WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 88: In 1933, the Automatic Hunter Makes Good Money (1)

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By the time they finished making contact with the Inwang Gang, the sun had set.

If night had fallen while they were on the road, that would have been one thing, but they couldn't cross Misiryeong Pass in the dead of night. So everyone from Han's Myriad Commerce decided to spend the night in Sokcho.

Broker Jang gave the group food and lodging, then had another drinking table set out separately and sat across from Han San.

"Leave the crew recruitment to me."

His voice was heated. Few things could remind a middle-aged man of the fire of his youth like an eighteen-year-old boy who had walked into a tiger's mouth and come back out with a horse pass.

Han San, with a seventy-four-year-old man sitting inside him, understood the feeling well enough. It did make him feel like he was pulling some kind of age scam, but well, if it got someone fired up one way or another, that was a good thing.

"Please take care of it."

"Of course, of course. So... how are you planning to run this ship?"

Han San smacked his lips.

"I'm not sure. It's been kept in good shape, so I'd like to use it as a cargo ship. But for the time being, the amount of goods I can move, and the places to move them to, are both rather vague..."

Getting hold of a ship this quickly, and one this large at that, had already surpassed his expectations three times over.

'I thought he'd get me something like a tiny fishing boat.'

A ship could serve two purposes.

First, it was a means of transport. Second, it was a means of production.

"I'd actually been thinking of going into the mackerel business. Once autumn got deeper, I was going to try catching other seafood too. So I was thinking I might use it as a fishing boat for a while..."

September was exactly the season when schools of mackerel came streaming up the East Sea coast.

Wouldn't it be useful as a means of production rather than transport?

By around November, when mackerel season ended, he'd have gathered enough money. Then he could turn it back into a cargo ship...

"Don't."

Broker Jang waved a hand.

"Like you saw at a glance, that one has only ever been used as a cargo ship. There are plenty of boats used as fishing boats one day and cargo ships the next. But every last one of them rots early. The fish stink soaked into the hold doesn't come out easily, and once oil, flesh, and the like stick to it, bugs breed there too. Load heavy cargo onto a place that's rotted away like that, and the bottom gives out before long...

"Fishing boats for fishing, cargo ships for cargo. If you want a ship to last, keep it to one trade."

"Hmm..."

"Better yet, how about this?"

Broker Jang raised one finger.

"I'll introduce you to a few fishing boats within my reach. Make contracts with those fishermen and take as much of whichever fish you want. Thanks to this typhoon, the only boats left intact in Sokcho are practically the ones I have a hand in. You'll be able to set both the price and the volume however you like."

A second finger rose.

"And leave this ship with me. I'll run it and make us a little profit."

Because of the typhoon, the number of cargo ships coming and going from the harbor had dropped sharply. Running one more now would earn twice as much as it did in normal times.

"Of course, I'll pay the lease fee with that in mind. We can deduct it from the price you owe for the ship, and keep the accounts neat for both of us. What do you say, young master?"

Han San welcomed the idea with both hands.

"That sounds perfect! Please take good care of it."

It was a deal that benefited everyone.

Broker Jang could use the ship and make money, while from Han San's point of view, it was more convenient to take over the whole operation, crew and all, than to bring in the sailors Broker Jang introduced, get them working together, and figure everything out himself.

'Being tied together by profit really is the strongest bond.'

Monopolizing everything might seem faster, but that approach had limits.

Take robber gangs, for example.

It wasn't hard to go from a half-baked gang of robbers on the Yangyang mountain road to a gang specializing in Misiryeong Pass. But why were robber gangs with standing like the Inwang Gang so rare?

Because raiding was business that ended in one go. There was no telling when the next victim would come along. Sustainability and predictability both approached zero.

Trade was different. Broker Jang would want to work with him again tomorrow of his own accord.

So the next day, Han's Myriad Commerce crossed Misiryeong Pass with two ox carts piled high with salt-cured mackerel.

What? Hadn't he stopped knowing what an ox cart was?

An ox cart crossed mountains. A lucky water cart? All that remained was the saying that it could go if there were enough boatmen. The wisdom of a seventy-four-year-old man was not shaken in the slightest by such nonsense...

Anyway, salt-cured mackerel hit the Inje market.

"Come on, come on, salt-cured mackerel! Mackerel pickled with Andong's secret method has arrived!"

