Chapter 4

Autumn, 1856 — On the Way Home from Changdeok Palace

Throughout the entire journey out of Changdeok Palace, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung said nothing.

He remained silent inside the palanquin, and he still said nothing as they passed through the gate of his residence.

I endured the silence quietly.

There was no need to hurry.

Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung was probably replaying everything that had happened today in his head, wondering whether I had spontaneously brought up the passage from the Analects that directly targeted the Haedong Kim clan in front of Grand Queen Dowager Jo, or whether I had prepared it beforehand.

As we entered the courtyard of the residence, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung stopped.

He turned toward me, and his eyes had changed.

It was neither suspicion nor surprise.

It was the gaze of a man who had made a decision.

“Was what you said in front of Her Majesty today something you had thought about beforehand?”

“Yes, Father.”

“When did you start thinking about it?”

“After I suffered the fever.”

“Were you not afraid when you brought up that passage in front of her?”

“I was afraid.”

“And yet you did it?”

“It was something that needed to be said.”

Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung stared at me for a long while.

I could feel the final calculation being completed behind his eyes.

Without saying another word, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung turned around and walked into the men’s quarters.

That silence was his answer.

It meant that he had decided to include me in his calculations once again.

Now I had to dig deeper into Grand Queen Dowager Jo.

The next time I entered the palace, I had to take another step forward.

Autumn, 1856 — Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung’s Residence in Hanseong

I closed the door to my room and sat down, organizing everything that had happened today.

The direction I had established at Huijeongdang was proceeding through the first stage as planned.

But planting a seed and making it sprout were two different things.

Grand Queen Dowager Jo remembering me and trusting me were completely different matters.

Likewise, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung putting me back into his calculations and actually choosing me were two separate things.

To move Grand Queen Dowager Jo, I needed her trust.

Trust could not be built in a single meeting.

It had to be accumulated little by little over several years.

To move Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung, I had to prove my usefulness.

My father was a practical man.

He was moved by calculations, not emotions.

I had to demonstrate through my actions that the eldest son was more advantageous to him than the second son.

The Haedong Kim clan would come last.

If I confronted them now, there would be a backlash.

There was no way a nine-year-old child could directly take on the Haedong Kim clan.

I had to find their weakness, wait until that weakness erupted, and then strike with Grand Queen Dowager Jo’s hand.

There were seven years until 1863.

The order mattered.

Don’t rush, or I’ll die.

Take it one step at a time.

I called for my maidservant, Gaksim, and had her sit down.

Gaksim opened her eyes wide and knelt before me.

“I told you to sit.”

Gaksim awkwardly sat down on the floor.

I looked straight at her.

“From now on, there’s something you need to do.”

“Yes, Young Master.”

“Every day, tell me who comes in and out of this residence, which family they belong to, and when they came and left.”

“Th-that…”

“Can you do it or not?”

Gaksim kept her mouth shut for a moment before lowering her head.

“I will do it, Young Master.”

“The same goes for rumors circulating outside. Bring me everything you hear.”

“Yes.”

“And don’t tell anyone about this. Not even His Excellency.”

Gaksim raised her head and looked at me.

Something trembled in her eyes.

She seemed to have already realized that this Young Master was not an ordinary child.

“Understood, Young Master.”

Gaksim left the room.

From now on, I would begin to see the movements taking place inside the residence.

Spring, 1857 — Servants’ Quarters, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung’s Residence in Hanseong

Throughout the winter, the information Gaksim brought me accumulated piece by piece.

Which family’s servants had visited the residence.

To whom Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung had sent letters.

What rumors were circulating around the residence.

There was nothing immediately useful yet.

But an intelligence network did not produce results from the beginning.

Information only became useful after it accumulated and connected with other pieces.

Around the beginning of spring, Gaksim brought me a report.

“Young Master, a court lady from Daejojeon in Changdeok Palace visited His Excellency this afternoon. She entered through the back gate and stayed in the men’s quarters for about one hour without anyone knowing.”

I looked up.

“Which lady’s quarters does she serve?”

“She said she serves at Daejojeon.”

Daejojeon was the residence of Grand Queen Dowager Jo.

That meant Grand Queen Dowager Jo had sent someone to Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung.

And she had done so secretly.

It meant that Grand Queen Dowager Jo was also considering using Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung in preparation for King Cheoljong’s death.

I needed to establish contact with that court lady from Daejojeon.

I had Gaksim find out when the court lady would visit the residence again.

It was three days later.

Three days later, I waited near the back gate.

When I saw the court lady from Daejojeon leave the men’s quarters and head toward the back gate, I quietly approached her.

“Court Lady.”

The court lady stopped and turned around.

Confusion flashed across her face when she saw a young child.

“Young Master, what brings you…”

“I have something to tell Her Majesty the Grand Queen Dowager.”

The court lady’s eyes narrowed.

“Young Master, I am not in a position to…”

“You were at Huijeongdang, weren’t you?”

The court lady fell silent.

Her eyes examined me once again.

