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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 58

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The Meokbawi Valley Revolution (1)

As the sun was setting, Han San came home with Chuk Hong-cheol.

"...This is your place?"

"What, you think I'd just walk into somebody else's house like this?"

"No, but..."

Chuk Hong-cheol couldn't believe his eyes.

The first thing that caught his gaze was a great big ox. A sturdy yellow bull with a glossy sheen to its tawny coat and shoulders properly filled out.

'A slash-and-burn settler owns an ox like that?'

And then there was the chicken coop beside it, clearly built not long ago.

Hens with feathers white as snow sat perched in a row, every one of them plump. Two had sunk into place like sticky rice cakes, not budging, as though they were brooding eggs.

'And that shed.'

Through the half-open door he could see tools packed inside without end—enough to arm a whole village's worth of laborers.

'The house itself is decent too...'

It was a log cabin of some age, but cement had been smeared over it, recently reinforced by the look of it. It might not look like much, but for blocking the drafts it was a thoroughly practical house.

From the moment Han San had thrust thirty won at him out of nowhere, he'd caught a whiff of money. But still—a mere slash-and-burn settler living this well?

Chuk Hong-cheol felt the little red soldier in his heart spit fire.

On the other hand, he found himself wondering, 'Isn't a society where the slash-and-burn settler lives better than the town worthies one that's achieved greater class equality?' But anyway.

Just then Han San, having stepped through the brushwood gate, called out.

"Mother, Father! This is Chuk Hong-cheol-ajae. He's going to be working here for a while."

The kitchen door flew open and a tough-faced middle-aged woman came bursting out.

"Aigo! Come in, come in. Omama, what a build on this one—a real strongman!"

The woman welcomed Chuk Hong-cheol in a thick dialect that sounded like Hamgyeong Province and Gangwon Province had risen up together. There was nothing off-putting about it, and before he knew it Chuk Hong-cheol was scratching the back of his head.

"Uh, uh... pleased to meet you, um... ma'am?"

"That's right! Aren't I this rascal's omani? Call me Ham-ajimae."

"No, how could I dare... Ma'am, I'm Chuk Hong-cheol. I'll be imposing on you for a while."

Chuk Hong-cheol bowed his head. Being treated with no wariness like this didn't just touch him—it puzzled him. Honestly, he didn't exactly cut a figure that earned anyone's goodwill.

'Is it because they trust their son that much?'

Chuk Hong-cheol didn't get long to wonder.

Creeak.

The door to the inner room opened and a man walked out.

At a glance he looked like a gaunt, aging fellow. And his leg seemed to give him trouble, since one hand leaned on a cane.

But Chuk Hong-cheol found himself hunching his shoulders without meaning to.

'Strong!'

It was instinct—the gut sense a man who'd ended countless lives as a butcher could feel.

The aging man looked Chuk Hong-cheol over without a word. His gaze lingered especially long on the grip of his hands.

The man nodded.

"You can handle a blade."

Han San smiled.

"This is my father. His given name is written Man and Seok, but just call him Elder."

Chuk Hong-cheol swallowed dryly.

People often speak of a tiger with its teeth pulled out. But Chuk Hong-cheol the butcher knew the part left unsaid behind those words.

A tiger can tear a man's throat out with nothing but its gums.

"Elder."

Chuk Hong-cheol bent his back in a respectful bow.

Han Man-seok nodded.

"Have you eaten?"

"Not yet..."

"Ssang-sim, let's set the table."

"All right! Just wait a bit! The stew's done boiling now!"

Ham Ssang-sim went into the kitchen. She must have lifted the lid off the cauldron inside, because the savory smell of rice and stew came drifting out.

Chuk Hong-cheol froze at the rice smell amid it all, and a moment later, when he saw the table that had been set, he was aghast.

'White rice!'

The meat stew and the egg pancake and the like weren't all that revolutionary. He was a butcher himself, and on the way here he'd heard this was a hunter's household.

But to cook rice from hulled grain!

Not even mixed with millet or sorghum or barley!

It was still the dead middle of the spring hunger gap. On top of that, food prices, which had shot up over the wolf uproar, had only just started coming back down.

And yet in the home of a slash-and-burn settler, a landlord's table like this.

Even the little one who'd somehow come over to the side and started eating—the kid said to be Han San's younger brother—looked like a table like this was nothing new to him.

Sure, it might be a special meal in honor of welcoming him, but only to that degree—nothing worth making such a fuss about.

'Have the people's bloody tears risen even to a mountain hollow like this?'

In a wretched mood, Chuk Hong-cheol ate the white rice with the meat soup. It felt as though digesting every last remnant of capitalism through his own red stomach was the only path to contributing to the building of an equal society.