The response was explosive.

"What? You put out tiny amounts in July, then vanished without a trace in August, and only now you're here! Do you know how long I've been waiting for this mackerel?"

"Don't push, don't push! There's plenty... I mean, I thought there was plenty, but I'm starting to feel like maybe there isn't, but still!"

"Quit talking and take my money, then hand over the mackerel!"

It sold like wildfire.

The people of Inje were happy.

"Ha. Autumn's nearly here, but it's still warm. To think we can eat mackerel at this time of year."

"And the price too... that young man is going to be blessed."

Since Typhoon 3383, it had become hard to see any seafood at all. Yet mackerel was being released in September, and compared to other goods that had become worth their weight in gold, it wasn't even harshly priced.

Of course it was popular.

"Sajang, at this rate... we might be able to take all the Inje people's money with mackerel."

"That'd be nice, but..."

Han San smacked his lips.

'Just selling at the market won't be enough to take all their money.'

It wasn't only because people would get sick of eating nothing but mackerel.

Salted or not, mackerel was still mackerel. It didn't keep for very long.

Even if he brought it in by the cartload and tried to sell it all at once, people still made rational economic decisions when it came to actual consumption.

'What does that mean? People aren't idiots. They'll only buy as much as they can eat at home before it spoils.'

Not everyone cooked at home, either. This demand wouldn't last long.

'Let's increase the ways we can sell it.'

So a shop went up at the entrance to the market.

"Han's Myriad Commerce Restaurant is now open! Specialists in salt-cured mackerel set meals!"

Putting up a shop was easy enough.

'Besides, land prices in Inje have nearly been cut in half because of the typhoon.'

The few intact houses had actually risen in price, but damaged lots too ruined to rent out had been left lying around cheap because their owners had no money to rebuild. Buying vacant land and putting up a building was something they had grown sick of doing in Middle Hamlet.

"Welcome, customer! Yes! One salt-cured mackerel set meal coming right up!"

Han San had even run a tavern back during the Ginsei uproar, dealing with those half-baked hunters and their assorted bastards. Running a restaurant was nothing.

"Ha. Sajang, you really do have a plan for everything. How does it all turn like gears, click, click, click?"

"I've been thinking about it for quite a while."

Before the typhoon, the fact that Han's Myriad Commerce had entered a period of stagnant structural profits had been giving Han San a headache.

He had kept thinking in the back of his mind about how to solve it.

If the first measure had been acquiring a ship, the second was this, diversifying their business!

'When the goods are good, there are more ways to sell them.'

But that raised one very obvious problem.

'We're short on hands.'

Fortunately, the solution wasn't difficult.

Wasn't Middle Hamlet, his own territory, in deep trouble right now?

Middle Hamlet, at Choi Seo-bang's house.

"Honey. Autumn's nearly here, but I don't know if we'll even make it through autumn, let alone winter..."

"Let's wait and see. I'll take Manbok into town and find us some day labor somehow..."

Inside their fine newly built home, the couple's sighs grew deeper by the day.

A slash-and-burn settler village's little plots of farmland barely kept people alive even after working them all year. And now, because of the typhoon, they might not even manage a proper autumn harvest.

"Park Seo-bang went to town once, but do you think the typhoon spared that place? The people there must be struggling to survive too. Would there really be work left for people like us..."

"We still have to try. A man has his pride. We can't keep eating at the Han family's table forever. I've realized that much."

It was around the time such conversations were passing from house to house that Han San, lord of Middle Hamlet, returned.

"Ajaes, would you like to help with our company work? I can't pay you a great deal, but I'll make sure you don't have to worry about going hungry."

Why had local strongmen in premodern times been so powerful?

Because they had a lot of property? A lot of land?

Because they could put tenant farmers to work.

The number of people one could mobilize was that person's power. Han San had no hesitation about putting to use the power he had gained through rebuilding Middle Hamlet.

Choi Seo-bang hesitated.

"Um... what sort of work is it..."

"A restaurant. A restaurant and seafood shop."

And so Han San called up people from his territory and brought them down into town.

He had some stay at the office, while others accompanied the carts to Sokcho.

'It's about time I got ready to take my hands off simple sales too.'

And it was not only sales. A company might belong to the sajang, but if the sajang had to take care of every single task, there was no reason to pay employees wages.

