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◈ The Hunting Genius of the Japanese Colonial Era

Chapter 65

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The Fish-Salter (2)

The tea Broker Jang set out was quite fine.

"This here is what they call Caravan black tea. Comes all the way from Primorye. How about it, young friend? Don't you get a taste of, well, Siberia from it?"

Han San, of course, didn't get snide and ask, isn't that just Chinese tea leaf? What Siberia taste? Instead he simply drank it down without complaint.

"It's thanks to you, Broker-nim, that I get to drink such fine tea," he said. Even so, he didn't keep entirely quiet, and slipped a little knowledge in on the sly. "I think I heard somewhere that honey doesn't go so well in black tea. If not for that, I'd have stirred in some of what I brought along. A pity."

"Heh heh, the young friend knows his stuff. That's right, sugar suits black tea better. Here, have some."

"Thank you. My, but boats really do come in from the Primorye side too... Sokcho's bigger than I'd figured."

"Go up a little ways from here and you've got Wonsan. Keep going past that and there's, well, Najin,[1] a place they say they're building up on a grand scale these days. Go a bit further from there and you're right at Primorye. So we get to lick up some of the crumbs too."

That was why Sokcho held real promise for the future, Broker Jang said, and would only prosper as the days went by. Han San the returner knew those words to be settled fact, so he kept easy time with the man.

Broker Jang felt at ease.

'This young one really is easy to deal with.'

There was a skill to playing along, too.

The picture of Sokcho's future that Han San scratched at just so brimmed with life.

There were parts he couldn't agree with, naturally.

"Fried chicken? Hmm. Fry the chicken, season it, and sell it, you say?"

"Yes. Don't you think it could become one of Sokcho's specialties?"

"Well now. The first thing that comes to mind is that it's a bit out of nowhere... This isn't a place known for chicken, is it? It's a port. Sure, the Western hens come in by boat, but why bother? If you're going to make and sell a glazed dish, well, shouldn't it be glazed fish? Though that wastes oil just the same."

So there were bits of utterly impractical talk mixed in, but that was youth for you.

"Truly splendid. This Rush-an Cara-van black tea."

'And his foreign pronunciation's a bit dim, too.'

Well, that was youth as well. Before he knew it, Han San had started to look not half bad in Broker Jang's eyes, whatever he did.

Han San, too, picked up that he'd won a fair bit of Broker Jang's goodwill. Most likely his utterly fluent foreign pronunciation had landed the finishing blow.

Seeing that the moment was ripe, Han San gestured to the Chuk Brothers to bring over a bundle and unwrap it.

"Broker-nim. So these are the goods I brought. Same chestnut honey as the gift I gave you earlier..."

True to his word, ten glass jars brimming with chestnut honey lined up on the table.

"Hmm."

Broker Jang's eyes narrowed. He carefully lifted one jar and held it up to the sunlight.

"Good. Doesn't look like apiary honey, though."

"No. It's a hive I just happened to find by luck. Natural honey."

"Natural honey sounds well enough to the ear, but bottling it this clean is no easy thing."

On top of that, the glass jars too seemed to have come from the same source, identical in size. Stuck on each jar was a paper, printed handsomely with the trade name [Han's Myriad Commerce], just like the company calling card he'd received earlier.

"You looking to put it on consignment?"

"Ah, no need to go to all that bother, is there? If you'd buy it outright, Broker-nim, at a fair price, wouldn't it be easier all around to just hand the whole lot over to you right here?"

At Han San's banter, Broker Jang let out a chuckle.

"I think I could do about 3 won 50 a jar."

It was a high price.

No matter how scarce honey grew on the coast, even allowing for the added value of natural honey, it was still high. Because, as Broker Jang had said, being natural honey created its own bothersome wrinkles.

Mountain folk who happen to harvest a hive aren't going to have proper extraction gear. Strain it roughly, pour it into something like a secondhand soju doe-bottle, and the value drops off bit by bit.

But these chestnut honeys Han San had set out now were different.

'Ma Jong-sung of Cheonbo Pharmacy gave me an earful too, the first time I went, for bringing badger oil in a soju doe-bottle.'

Han San smiled inwardly as he sipped his Cara-van black tea.

With some room in his pockets, he'd spent this past May and June going up and down between Inje and Sebeom Valley, busily preparing his [business]. Among those preparations were these clean glass jars he'd gotten through Ma Jong-sung, along with the standardized medicine pouches and wooden boxes.

And that printed Han's Myriad Commerce label.

The ones stuck on each glass jar were also meant to court a [brand effect] down the road, and they did more than enough to make the chestnut honey jars look a cut more refined.

From Broker Jang's standpoint, it was a premium item he could simply find the right buyer for and turn a tidy profit on.

