WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 123: I'll Tell the Story of Baekbaekgyo's Downfall (1)
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Monday, February 19, 1934.
Five days after Lunar New Year ended, Han San was summoned to the courtyard of the Gangwon Provincial Office.
“Han San, representative of Han's Myriad Commerce.”
Governor Lee Beom-ik's voice rang through the air, which carried the first hint of spring.
“You have contributed to local finances through faithful tax payments, rendered service to the Government-General above, and devoted great effort to charitable works and street cleaning below. You are therefore hereby commended as a fitting example of an exemplary imperial subject.
Gangwon Province Governor Lee Beom-ik.”
Applause broke out.
Provincial Office employees and invited local notables cheered in their own ways.
“Whew! That Korean young man is something else!”
“The gift set that young man's company released this time was really good. It was luxurious, healthy, and once you made soup with it, you could eat it all day. Practical and long-lasting, too.”
“Like I always say, Chuncheon is where it’s at. You wouldn't find talent like that in Cheorwon, would you?”
Then Ayame, one of the reporters waiting with notebooks in hand, set off a magnesium flash.
Flash!
At the same moment he was captured on film beside Lee Beom-ik, the certificate of commendation was handed to Han San.
‘[Committee for the Investigation of Anti-National Activities] points are steadily piling up...’
A gloomy blizzard raged inside him, like a little polar bear invited to a sun bear village, but Han San beamed like spring sunshine as he bowed.
“Thank you, Governor!”
“Mm! Yes, yes. With young people like you around, Gangwon's future is very bright.”
Lee Beom-ik chuckled, adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, then picked up the silver cup beside him and handed it over.
“This is your prize. Take it.”
It was a broad ceremonial sake cup called a sakazuki[1].
The sort of thing used to make blood cocktails in yakuza films. This one was made of pure silver, with the seals of the Gangwon Provincial Office and Lee Beom-ik stamped on the reverse.
In other words, if this award ceremony were explained in more modern terms, it went like this:
The Greater Japanese Empire Gumi[2], Northeast Asia's largest designated criminal organization,
the Korean Government-General Kai, its second-tier affiliate,
and the Gangwon Provincial Office Ikka, its third-tier affiliate,
had Lee Beom-ik as its oyabun[3].
Lee Beom-ik handed a cup to Han San, leader of Han's Myriad Commerce Tai, a hangure[4] group active in his territory,
and told him, [Hey! From now on, you can go around saying you're my underling.]
“It is an honor!”
Han San accepted the cup.
‘Ah, seriously... Twelve years, no, eleven now. Anyway, the moment 1945 comes around, I'll melt this down and make spoons out of it.’
The growing list of preparations he needed to make ahead of liberation was becoming a concern for the head of Han's Myriad Commerce.
In any case.
“Take this as well. The documents I promised you back then.”
Lee Beom-ik smiled and handed him another set of papers.
[ Gold Mine Excavation Permit and Permit to Handle Explosives - Han's Myriad Commerce Representative Han San ]
This time, Han San smiled with genuine delight.
“Thank you!”
The championship belt he had won after two months of fighting was finally in his hands.
The fight hadn't been particularly fierce. If anything, it had only accelerated the rate at which money printed itself. Still, wasn’t the reward of victory always sweet?
‘And when I think of all the things I can do with these...’
Even Han San's heart felt sugary sweet.
‘Let's see. When should I [lose] a few sticks of dynamite... No, that excuse probably won't fly. Rather than claim they were lost, hmm. Paint some chunks of wood red, mix them in during blasting work, and skim that many off the back.
It'd be too close to sell them directly to the Inwang Gang... Sell through them to Primorye, Manchuria, and the Provisional Government first. Of course, I'll stockpile a surplus apart from what I sell...
No, no. I got these permits to use on the Meokbawi Valley embankment project. That comes first... Hmm. I can do both at once. We'll proceed simultaneously.’
Soaked through like a human sugar cube in his sweet fantasies, Han San finished the rest of the event and left.
Lee Beom-ik smiled as he watched him go.
He was smiling, but...
‘Hmm...’
In truth, Lee Beom-ik was far from calm inside.
‘I meant to pit two laying hens against each other.’
Wasn't that why he had set two promising young companies against each other?
Yet one of them had suddenly shouted, ‘Time for the dismemberment show!’ then blown itself up and gone under. What was he supposed to make of that?
‘Well, it deserved to fail.’
Lee Beom-ik sighed.
‘That Myo bastard. I told him to compete in business, but he went and did all sorts of bizarre things.’
He had supposedly burned tens of thousands of won in hard cash across Chuncheon just to cut off Han's Myriad Commerce's income stream.
When Lee Beom-ik first heard the news, he was dumbfounded. It also made his blood boil. Did his words carry so little weight?