[ Personally attending to every affair[1] is not something a person should do, hyung. Only a god could barely manage it. ]

Han San remembered Teacher Han Bada's words. Since he had no intention of becoming a god, he began taking one burden after another off his shoulders and handing them to his employees.

'For example, salting mackerel. It's not something only I can do.'

Once enough salting data had been gathered, he had been gradually teaching the method to the Chuk Brothers, the core executives of Han's Myriad Commerce.

Chuk Myeong-su, who hadn't been an intellectual in the slightest, learned especially quickly.

'Automation!'

Making things run by themselves without needing to worry about every little detail.

The third measure for escaping the stagnant-profit period, named won auto-hunting[2]!

'The problem is the safety of the cart roads...'

There was no answer to that except preparing as thoroughly as possible.

Han's Myriad Commerce's distribution network would expand as the company grew, and he couldn't personally insert himself into every route.

'Fortunately, the Chuk Brothers are veterans now, with plenty of real fights behind them. Put one or two Chuk Brothers in charge, then fill out the rest with enough men...'

That would be enough preparation for the Misiryeong road, where the typhoon had left the robber gangs scarce.

Still, Han San decided to take every precaution.

'It would be certain if I asked Father's friends for help, but that'd cost too much.'

It could also become dangerous in another sense. He couldn't forget that the Inwang Gang was currently under special watch by the military police.

'Can't be helped. I'll borrow people who are cheaper, but have at least beaten someone up before.'

So Han San went to Lower Hamlet.

"Sundae-hyung! Do you have any people with spare time? I'm looking to borrow some."

"Hoho, of course I do. Hey! You lot! Does sitting around here all day get you food or liquor? What are you doing? Anyone without work, get moving and help Sajang San!"

With one or two Chuk Brothers put in charge of every shipment, and the remaining numbers filled by the men of Middle Hamlet and Lower Hamlet's toughs, the transport route became completely safe.

Unless another Ginsei-class wolf pack suddenly sprang out of thin air, or super-elite robber gangs from other regions came rushing in, there shouldn't be any problems.

"Let's hope it runs smoothly..."

Han San stepped back from the Inje-Sokcho trade route with a slightly tense feeling.

The ox carts went back and forth between Inje and Sokcho without rest. Some carried cargo, while others sold salt-cured mackerel.

Money began pouring in every day!

Looking at the heaps of money her son put down before her, Ham Ssang-sim couldn't control her expression, half frightened and half beaming.

"Goodness, San! Th-this money, is all of this really our family's money?"

"Of course. We'll keep making this much." Han San put another handful of money beside the pile. "Ah, our employees must have made another pile this big just while I was walking home."

"Th-this... I don't know if it's a dream or real life..."

"Of course it's real life. Anyway, if there's anything you want to eat, just say so, Mother! You too, Bada. Father as well, of course! Our family can easily afford that much now!"

Han Man-seok was dressing a young chicken and coating it in batter on one side, frying it in a cauldron on the other. The corners of his lips curled up slightly.

Bada, holding a freshly fried chicken leg in each hand, let out a scream of joy.

"Hyung is the best!"

But of course, auto-hunting always had areas where it fell short of hunting in person.

As soon as Han San took his hands off things, parts of the operation began to creak.

Problem One. Failed demand forecasting.

"Sajang, I'm sorry. Lamp oil sold well last time, so I brought in about three times as much this time..."

There was nothing to be done about that. Han San patted Hyeong-don's shoulder.

"Ah, come on. It's still September. People have to use up the lamp oil they stocked up on last time before buying new lamp oil, don't they? And how many people even use lamp oil around Inje...

"It's fine, it's fine. You learn by doing."

Then he gave a warm smile.

"Still, thank you for telling me. It's a hundred times better than hiding a mistake and trying to make up for it yourself, then causing an even bigger accident. Keep reporting things as soon as they come up."

It was a problem that would resolve itself once experience accumulated in the field.

But there were also problems that came from how long it took for that experience to build up, or from not being able to wait that long.

Problem Two. Lack of expertise.

This one was especially serious at the restaurant.

Footnotes:

[1] "Personally attending to every affair" is the ideal of a ruler personally handling every matter of state, often invoked as a warning against excessive micromanagement.

[2] "Won auto-hunting" is Han San's gaming-style term for a business system designed to generate money with minimal direct supervision.

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