Chapter 1048 - The Upstart Pak Deok-hwan

Pak Deok-hwan's current title was "Civil Affairs Assistant" to Feng Zongze—in practice, an expanded version of interpreter. Since Feng Zongze's Korean was not his mother tongue, and the gap of several centuries created occasional difficulties in expression, Pak Deok-hwan's fluency in Chinese made him an invaluable bridge. His younger brother Pak Deok-maeng was assigned to the Military Control Commission as a clerical secretary.

Pak Deok-hwan's duties were extensive and demanding. Before many days had passed, the commoners and official slaves of Jeju City had all come to recognize him as a "favored man" among the "crop-haired pirates."

Anyone with even modest wealth—shopkeepers and workshop masters in town, landlords and ranchers in the countryside—came one after another bearing gifts and seeking to treat him to meals, speaking honeyed words simply to secure their safety. Having spent nearly a decade on the island, the Pak brothers were practically natives; Pak Deok-hwan knew every secret of Jeju City inside and out.

This sort of thing was not difficult. The Exemplar Council fundamentally respected the private property of locals—and even when they intended to seize assets, they employed economic means rather than violence. Since there were no plans for violent expropriation, Pak Deok-hwan was merely dispensing empty personal favors.

Of course, Pak Deok-hwan's consciousness had not reached the level of "resisting corruption and remaining untainted." He could not help but become somewhat giddy. During the day he busied himself with work; at night he busied himself with social engagements.

He and his brother moved to a fine house outside the Jeju Provincial Governor's Office. He even employed a former official slave woman to cook and wash for him. He had truly become a prominent figure in the local community.

Feng Zongze was not unaware of these developments. Through the surveillance network secretly established by the Political Security Bureau's special envoy, he monitored Pak Deok-hwan's every move. Collaborators like Pak Deok-hwan were fundamentally transitional figures. Whether they could rise to become genuine naturalized cadres depended on their abilities and their capacity for awakening.

Furthermore, Feng Zongze was willing to let Pak Deok-hwan prosper—for now, he served as a model figure. Without sufficient incentives, recruiting enough turncoats in a short time would be impossible. At present, Pak Deok-hwan was merely eating, drinking, and accepting small gifts; he had not yet crossed the critical line on matters of major right and wrong. Feng Zongze could tolerate him for the time being.

Great waves sift the sand. Collaborators might initially be a mixed lot, but time would winnow out those who could be shaped into "new people." Whether Pak Deok-hwan possessed such qualities remained to be seen.

Pak Deok-hwan remained unaware that cold, watchful eyes followed his every move. Day after day he threw himself enthusiastically into his work. With his zealous assistance, Jeju's Interim County Magistrate was the first to resume operations. Commoners and official slaves who had fled gradually returned to their homes; shops opened for business; farmers went back to work in the fields.

Once basic order was restored and society was functioning normally, Feng Zongze's first priority was to conduct a thorough audit of all official slaves registered with the Jeju Provincial Governor's Office, establishing baseline data on population, gender, age, property, and current occupations.

The official slaves of Jeju Island performed every conceivable type of work—cooking, harvesting seafood, cutting grass, raising horses and cattle, manufacturing, farming, and even providing sexual services. They bore responsibility for virtually all products and labor that the local Yi Dynasty government required. The heaviest user of official slaves was the local garrison farms.

The Yi Dynasty allocated each provincial governor's office a certain amount of wasteland to be reclaimed as garrison farmland, with the income ostensibly used to fund military expenses. In reality, income from these farms was frequently diverted to general government expenditures or became the Provincial Governor's personal wealth. All garrison farms were cultivated by official slave women. Because of serious malpractices in the garrison farm system, it had been abolished during the reign of King Seongjong. Yet on Jeju Island, the practice persisted.

Because Jeju Island's soil was barren and most of the land unsuitable for paddy fields, the garrison farms were primarily dry fields used for growing barley and buckwheat—wheat was rarely cultivated in Joseon at the time. Most Exemplars still remembered the saying "flour is a precious ingredient."

This portion of the official slaves were essentially state serfs. Feng Zongze believed they were ideal candidates for Wu Nanhai's intensive agriculture and large-scale farming operations: both land and labor were readily available.

The official slaves responsible for herding and livestock care were also to be absorbed by the agricultural department, with plans for the Agriculture Commission to reorganize them into specialized livestock production brigades.

The remaining official slaves engaged in handicrafts and general errands were directly absorbed by the Military Control Commission and reorganized into local labor squadrons.

As a major administrative measure, Feng Zongze posted proclamations and issued the first decree in the name of the Exemplar Council's Jeju Military Control Commission: all official slaves on Jeju Island were hereby emancipated as free commoners, henceforth prohibited from being called "public slaves."

Simultaneously, he abolished the body-tribute owed by official slaves: "Having been freed as commoners, all forms of body-tribute previously borne are hereby waived in full. Any arrears accumulated over the years shall also no longer be pursued."