So he had secretly ordered the Gangwon Police Department's Special Higher Police[5] to investigate where several tens of thousands of won had suddenly appeared from, as if conjured by a daytime goblin.
Then came the report that it seemed to be Baekbaekgyo's[6] money.
‘Those lunatics dare...’
Looking at the outcome, it wasn't entirely bad.
The cult's pocket money had been spread evenly into the pockets of Chuncheon's merchants, after all. If that counted as a trickle-down effect, then it was a trickle-down effect. More accurately, it was like getting pummeled until candy burst out of you.
Still, more than that...
‘That young man, Han San, truly exceeds expectations.’
It had been within his expectations that Han San would win the business contest. When two parties clashed, one was bound to emerge victorious.
Even the ko-threats Han San played along the way, such as the salty, sticky ganjang seasoned chicken and fish from Sokcho's sea, had only made him think the young man was quick-witted. They hadn't made him reassess Han San's value.
What had Lee Beom-ik not seen on his way to becoming governor of Gangwon Province? Geniuses were as common as stars.
But that Golden Pollock gift set.
‘It seems fully qualified to become a specialty product representing Gangwon, doesn't it?’
And on top of that...
‘Baekbaekgyo. Those vicious bastards spent tens of thousands of won trying to kill him...’
The truth was, Lee Beom-ik had expected Han San to come begging for his life, crying and asking for help from the Gangwon Police Department, the military police officers he had known, or even Lee Beom-ik himself if he had enough nerve.
‘If he had, I might've helped him a little.’
He was still under twenty. Wasn't it only right for an adult to help him?
Rather than let a growth stock with this much potential be trampled under the feet of cult scum, an adult's way of calculating things was to offer a little help, then keep reaping the returns from that growth for years to come.
Yet...
‘He got out through his own strength? He didn't beg adults even once?’
This was beyond the level of a mere laying hen.
This was...
‘A goose that lays golden eggs, a walking achievement factory!’
There was a reason Lee Beom-ik couldn't remain calm.
As he watched Han San's back recede, a tempest raged in his heart as if he had discovered an endlessly desirable gold mine.
‘Myo's Myriad Commerce? Myo San? Let them all go bankrupt and disappear! They can just die!
Han's Myriad Commerce, Han San! Raising a fellow like this will pave my road to promotion!’
Everyone had to walk a road,
and among them were those who paved roads for others.
Lee Beom-ik was a man who had spent his entire life paving roads.
He built roads for cars in Chuncheon, laid new roads in Jeongseon, and built a bridge over the Soyang River.
That was how he had paved his own road to promotion.
(In the history of Han San's previous life, he would carefully pave even his own road to death by proposing the establishment of the Jiandao Special Force[7].)
To the legendary Road Builder Lee Beom-ik, the key to paving roads was as follows.
[ Pave the places that will be used most first. ]
‘It wouldn't be bad to pave the way a little for that young man, Han San.’
As it happened, there was something that needed paving right away.
‘Those Baekbaekgyo cult bastards! They dared spread money to take down an exemplary imperial citizen officially commended by the authorities?’
How could the Empire save face if it let that slide?
What? The order was backwards? Baekbaekgyo's money attacked Han San before he received the commendation?
Hmm... To the legendary pathfinder Lee Beom-ik, the Governor-Governor-Governor who had spent his whole life paving roads, roads could go both ways. He knew from experience, so there was no such thing as before or after.
‘I should submit a report to the Government-General.’
The fate of the Baekbaekgyo investigation, which had been leaning heavily toward [Shall we wrap this up here?], flipped one hundred and eighty degrees.
A few days later, at the Gyeongseong Military Police Command.
“Ahaha! Yes!”
Kannoizuna Toono, having received the Government-General's go-ahead, smiled brightly as his monocle gleamed.
“Then shall we turn it around?”
The Empire's Silver Fox spread documents across the table with a flourish.
Some documents contained the flow of funds uncovered by the Special Higher Police. Others contained the accounting ledgers of companies believed to be deeply connected to Baekbaekgyo. And still others...
The eye behind the monocle looked down upon Gyeongseong, and every time the gloved hand placed another document like a baduk move, pieces on the board raced about at that hand's command.
One of those pieces, positioned roughly at the head of a ladder, was a man who had traveled from Inje to Gyeongseong on business.
“How did I end up all the way in Gyeongseong...?”
Sawada Kazuo, military police detachment commander of Inje, muttered those words as he kicked in the door of Baekbaekgyo's Gyeongseong Fifth Branch. His voice sounded both bewildered and deeply moved.
“Is this the destiny of a [man destined to rule the realm]?”
The truth was that, after a certain regressor had arranged an occasion at the Soyang Bridge completion ceremony, Toono remembered, [Hmm! Come to think of it, Kazuo was fairly good at fieldwork too!] and brought Sawada along as a test run. Still, if the baduk stone itself was happy, there was no particular problem.
