘What work is he going to make us do now?’
“Big Brother, we have plenty of money now. Can we not rest a little? It is winter. Everyone else is lying around inside their homes...”
“Because we have money, we need to start something. Money turns to shit if you let it sit, but it becomes a snowball if you keep it moving.”
I took a map from my robes and spread it open.
It was a map of the area around Great Peace Domain that Siyeol had surveyed.
“Look here.”
I pointed to a spot on the map.
It was a tributary of the Nakdong River flowing through the northern part of the domain.
“The river? Why?”
“What condition is the river in right now?”
“It is frozen solid. Since a few days ago, it has been frozen thick enough for people to walk across it.”
“That is right. Ice.”
I grinned.
“It will be our next product.”
“Ice?”
Chilbok and Manseok tilted their heads at the same time.
Manseok asked, “Big Brother, what would we use ice for? Are we supposed to chew on it?”
“In summer.”
“Pardon?”
“What do you think it would be like to have ice in summer?”
“Well... it would be cool and nice, but there is no ice in summer. It all melts.”
“Then we will stop it from melting.”
I drew a circle on the map.
A shaded mountainside behind the domain, where the sunlight barely reached.
“We will dig there. Very deep. Then we will cut ice from the river and store it inside.”
“Come on, Big Brother. No matter how deep we dig, it will all melt into water once summer comes.”
Chilbok waved his hand dismissively.
Even in Goryeo, there were warehouses for storing ice: Kaegyeong’s Eastern Ice Storehouse and Western Ice Storehouse.
However, those were facilities managed by the royal court or the state. Their technology was poor, and their storage efficiency was terrible. By summer, more than half the ice often melted away.
“That is only because they lack the technology.”
I tapped the dirt beneath me.
“Insulation. We simply need to block the heat.”
“Insulation?”
“That is right. Straw, rice husks, and sawdust. We have more than enough of those, do we not? If we lay them down in layers and cover the ice with them, the ice will survive even beneath the blazing midsummer sun.”
In theory, it was perfect.
Straw and rice husks, which held pockets of air, were excellent natural insulating materials.
If we built a Choi San–style ice storehouse, scientifically designed with underground cold, rainwater drainage, and ventilation shafts as well?
We could preserve more than eighty percent of the ice through August’s hottest days.
“How much do you think we could charge for a block of ice in summer?”
Chilbok’s eyes began whirling like an abacus again.
Nobles exhausted by the sweltering heat.
A piece of ice floating in chilled fruit punch or wine.
“...We could charge whatever we wanted, could we not?”
“Exactly. We can sell it for more than cucumbers. And the raw material costs nothing. River water is free.”
“Gasp...!”
Zero production cost. A one-hundred-percent profit margin, not counting labor.
Chilbok shuddered.
His Big Brother was the real thing. There had to be a goose that laid golden eggs living inside his head.
“But Big Brother, digging the ground and hauling ice will require an enormous number of people. Thirty workers are nowhere near enough.”
“That is why we spend money.”
I shook the gold pouch.
“What are the people in the nearby villages doing right now?”
“What else? Starving. They wrap themselves in blankets and sleep all day to save firewood.”
The winter slack season.
For tenant farmers and poor commoners, winter was hell.
Their harvested food was taken away in rent and taxes, and they had to make what remained last until spring.
There was no work, and no way to earn money.
It was a season in which simply surviving was the goal.
“Go spread the word.”
“About what?”
“Tell everyone that Choi San of Great Peace Domain has gone mad and is digging up the ground in winter. Say that anyone who comes and digs will receive hot meat soup and a daily wage.”
“Wow... They will come in droves.”
“Take them all.”
“All of them? There could be hundreds!”
“It does not matter. Manpower is national strength. If I feed them and put money in their hands, they will all become my people. In the future, if I tell them to take up clubs, they will take up clubs. If I tell them to carry stones, they will carry stones. They will become my army.”
The purpose was not simply to harvest ice.
This was part of a larger plan to absorb the surplus labor of the surrounding region and expand Great Peace Domain’s influence.
Economic dependence would become political dependence.
“Chilbok, go at once and spread the word everywhere. It is a winter work-relief program. The daily wage is one measure of rice, and lunch will be provided.”
“One measure of rice?! Big Brother, is that not too much?”
“Do not be stingy. We are rich men with gold ingots. When we give, we must give generously, so word will spread well.”
“Understood! I will spread the word until my voice gives out!”
Chilbok swallowed the rest of his wrap and sprang to his feet.
He was excited. He had discovered the pleasure of spending money.
“Manseok.”
“Yes, Big Brother.”
“Go tell Master Gong to prepare to dig a pit on the mountainside. Then go to the blacksmith and order one hundred pickaxes and iron spikes.”
“Yes! Understood!”
Manseok ran off as well.
Left alone in the courtyard, I picked up a piece of pork belly that had nearly gone cold.
It was still delicious cold.
I looked up at the sky.
The winter wind was cold, but my chest burned hot.
‘Cucumbers are only the beginning.’
If cucumbers were the weapon that would empty nobles’ purses,then ice was the weapon that would dominate the summer market.
And the people gathered through this construction project would become the shield that protected me against the threats to come.
I rose and stretched.
To aid my digestion, I should go inspect the site for the ice storehouse.
***
The next morning.
The entrance to Great Peace Domain was packed with people.
“Hey! Please hire me too!”
“I am exceptionally good at digging!”
“My lord! My family is about to starve to death. Please, just give us one meal...”
People had come not only from nearby Galsan Village, but from villages beyond the mountain pass as well.
They wore shabby clothes, and their eyes were hollow.
To people exhausted by the cold and hunger, a warm meal and a daily wage were a lifeline.
“Get in line! In line!”
Chilbok stood on a platform and shouted at the top of his lungs.
Manseok held a club as he kept order.
“Anyone who cuts in line gets nothing! Move to the back!”
I watched from a distance.
There had to be more than three hundred people.
Feeding all those mouths would quickly drain our rice stores.
But I did not begrudge it.
The people lined up, received their pickaxes, and headed for the mountainside.
Life had returned to their faces.
They had work.
They would have rice to bring home to their families that evening.
That hope moved them.
“Begin construction!”
At Master Gong’s signal, hundreds of pickaxes struck the ground.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The frozen earth rang out.
The land of Great Peace Domain, which had been sleeping through winter, woke with a rough breath.
I took a swig of Great Peace Wine from the earthenware bottle.
It was sweet.
“Dig! Dig deeper! Make sure it will never melt, even in summer!”
At my shout, the laborers roared with all their strength.
The winter of Great Peace Domain was hotter than anywhere else.