"Ten jars, so 35 won all told. How about it, young master? I figure I'm not treating you badly at that."

Han San nodded with a smile.

"Sounds good. Your eye's something else, Broker-nim."

Sure, if he set up his own stall he might get 4 won a jar, maybe even 4 won 50, but the sun was already high overhead.

Given that it was a five-day market, the hour was already late. Better to wrap up the sale fast and head for Inje, for a higher expected return.

Call it the cost of getting acquainted with Broker Jang.

"Oh, but just one thing... please don't peel off this Han's Myriad Commerce paper label. Like I said, we'll be running this and that business going forward, so it works as advertising and all."

"Heh heh, of course. It looks far classier left on, so why would I peel it? No, never mind not peeling it, when I sell, I'll put in a good word, say this is your company's goods."

"If you'd do that, I really couldn't ask for more. I'll be counting on you."

And so a clean 35 won deal was struck. Han San clicked the abacus beads in his heart, well pleased.

'There are still a few more tubs of harvested hives at home...'

Right about now, at the Han residence in Sebeom Valley, Mother and Father would be busily transferring the honey. Both of them had hands so deft it would wear out your mouth to praise them, so all of it would come out at this same quality.

Teacher Han Bada, the larval version still evolving into an honest-to-goodness honey badger, would be diligently swiping bites beside them, but how much could an eight-year-old really eat?

'Reckon each hive yields about five or six jars, so by wholesale price alone that's 150 won worth.'

Once fall passed and the real native-honey season came around, he could land another haul. He could sell slowly then, no matter. Honey doesn't spoil.

'So many ways to make money, really.'

Even smack in the middle of the colonial era, 1933, with skill, nerve, knowledge, stamina, a household register, and standing, getting hold of a nest egg wasn't hard. The list of requirements was a bit long, sure, but for Han San, who'd met every one of them, well, the whole peninsula was just one big gold mine.

"Come on by whenever you've got business. For your company, young master, I'll, well, clear out a corner of my warehouse and give you a break on the commission."

With that, Broker Jang drew a card from his coat and handed it over.

"This is my card. If anything comes up at a five-day market around these parts, get in touch."

"Oh my, thank you, Broker-nim. I'll see you again, then."

Han San tucked away Broker Jang's card and the 35 won as he stepped out of the building. This money too he planned to put toward the cost of goods to load onto the cart.

Han San gave the Chuk Brothers their orders.

"Right. Let's finish the shopping, then. There won't be any more pests tailing us."

The Chuk Brothers looked somewhat skeptical, but when truly nobody made a nuisance of themselves afterward, they were left shaking their heads.

"Boss. You really are something. What sort of dark dealing did you cut with that corrupt bourgeois?"

"Ah, what are you on about? Just a couple of older folks talking some business, that's all."

"Aw, the boss isn't an older fellow. Said you're not even twenty."

"Now, Chief Hong-cheol. You ever heard of rounding up? Round my age up and it's exactly a hundred. You lot are a hundred too. Don't go griping about age in the age of the hundred-year life, come on."

"Was that what the hundred-year life meant?"

Joking around like that, the Chuk Brothers' bloodlust thinned out a good deal.

About the time the cart was full, Han San bought his last item.

"Give me twenty mackerel."

"Aigo, young man! Twenty whole! Good! I'll do the whole lot here for 3 won!"

It wasn't peak season yet, so the flesh hadn't filled out quite as much, but still, twenty heavy mackerel were handed into Han San's grasp.

Chuk Hong-cheol was aghast.

"Boss! What in the world do you mean to do with mackerel in this weather? It's July!"

"Got something I want to test. If your hands are free, come help me deal with these. If you've slit the throats of beasts, you can surely gut a fish."

"Gutting's easy enough, sure..."

Han San with the skill of a seasoned hunter, the Chuk Brothers with the skill of veteran butchers, slit the mackerel bellies and scraped out the innards clean. Four experts together, it was over in a literal flash.

"Good. Set the finished ones over here on the cart, this side, where the straw's laid out. Then I'll..."

Leaving the mackerel laid out that way, Han San took out salt.

Chuk Hong-cheol raised one eyebrow.

"You salting them to cure?"

"Yeah. But not just slapping it on..."

Some he caked with salt from belly to skin, some he rubbed lightly, like dressing them in summer clothes. Others he salted only on the gills, tail, and belly cavity, and a few the opposite, a bit heavier on the outside...

'Group 1 is full coating, Group 2 is concentrated inner coating, Group 3 is...'

Thanks to the sharp memory honed through his regression, the salting data for each mackerel was perfectly recorded and sorted in Han San's head.

"Just chuck them in a salt barrel. They'll spoil for sure..."