At the same time.
At a hideout on the outskirts of Gyeongseong, Jeon Yong-hae, leader of Baekbaekgyo, slammed his hand onto the table.
“Fuck! Why the fuck is this shit happening again all of a sudden!?”
It was nothing short of a bolt from the blue.
Two branch heads had been arrested without a sound. Three gathering places for believers had been shut down. Three companies had been frozen overnight...
Just when it seemed things had finally quieted down through the winter, the spring breeze had brought nothing but news like this!
“You fucking Japanese Empire bastards! You fucking Government-General Joseon bastards! Why are you doing this? Why? Why all of a sudden, again!
Ah! Am I some kind of villain or what!?”
This time, there wasn't even time to activate the information network.
Why had this happened? Had someone new ratted them out? Or had they been pretending to overlook things all along, planning to stab these innocent religious people in the back?
There was no way to know!
The tightening noose came far too quickly!
That was when it happened.
“Great Magistrate! Do-yusa Yi Gyeong-deuk is here!
He says he has information about the current situation!”
Color returned to Jeon Yong-hae's face.
“That bastard Yi Gyeong-deuk? He came at the right time! Tell him to come in!”
Yes, that bastard who had been outside Gyeongseong might know how things had ended up like this. His organization and money would still be intact too.
‘First, I'll take shelter at that bastard Yi Gyeong-deuk's hideout. Then, if I keep my head down and wait out the storm for a while...’
Just as Jeon Yong-hae reached that thought, Yi Gyeong-deuk entered the room.
Jeon Yong-hae barked at him.
“Hey, Yi Gyeong-deuk! Get over here, you bastard! Outside is a complete fucking mess right now, so if you know anything about why this happened, spit it out, you bastard!”
With an expression of deep gratitude, Yi Gyeong-deuk prostrated himself before Jeon Yong-hae.
“Great Magistrate! You see...”
And at that moment...
Yi Gyeong-deuk became truly [wise].
[ Question. In an organization with a clear number one, the sole number two has made the mistake of sending 60,000 won into thin air. What is the wise course of action? ]
[ 1. Confess honestly and await punishment. ]
[ 2. Take out number one, swallow the money and organization owned by that fucking number one, and seek a comeback in one stroke. ]
Thus, Yi Gyeong-deuk made the wisest choice of his life.
There was a muffled thud.
“Urgh...?”
The sound, Jeon Yong-hae's eyes widening, Yi Gyeong-deuk gathering momentum from his position on all fours and springing up, and blood bursting forth all happened at once.
“You...”
Jeon Yong-hae collapsed.
His chest was hot. Something like lava flowed through it.
‘Why.’ The thought briefly crossed his mind, followed immediately by, ‘Why else?’
“The Great Magistrate's spirit has moved into me! I am the Great Magistrate now!! Everyone, to me—”
Yi Gyeong-deuk's voice could be heard shouting something outside... The outside grew noisy... A door burst open, someone roared, and the sound of people grappling followed...
Soon, he could hear nothing.
Everything became quiet.
Then.
Suddenly, a new voice spoke.
[ My son. ]
Father.
[ Do you know the key to ruling? ]
The voice of his father, Jeon Jeong-un, founder of Baedogyo, Baekbaekgyo's predecessor, suddenly passed through Jeon Yong-hae's mind.
[ It is making those beneath you bite and tear at one another... ]
The aloof back of his father standing atop a rock with his arms crossed as he imparted that lesson, then the pathetic face of the man who had been stripped of everything by his son, locked in a back room, and starved to death, flashed through his mind one after another.
A sudden realization welled up within him.
‘Mun Bong-jo should have been here. Or I should've immediately raised some other bastard to become the second number two.
I should've made Yi Gyeong-deuk and that bastard bite and tear at each other... If I had... In this Baekbaek world split like the legs of a cauldron... I could've stayed... securely... above them...’
That was it.
‘Bite... tear...’
It was the final thought of the man who, in Han San's previous life, had been the most infamous cult leader in Korean history.
[1] A sakazuki is a broad, shallow cup used for ceremonial sharing of sake in Japan.
[2] Gumi means a group or gang; in yakuza usage, it denotes an organized criminal family.
[3] An oyabun is the patriarchal boss of a yakuza-style organization.
[4] Hangure is a Japanese term for a loosely organized, semi-criminal group outside the traditional yakuza.
[5] The Special Higher Police, commonly known as Tokko, was Imperial Japan's political police, tasked with suppressing dissent and perceived ideological threats.
[6] Baekbaekgyo, or White-White Religion, was a Korean new religious movement exposed in the 1930s for killings and financial exploitation by its leaders.
[7] The Jiandao Special Force was a Japanese-organized colonial unit formed in 1938 in Manchukuo to fight anti-Japanese guerrillas around Jiandao.
Footnotes:
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