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◈ Second Life of the Trade King ◈

Chapter 19: The Great American Drought of 1988 (1)

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Several months passed after the matter with Daeseong Fisheries & Produce was settled.

After having its agreement rejected, Daeseong no longer moved against Yeongdo Trading. They must have known that continuing the price war would only cut into their own flesh.

Lee Dae-jun, who had received my half-provocative, half-serious offer to join my company, never contacted me again, and I forgot about it.

It was strange enough to seriously consider that an executive at such a large company would become an employee of a one-person business.

That was how Yeongdo Trading's position in Busan Port ship provisioning became secure enough that no one could challenge it lightly.

Of course, I did not think Daeseong Fisheries & Produce would obediently retreat for good, but at least for now, they showed no sign of drawing a blade.

The ones left looking foolish were the wholesalers who had turned their backs on me.

A few days ago, President Park Jong-ho came to the store.

Once Daeseong gave up the price war, it seemed the generous prices and credit terms it had offered those wholesalers were quietly withdrawn as well.

The man who had lavishly talked me up before turning his back now came holding a string of dried yellow corvina, smiling awkwardly.

“Hyun-woo... Well, I’m sorry about what happened before. I was blinded for a while. Let’s go back to how things were... Eh? I’ll supply you properly. I’ll pay a lot more attention to the rates too.”

Without even looking at the fish he held out, I answered calmly.

“I appreciate the thought. But I already buy directly from the fish auction market. I moved all my meat purchases elsewhere too. There’s no room left for your goods now.”

It was a lie, of course.

I only made the rounds at the fish auction market myself because things were quiet right now. Once I got even a little busier, there was no way I would have time to source goods personally.

Still, I had no intention of taking his goods again.

“Hyun-woo, don’t be like that...”

“I’m not saying this because I’m angry. There really is no room. You helped me a lot until now.”

President Park Jong-ho hesitated for a long time before taking back the string of fish and leaving.

For someone who had let go with his own hands, the place to return to had already disappeared by his own doing.

After that, I heard rumors that people were spreading bad stories about the young president of Yeongdo Trading, but I did not care.

Time continued to pass quickly.

September 1988.

At last, the day had come.

The opening of the Seoul Olympics.

The entire country was buzzing.

Every television showed scenes of the torch relay, and Olympic rings and Hodori flags fluttered in the streets.

Slogans urging people to welcome foreign tourists were posted in every alley, while taxi drivers kept English conversation books on their passenger seats.

Busan was naturally no exception.

News that the yacht races would be held in Su-yeong Bay had the whole city excited. Gwangalli Beach was packed with people who had come to see foreign athletes and tourists, and even the merchants at Jagalchi Market were loudly talking up the Olympic boom.

I looked down at the sight from the second-floor window of the Yeongdo store.

Every passerby's face was bright, filled with anticipation for the future.

Thinking back, even before my regression, when everyone had plenty, they did not seem as relaxed as people did now.

Then,

“Oppa! What are you doing up there?”

At the sharp voice, I turned to see a girl below looking up at me.

It was Yoo Yeong-ji, the daughter of the woman who ran the pork-and-rice soup restaurant my father liked.

With her bobbed hair and fair skin, she was someone my older brother seemed to quietly like, though I had never asked. In the past, I had been cursed at several times for not remembering who she was.

“Huh? What is it?”

“Your dad said to come eat lunch.”

“Got it.”

When I went downstairs, she was still waiting instead of leaving.

“Making money these days, are you? You never come to the restaurant. What, have you been eating fancy food?”

“Sometimes?”

“You’ve made it big, huh? Jeong-suk says you’re doing really well.”

As Yeong-ji said, the name Kim Hyun-woo of Yeongdo Trading was gradually becoming known in this business.

Ship provisioning had started with Pacific Grain Lines alone, but now two more companies had joined them, making three in total.