It was damn delicious.

When the meal ended, Chuk Hong-cheol gulped down the scorched-rice water in a revolutionary posture and asked, "That was a fine meal. ...So, comrade... uh, boss? Damn it, what am I supposed to call you?"

"Boss works better."

"That's an awfully pro-capitalist way to address you... tsk, ah, well, fine. Boss. What do I do from here on?"

He'd filled his belly, so he had to earn his keep—especially having eaten this well.

Han San pointed to the side of the yard.

"First let's build a house. Widen the yard a bit, and you see that space over there? We'll put your living quarters there, ajae. I'll help out with the building and the materials, so we'll do it together. About how long do you think it'll take?"

Chuk Hong-cheol gave the fence a once-over and ran the numbers in his head. As if a man who'd done an activist's work couldn't put up a single house.

"If we start tomorrow, about three days? Getting the roof up and making it more or less sleepable takes a day, but reinforcing it so the wind doesn't get in much, sorting out the fence and all that—takes longer."

Han San nodded. He'd figured roughly the same.

He added one thing, though.

"Let's make it five days. I'm going to widen the yard fence out quite a bit."

"Quite a bit?"

"Yeah. A few more people might come. Rather than tearing down and widening the fence each time, it's better to lay it out broad from the start and just put up the houses as people arrive."

Chuk Hong-cheol furrowed his brow.

"A few more people coming?"

"Yeah. I'm going to hire a few more. If you've got comrades worth recommending, say the word. I'll match their pay to about what you're getting."

Chuk Hong-cheol's eyes went wide. He could bring his comrades along, not just himself?

It was still some twenty years before Mao Zedong would put it into words, but the red truth that more people means more strength was a conviction held by any revolutionary soldier.

But Chuk Hong-cheol soon smacked his lips. It wouldn't be too late to recommend anyone after he'd learned a bit more about this household and his employer.

"Recommendations... let me look around a bit first. How many are you going to hire?"

"That I've still got to figure out for myself."

He said as much, but inwardly Han San had a number fixed.

'Four more.'

So including Chuk Hong-cheol, five men, with a term of a year and a half—long enough to take in next year's monsoon season.

'Labor costs alone come to about 450 won?'

Right now his spare funds came to around 80 won. But spare funds were spare funds, so in effect he had to earn a fresh 450 won.

A staggering sum, but having once held the great fortune of 500 won in his grip, and having laid down the essential foundations starting with the household register, Han San no longer saw that money as out of reach.

But first.

'Got to put the surroundings in order.'

His thinking settled, Han San spoke.

"Once your house and the fence are all squared away, come along with me somewhere."

As he spoke, Han San's gaze flicked toward the ridge that lay off to the side.

"There's a gorge valley over that way. Meokbawi Valley, it's called. There are fellows over there throwing their weight around like the place is their own land, and we're going to have it out with them."

At those words, Chuk Hong-cheol's eyes changed. It felt as though the capitalist meal he'd just eaten was converting into ideological power for the liberation of the people.

"How can land that ought to belong to all the masses become the private possession of any one person? Those budding landlords deserve to be taught a proper lesson."

"That's right—let's go teach them a lesson."

Han San said it with a satisfied smile.

The five days passed quickly.

June 3rd, 1933.

The Han household's yard, expanded to roughly five times its former size. The newly settled servants' quarters, building number one, sat there looking quite respectable.

"A vigorous and mighty revolutionary morning!"

Chuk Hong-cheol, who had spent a night in a room where the smell of red clay still hadn't faded, stretched as he stepped outside.

Han San was already waiting with his gear packed. He tossed Chuk Hong-cheol an A-frame carrier and said, "Let's go."

"Mm."

The two set off for Meokbawi Valley.

Properly speaking, you had to go out the Upper Hamlet exit and head upstream, or out the Lower Hamlet exit and work your way up against the downstream flow, but since both could be crossed by going over the mountain, there was no need to take the long way. They simply went straight along the spring at the back yard.

The middle reaches of Meokbawi Valley.

Having served as the lifeblood of the slash-and-burn settlers' village for decades, the fish stocks were nearly wiped out. It was only thanks to the abundant water that there was any at all; without it, you literally wouldn't have found a single crayfish.

'And that very water becomes a problem next year, though.'

Thinking that, Han San stepped into the valley and soon spotted his targets.

Men sitting atop a large rock.

'Deok-tae's crew.'

Their leader, Deok-tae, was a runt, contrary to the impression his name conjured. But he had to be well past fifty. A strangely soft voice came out of the wrinkled dwarf's mouth.

"Hey, isn't it our little San? What've you come for?"