She remembered the scene at Huijeongdang when a nine-year-old boy had used a passage from the Analects to target the Haedong Kim clan.

She would also have noticed the change in Grand Queen Dowager Jo’s eyes at that moment.

“I know what Her Majesty most wants to hear.”

The court lady stared at me for a long time.

She was no longer looking at me as a nine-year-old child.

She was looking at something she could not understand.

“The day when the Haedong Kim clan’s power ends is not far away.”

I paused.

“And I also know who will bring about that end.”

The court lady’s expression hardened.

“Whether Her Majesty wishes to hear that or not is something you must decide, Court Lady.”

The court lady was about to refuse once more, but then stopped.

Slowly, she bowed her head.

“I shall deliver your message.”

The court lady passed through the back gate.

I watched her disappear into the distance and let out a breath.

The second route to Grand Queen Dowager Jo has been opened.

A few days later, Gaksim entered my room.

“Young Master, I cautiously asked the court lady from Daejojeon about it.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that Her Majesty remained silent for quite some time after hearing your words.”

“Then?”

“Then Her Majesty told the court lady that during the next formal greeting, you are to be brought before her separately.”

“Find out the date of the next greeting.”

“Yes.”

“And until the day before that, gather every rumor circulating in the court concerning the Haedong Kim clan.”

“Yes, Young Master. May I ask why?”

“Because I need to prepare what I will say in front of Her Majesty.”

Gaksim lowered her head and left the room.

Grand Queen Dowager Jo was going to summon me herself.

The fact that she intended to see the eldest son separately, without going through Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung, meant that she was beginning to see Yi Jae-myeon as a person independent of his father.

That was exactly what I wanted.

Summer, 1858 — Servants’ Quarters, Heungseon-gun Yi Ha-eung’s Residence in Hanseong

I gathered five household servants in one corner of the servants’ quarters.

They were people Gaksim had personally selected over the course of six months.

Her eye for people was accurate.

I closed the door and looked around at the servants.

“From today onward, I’m going to teach you two languages.”

The servants exchanged glances.

“Western language and Japanese.”

Their eyes widened.

One of them cautiously opened his mouth.

“Y-Young Master… how could we possibly learn the language of those Western barbarians…”

“It isn’t a barbarian language.”

I looked at him.

“It is a language Joseon will absolutely need to know in the future.”

“What use would learning such a language be?”

“You’ll understand when the time comes.”

“For now, just memorize it.”

The servant fell silent.

The memory of my thirty-two-year-old modern life still remained in my mind.

English and Japanese were languages I had used for years, from school through my working life.

And the tongue of this nine-year-old body remembered how to pronounce them.

A little more than twenty years from now, American and Japanese diplomatic missions would be established in Joseon.

Japan would set foot in Joseon first through the Treaty of Ganghwa in 1876, followed by the United States through the United States–Korea Treaty of 1882.

Inside those diplomatic missions, Americans and Japanese would exchange important information without hesitation.

They would do so believing that the Korean servants around them could not understand English or Japanese.

My eyes and ears had to be planted there.

The servants lowered their heads.

Language was different from a sword.

The moment someone saw a sword, they became wary.

But with language, all I had to do was make sure nobody realized I possessed it.

More than twenty years later, once foreign diplomatic missions were established, the Joseon court would have very few people capable of speaking foreign languages and would depend heavily on interpreters.

Depending on whose side those interpreters were on, the information could change.

But servants who understood the language would be different.

They attracted little attention.

They could stand beside their masters, pour tea, clean up after them, and hear everything.

The five people memorizing the alphabet in this servants’ quarters could potentially become Joseon’s greatest intelligence network twenty years from now.

Nobody knew.

And nobody could know.

I began with English.

“A, B, C, D, E, F, G…”

The servants awkwardly followed me.

“A, B, C…”

Their pronunciation was terrible.

That was only natural.

They simply had to repeat it.

The human tongue eventually became accustomed to unfamiliar sounds.

After teaching them the alphabet, I moved on to basic words.

“Water—물. Fire—불. King—왕. Power—권력.”

Next came Japanese.

“A, I, U, E, O. Ka, Ki, Ku, Ke, Ko…”

The servants followed along again.

They learned this slightly faster.

The structure of the pronunciation was somewhat similar to the Korean language.

After an hour, I looked at each of them one by one.

“Never speak about what you learned here today outside this room.”

The servants lowered their heads.

“I said never.”

“Don’t tell His Excellency. Don’t tell your parents or siblings either.”

“What happens in these servants’ quarters stays inside these servants’ quarters. It must never leave. Understand?”

“Yes, Young Master.”

“If this information gets outside, you don’t need me to explain what will happen to you, do you?”

The servants’ expressions stiffened.

They lowered their heads even further.

“Such a thing will never happen, Young Master.”

I nodded.

Then I looked at Gaksim.

“You have to memorize the most diligently.”

Gaksim’s eyes widened.

“You’re going to use these languages the most in the future.”

Gaksim bowed deeply.

“Understood, Young Master.”