Word had spread among the major Australian grain companies that there was a ship supplier at Busan Port with reasonable rates and no missed deliveries.

The praise David Jo had included in his report to headquarters must have helped as well.

One company was satisfied, so another followed. That company was satisfied, and then another knocked on my door.

As the number of provisioning jobs increased, so did the money coming in.

I had earned just over five million won from the first deal, but now four or five grain ships came through each month.

Thanks to lowering the cost of food supplies through direct auction purchases, my profit margin had also risen since that first deal.

The net profit from each provisioning job piled up steadily, and the number in my bank account was quickly approaching the target I had set at the beginning.

“Who’s Jeong-suk?”

“Jeong-suk, who owns three mackerel fishing boats. You know them, don’t you?”

“Ah...”

I did not actually remember, but I pretended that I did.

“Jeong-suk has been hinting that they want me to introduce you. Want to meet?”

I avoided Yeong-ji’s sparkling eyes.

“No. I don’t need that.”

“Why? You got a woman?”

“Forget it. Never mind.”

When I cut her off, she pursed her lips and looked displeased.

As I entered the restaurant, the owner greeted me with a smile.

“Oh my, President Kim is here. Your father’s over there.”

“Yes. One pork-and-rice soup, please.”

“All right.”

My father had already eaten more than half of his soup.

The soju bottle beside him showed that he had already finished a bottle with his meal.

“You should drink in moderation.”

“A bottle of soju is medicine.”

“It isn’t medicine.”

“What do you know? Eat your soup.”

Then the owner brought my soup over.

“Enjoy.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh my, you’re such a handsome young man. You’d be perfect as a son-in-law.”

“Haha, I’m not thinking about marriage yet...”

The owner gave a faint nod, as though she understood.

“I know. Your standards must be high. They say whenever foreign ships come into Busan Port, every last one goes through your business. Who would’ve thought someone like you would come from our Yeongdo?”

“You’re exaggerating. I’m just making enough to get by.”

I laughed it off, but my father quietly joined in.

“Making enough to get by? Does a man who barely gets by visit the bank that often?”

His tone sounded teasing, but his face was clearly full of pride.

“Oh, President Kim. I can see how badly your mouth is itching to brag about your son! You’re making me jealous.”

“Heh heh. Why would the woman selling the best pork-and-rice soup in Yeongdo be jealous?”

“I am jealous. Even if our President Kim gets successful, you’d better keep eating our soup for a long time.”

“Hahaha, of course.”

After the owner walked away, my father spoke quietly.

“You got a woman?”

“Why are you asking that all of a sudden?”

“If not, forget it.”

“Ahem...”

As I slowly cooled and ate the hot soup, I noticed my father reading a newspaper folded small while he ate.

[GATT Multilateral Trade Negotiations, Pressure Mounts to Open Agricultural Markets.]

The negotiations, named after the unfamiliar country of Uruguay, had begun in 1986 and were still ongoing.

The article briefly reported that the United States and Europe were pressuring countries to open their agricultural markets, and that Korea was not free from that current either.

To most people, it was a story about faraway lands.

The Olympic torch was more important right now, and opening agricultural markets was no more than a vague rumor that it might happen someday.

Even those who paid attention all reacted the same way.

‘That’s impossible. Our farms would all die. The government has to stop it.’

But I knew.

That door would eventually open.

Regardless of the desperation of those trying to stop it, the times were already flowing in that direction.

The lock held by the Agricultural and Fishery Products Marketing Corporation, and the import barriers that looked so solid, were both destined to come loose one by one with time.

The logic of opening the Korean market that I had used to persuade Kevin Matthews was, in the end, only one part of that enormous wave.

The question was not whether the door would open.

It was who would already be standing before it when it did.

The seed money and credit I had built through Busan Port ship provisioning, and the priority cooperation channel I had secured through the Australian Department of Trade, were all preparations for that day.

Grain.