Han San smiled warmly.

"Aigo, what do you mean, what for? Come to use the valley a bit. Play in the water some, catch some crayfish, and if there are fish, catch those too."

"What's this, you rascal? Heh heh. Big dreams you've got, San. Mighty bold these days, aren't you. When did our little San grow such nerve?"

"Don't they say a man should be looked at with fresh eyes after just ten days apart?[1] Can't stay small forever like your height, Deok-tae-ajae."

"Heh heh heh, look at this little fellow. Heh heh heh heh."

Deok-tae laughed warmly too.

As if that laugh were a signal, the three men who made up Deok-tae's crew climbed down from the rock. The exact opposite of Deok-tae, they were broad-shouldered strongmen.

Deok-tae said, "San, go home. I can't grant little you permission to play here."

Han San deliberately rounded his eyes.

"Now, why do I need your permission, ajae? It's a gorge right next to our village."

"Heh heh heh, little San says some amusing things. My uncle used this gorge and my granduncle used this valley. This little gorge has belonged to my family for generations, so wouldn't you need my permission?"

It was just as Deok-tae said this, still in his soft tone, that Chuk Hong-cheol stepped forward.

"What kind of dog crap is that, you reactionary bastard!"

A fierce broadside right from the opening.

"Land is a means of production that all the masses ought to share! How can you claim ownership over flowing water and the fish that live in it on the grounds of some paltry bloodline!"

Silence fell.

Even the sound of the water running through the gorge went quiet, as if rolling its eyes and wondering whether this was really Meokbawi Valley.

Deok-tae's eyes narrowed.

"Little San. And what is that man behind you?"

"He's my hired hand."

At the words Han San brought out with his chest thrown out, Chuk Hong-cheol ground his teeth on the spot.

"Ah, shit, boss, watch your mouth... I'm not a hired hand, I'm a laborer. You could call me a thinker who despises unenlightened wretches like you lot who settle into worn-out old customs."

Deok-tae let out a dry laugh.

"Heh heh heh. Your station's little, but the racket you kick up is anything but. When the masters are talking, a little servant boy shouldn't go adding his words."

"Servant boy?! This bastard's mouth too, shit..."

"And to answer you, little servant boy."

Deok-tae cleared his throat and spoke softly.

"My granduncle drove the bears out of here and my uncle carried the stones to open the waterway. Setting a spoon down on the fruit of that accumulated labor on nothing but the geopolitical coincidence of living in the same village—isn't that the very reactionary mindset?"

Once again silence fell.

Chuk Hong-cheol looked at Han San, and Han San made a face that asked why he was being looked at. You're the one who started this.

In the end Chuk Hong-cheol had no choice but to turn back to Deok-tae with a face going red and purple.

"You... reactionary son of a bitch all the same!"

"Why do you think so, little servant boy?"

"Gah! Today I'll have to stage a great revolution!"

The late-blooming activist, outmatched in argument, rolled up his sleeves and made to step forward. Han San caught hold of his sleeve.

"Comrade, calm down."

"Move! Those fellows aren't the type you can settle things with by talking! The reactionary spirit's bored into their very marrow—they're, anyway, they're rotten bastards!"

"I know. What's talking going to do? That's why I've got something prepared, just for this."

Han San drew something out of his shirt—a bundle of documents wrapped well so it wouldn't get soaked with sweat and grime.

Han San hoisted the bundle up high.

"Do you know what this is, Deok-tae-ajae?"

Deok-tae froze. So did Deok-tae's servants, and Chuk Hong-cheol.

"What is that?"

"Come closer and look. You're not illiterate, ajae."

Deok-tae furrowed his brow. At his signal, he climbed onto the shoulders of one of his servants and came closer, and soon he made out what was written on that paper.

[Land title deed]

In that instant, Deok-tae's eyes flew wide open.

"You don't mean—"

"That's exactly what I mean!"

Han San pointed to the lower part of the deed and, in a thunderous voice—

"Ahh, you ignorant fools!

Do you not see this document?

Do you not see this gleaming Government-General seal right here, is what I'm saying!

This is my land. I paid my own money and bought it myself. Go check at the registry office if you like!

Get off my private property, you squatters!"

Once more silence fell. This silence was far deeper than the two before it.

Chuk Hong-cheol stared blankly at Han San. He wore the face of a man who, without realizing it, had turned into a lackey of the Government-General and a landlord's overseer.

[1] An allusion to the classical idiom gwanmok-sangdae (괄목상대, 刮目相對), "to rub one's eyes and look anew," from the Records of the Three Kingdoms — said of someone whose progress over a short time is so striking they must be reassessed.

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