Though these measures amounted to little more than a change in status, their significance in winning hearts and minds was immense. The impact on the local population was equally profound. Locals privately called these emancipated former official slaves "crop-head commoners"—meaning they had gained commoner status only because the crop-haired pirates had arrived.

From the perspective of the former official slaves, this decree was nothing short of earth-shattering. The abolition of their slave status meant they were no longer pariahs relegated to a separate register. Not only was their own status liberated, but their descendants for generations to come could now hold their heads high as human beings. Their gratitude went without saying.

On the day the proclamation was posted, the Pak brothers wept until the sky seemed to darken and the earth to reel. Theirs was not the only household shedding tears that day.

Emancipation addressed status; abolition of the body-tribute addressed economics. With this two-pronged approach, Feng Zongze had succeeded in winning over the official slaves who comprised more than a third of Jeju Island's population.

With his own base of popular support established, everything became easier to accomplish.

He simultaneously opened granaries in all three towns to provide relief to the most destitute official slaves and commoners, took in orphans, and launched measure after measure to win hearts and minds. The common people's initial fear and suspicion of the "crop-haired pirates" gradually transformed into welcome.

"The next step is to raise an army," Feng Zongze said to Nangong Wudi.

"As long as there's grain, raising troops is effortless."

Recruiting for the Security Army required no great effort. The new conquerors neither killed nor plundered—this alone provided sufficient sense of security. After observing the three daily meals the newcomers enjoyed, recruitment became exceedingly simple. In an era of chronic famine, countless men were willing to risk their lives for the chance to eat their fill.

Nangong Wudi was highly selective with new recruits. He wanted no commoners—only those of official slave origin. Moreover, they had to be official slaves who had performed physical labor. Those who had served as errand-runners for officials he deemed the "privileged class" among official slaves—"unreliable"—and rejected categorically. Recruits had to be between sixteen and twenty-two years old, at least 1.5 meters tall, and fundamentally healthy with robust builds—though this was relative, of course.

Even with these conditions, more than four hundred men qualified. The Jeju Forward Committee had originally planned to recruit only three companies. After deliberation, however, the three leaders decided to accept all who qualified: one could never have too much cannon fodder. Even if the recruits could not be immediately deployed, they could at least serve as laborers.

The new soldiers underwent preliminary screening. Those who were literate were singled out for training as administrative cadres. For now, everyone was thrown together onto the drill ground for basic training.

The parade ground before the Governor's Pavilion was bustling with activity. Newly recruited soldiers of the Jeju Security Army conducted formation drills in squad-sized units.

The recruits—heads shaved, having completed purification—wore standard Security Army uniforms: earth-yellow "Soviet-style pullover shirts" with leg wrappings. They alone retained a distinctive local feature: the wide-brimmed "great hat" of unmistakable local style. On the drill ground, instructors drove them to learn the formal march step and formation movements.

Training content had been further simplified. Since there were no plans to equip them with firearms, the Jeju Security Army would only undergo formation, bayonet, and basic tactical coordination drills. Their weapons were simply standard spears and machetes.

The instructors were corporals and veteran soldiers selected from the regular army and Security Army. Though they did not share a common language, as the Good Soldier Švejk had once observed: soldier training involves fists and feet. The instructors from the Security Army especially dispensed "baka" and "sanbin" liberally.

Curious civilians crowded around the edge of the drill ground, pointing and chattering about everything in sight. Pak Deok-hwan was among them.

He was not there to gawk. He had just received an assignment: Feng Zongze wanted him to investigate the bow and arrow shops in the city—surveying their inventories of finished products, semi-finished goods, and raw materials, while also recording the number of master craftsmen and workers in each shop, their floor space, and approximate financial conditions.

After the capture of the three towns, large quantities of bows and arrows had been seized from each location's government warehouses. The island had originally been an important production center for bows and arrows under the Yi Dynasty. However, Nangong Wudi decided against issuing them to the Security Army: archery required too much practice and was an extremely specialized weapon, with battlefield effectiveness that simply could not compare to rifles. These future Security Army soldiers would eventually be equipped with Southeast Asian rifles anyway, so there was no point in wasting time and energy on archery practice.

Nevertheless, the large stockpile of bows and arrows made excellent trade goods. Nangong Wudi had originally wanted to do business with the Manchu Qing. Though the Qing were poor and had limited purchasing power, bows and arrows—essential consumables for warfare—would certainly be welcomed.

Since Jeju Island possessed such an "industry," it could be worth nurturing as a major export product for the time being.

Hence Pak Deok-hwan had been given this assignment.

Such tasks were routine for him—though in the past he had only "assisted with work." This time he was formally taking independent charge, which filled him with excitement. That evening after dinner, he returned home and was about to rest when someone came to summon him.

The visitor was also a former official slave. This man, however, had possessed some money back then, and upon arriving in Jeju had bribed the managing clerks to set himself up in small trade. Later he had simply become the local agent for a major commercial consortium from the capital, handling their business affairs on the island.

(End of Chapter)