Chuk Myeong-su clicked his tongue, looking down at the straw bundles split into several groups.

Han San gave a chuckle.

"If they spoil, I just toss them, simple as that."

"No. You'd throw away 3 won worth? Honestly, Boss. What on earth are you doing this for?"

"It's all got a use. Anyway, arrange the cart load well so the mackerel water doesn't get on the other goods."

"Tsk, honestly..."

Chuk Hong-cheol wore a sour look, but he raised no further objection and did as Han San said. In any case, he knew well enough that the boss was no ordinary man.

"Let's go."

So with even the cargo squared away, after filling up well on food, they reached the exit of the marketplace.

"You there! The gentleman hauling the ox cart!"

Someone called out to Han San.

At the exit of the Sokcho five-day market, dozens of horses and oxen and porters bearing A-frame carriers were all tangled up in a great crush. The one who'd called Han San looked to be a head man of sorts, leading one of the groups.

"You called?"

"Where are you headed?"

"Going to Inje."

"Inje? Then how about going together? We're headed to Inje too. As you can see, we've got an ox cart of our own."

In this era, the roads were full of danger. Travelers naturally wanted to band together.

Han San gave the oxen of the men who'd spoken to him a quick once-over. At a glance he made out that their loads topped roughly 600kg, and asked back.

"And how are you going?"

"How else? Take the new road, loop a full circle around Seorak, then go up along the Naerin Stream."

The head man of another mid-sized group beside him gave a snort.

"Go like that and when'll you ever get there? Young man! Come with us. We're going down to Yangyang[2] over there, then taking Hangyeryeong[3] up to Inje. After that we're headed for Chuncheon."

The roads of 1930s Gangwon could be explained roughly as follows.

Assuming travel at ox-cart speed.

The old Misiryeong Pass route. About 12 hours to Inje.

The Hangyeryeong route. More than double that, 26 hours.

But could an ox walk through the night? A person can go hungry, but an ox must eat; a person can push past their limits, but an ox must rest.

So from 20 hours and up, you had to reckon it at ten hours per day.

'A 26-hour distance is, in other words, a 3-day distance.'

And looping all the way around Seorak? That tacked on another 10 hours, making 36.

'A 4-day distance.'

The one advantage, if you had to name one, was that it was flat and the road well maintained, so you could load up heavy. Trading volume for time, you could call it.

You might wonder how the roads of a small peninsula, a snot-sized Gangwon, could run that long, but a person's guts look small balled up inside the belly too. Pull them out and lay them flat, and don't they stretch out to a frightful length?

And this was the very answer to [What? You just move goods from here to there... and money gets made?]. In this era, trade profit wasn't a money-duplication bug; it was the reward for backbreaking, high-risk toil.

Han San clicked his tongue.

"We'll be cutting through Misiryeong."

At that, the merchants all flipped out at once.

"Aigo, you fool! Are you saying that because you don't know what state Misiryeong's in right now?"

"The whole pack of highway robbers has crowded in over there, and here's a young fellow saying things to get himself killed!"

"Even if peddling is work you stake your life on, that's no reason to actually go staking your life! What's the big rush to live and die?"

Han San didn't bother explaining. Saying, oh, I killed a few robbers and pocketed a little side income on the way over, would obviously just get him written off as a windbag, and might land him in needless hassle.

'I'll just take their concern gratefully and leave it at that.'

So he nodded, and was about to offer a few nice words, when—

a current ran through Han San's head!

'Hmm??? No, wait!'

Misiryeong was blocked because of bandits.

The merchants were throwing away time going around.

But he himself had the [force] to cut clean through that old Misiryeong Pass route like a stroll up the neighborhood hill.

Which meant?

"Recruiting people headed to Inje!"

Han San threw up his hand and shouted.

"Same-day passage over Misiryeong, leaving right now! We take responsibility for the safety of the road! Only those going on foot with an A-frame carrier, no cart! Escort fee 1 won, first come first served, up to 10 people!"

The escort service!

In the 1933 dark-fantasy peninsula, this was the moment the Han's Myriad Commerce escort service, cutting through the greenwood outlaws of Misiryeong, raised its banner.

[1] Najin (나진) is a deep-water port on Korea's northeastern coast, near the Soviet border. In the 1930s the Japanese colonial authorities were developing it as a major terminus of the Manchurian railway network under the name Rashin.

[2] Yangyang (양양) is a coastal county on the East Sea (Sea of Japan), south of Sokcho, used here as a waypoint on the long detour route around Mount Seorak.

[3] Hangyeryeong (한계령) is a mountain pass through the Taebaek Range connecting the Yangyang coast to inland Inje; at ox-cart pace the route added well over a day's travel compared to the direct Misiryeong crossing.

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