In the end, everything was leading to grain.

“What are you thinking so hard about? Holding a memorial rite in front of your meal?”

“It’s nothing. Eat.”

As I ate my pork-and-rice soup, I kept staring at the small article in the corner of the newspaper.

If I could get grain firmly in my hands and gather capital, then on that day of destiny, I would be able to take what I wanted.

* * *

At the same time, in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province.

Han-il Feed’s president, Lee Man-su, pressed fingers to their temple as they stared at a stack of documents spread across the desk.

On the desk sat cold barley tea and an ashtray full of cigarette butts.

“President, this is this month’s feed cost settlement. If you look...”

Lee Man-su accepted the report from the materials procurement manager, and their brow furrowed deeply.

The numbers had gone mad.

“Corn... It’s gone up to almost twice what it was this time last year.”

“It’s because of the U.S. drought. They say the entire grain belt in the American Midwest dried up this summer. Nearly half the U.S. mainland is suffering from drought... Corn yields have fallen by thirty percent. International prices have simply exploded, and soybeans are the same.”

At the bleak news, Lee Man-su set the report down and leaned back in the chair.

The feed business was nothing complicated.

You bought corn and soybeans, blended them into livestock feed, and sold it.

So if the price of grain, the raw material, doubled, it meant the company’s breathing room was being squeezed twice as hard.

“What are our usual suppliers saying? That American trading company.”

“They’re in chaos too. They say they can barely keep up with supply, and they’re raising their prices as well. Honestly, if we keep relying on the United States alone, the company will be shaken. With harvests like this, our dependence on the United States is too high...”

Lee Man-su bit their lip.

Lee Man-su had built one of Korea’s top five feed companies.

It had started from a small blending plant on the outskirts of Yangsan, and over the years it had endured several grain crises.

But this American drought was on a different scale.

An entire country’s grain belt had collapsed.

Lee Man-su keenly felt again that the very structure of betting the company’s fate on a single supply source, the United States, was the problem.

“We need to diversify our supply lines.”

They desperately needed another stable channel for grain from somewhere besides the United States, whether Australia or somewhere else.

“That’s true, but there aren’t any good options.”

As the materials procurement manager said, importing Australian grain presented another barrier.

The existing import procedures through the Agricultural and Fishery Products Marketing Corporation were slow and complicated, and the prices rose further in the meantime.

As for establishing a direct connection with major Australian grain companies, there was no chance that a feed producer from the outskirts of Yangsan would have that kind of international network.

“Haah...”

After a long sigh, one person came to Lee Man-su’s mind.

Kim Hyun-woo of Yeongdo Trading.

The young president who had come months earlier claiming he could provide an Australian grain supply line, and who had even signed a preliminary contract.

Lee Man-su had wondered how someone that young could possibly have ties to Australian headquarters, but signed the agreement anyway with nothing to lose.

Yet in the past few months, word had reached Yangsan that the young president had taken control of ship provisioning at Busan Port and had not backed down even against Daeseong Fisheries & Produce.

Only a few months ago, he had seemed like an audacious upstart.

Now, that preliminary contract with him seemed likely to become a lifeline.

Australian grain lines, a stable alternative supply source, and direct trade that did not go through the Agricultural and Fishery Products Marketing Corporation.

That young man already held everything Lee Man-su needed most right now.

There was no reason to hesitate.

It left a bitter taste that the president of Korea’s fifth-largest feed company had to make a humble request of such a young man, but pride could not feed a company.

Eight years earlier, Kim Sam-sik had pushed away Lee Man-su’s hand and ultimately ruined his company. Pride was what drove people to their greatest foolishness.

Lee Man-su crushed out the cigarette and sprang to their feet.

“Manager, get the car ready. We’re going to Yeongdo, Busan. This isn’t something to handle over the phone.”

But Lee Man-su did not yet know.

They were not the only grain importer in South Korea with a fire at their feet.

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