LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Thieves worried about money?’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘That’s a good one! All right, I’ll give you the money. Come to the shore tomorrow. You’ll see boats with red flags; they’re loaded with money. Take as much as you want.’

      Hŏsaeng gave his pledge and left. The robbers laughed. They said he was crazy.

      Next day the robbers went down to the shore. Sure enough, Hŏsaeng was waiting there with 300,000 nyang. They were all amazed.

      ‘General,’ they said, bowing deeply, ‘we await your command.’

      ‘Good,’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘Take as much money as you can.’

      The robbers fell on the bags, fighting with one another to get at the money first. It was purely an exercise in greed; not even the strongest among them was able to carry 100 nyang.

      ‘I feel sorry for you lot,’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘You’re not much good as thieves, hardly able to carry off 100 nyang; and there’s no point in trying to be respectable because your names are on the thieves roll. There’s just no way out for you. Take 100 nyang each and come back with wives and oxen. We’ll see how good you are then.’

      The robbers agreed and scattered, each with a moneybag on his shoulder.

      Meanwhile Hŏsaeng prepared a year’s provisions for two thousand people. Then he waited. The robbers returned to a man. On the appointed day, he got them all on board ship and sailed to the uninhabited island. Peace reigned in the mainland; Hŏsaeng had cleaned out all the robbers.

      The robbers hewed wood and built houses in their new island home; they wove bamboo and made animal folds. The land was so fertile that the hundred grains grew vigorously. In a single year the fields produced the grain of three years; each stalk had nine ears. The robbers stored a three-year supply of grain, loaded the rest on boats and sold it in Changgi Island, a Japanese territory where the crops had repeatedly failed. They netted 1,000,000 nyang in silver from the relief they provided.

      ‘My little experiment is over,’ Hŏsaeng said with a sigh.

      Hŏsaeng gathered together his two thousand men and women. ‘When I brought you here,’ he said, ‘I thought to make you all rich first and then to set up a new literary and administrative culture. But the land area is small and the signs of virtue shallow. I must leave this place. I advise you to put spoons in the right hands of your newborn; first from the womb should eat first.

      Hŏsaeng burned the boats. ‘You can’t leave,’ he said, and outsiders can’t come.’ Then he threw 500,000 nyang into the sea. ‘If the sea dries up,’ he said, ‘someone will take it. 1,000,000 nyang is more money than this place can handle. What would a tiny island do with such a huge sum?’ he said. Then he took all those who could read and write and put them on his ship. ‘The roots of evil must be removed from the island,’ he said.

      Hŏsaeng travelled all over the country, helping the poor and the weak. Finally, 100,000 nyang in silver remained. ‘With this,’ he declared, ‘I will repay Pyŏn.’

      Hŏsaeng went to see Pyŏn.

      ‘Do you remember me?’ he asked.

      Pyŏn was somewhat taken aback.

      ‘You don’t look any better now than you did then,’ he said. ‘Did you lose the 10,000 nyang?’

      Hŏsaeng laughed.

      ‘Well-oiled faces belong to wealthy people like you,’ he said. ‘Does 100,000 nyang give knowledge of the Way?’ he said as he handed over 100,000 nyang. ‘It is to my eternal shame,’ Hŏsaeng continued, ‘that I borrowed 10,000 nyang from you. I gave up my reading because of a morning’s hunger.’

      Pyŏn got to his feet in amazement, bowed and refused the money. He would accept, he declared, ten percent interest.

      ‘Do you think I’m a hawker?’ cried a very angry Hŏsaeng. He brushed past Pyŏn’s restraining arm and left.

      Pyŏn followed discreetly. From a distance he saw Hŏsaeng disappear into a small, dilapidated straw hut at the foot of Namsan. He noticed an old granny doing her washing at the well and went across to talk to her.

      ‘Who owns that tiny straw hut?’ Pyŏn asked.

      ‘It belongs to Master Hŏ,’ she answered. ‘The master was always content to study; he lived a life of poverty. Then one day he walked out the wicker gate and he hasn’t been back in five years. His wife lives alone now. She observes the day he left as a day of ritual offering.’

      Pyŏn knew now that the man’s name was Hŏ. He sighed and turned back.

      Next day, Pyŏn gathered up the money and went to Hŏsaeng’s house to return it, but Hŏsaeng would not accept it.

      ‘If I wanted to be rich, would I throw away 1,000,000 nyang and take 100,000? But if you insist on supporting me, that’s fine. Come and see me from time to time. Make sure our grain bin isn’t empty; see to it that we have clothes to wear. I’ll be content with that. I don’t want the burden of material possessions.

      Pyŏn tried everything to get Hŏsaeng to change his mind, but it was no use. From then on, when grain or clothes were needed, Pyŏn came in person and helped out. Hŏsaeng accepted his help gladly unless he brought too much, in which case he would frown and say, ‘Are you trying to ruin me?’ But if Pyŏn brought a jar of wine, Hŏsaeng was always very pleased. They would drink until they were drunk.

      In the course of a few years, a strong bond of fine feeling grew between the two men. One day Pyŏn quietly asked Hŏsaeng how he had managed to make 1,000,000 nyang in five years. Hŏsaeng told him.

      ‘It’s easy,’ he said. ‘Chosŏn boats don’t ply the seas; Chosŏn carts don’t travel the roads. Commodities in this country begin and end their lives in the same place. 1,000 nyang is not a lot of money; it’s not enough to get a monopoly on any item. But break it into ten 100 nyang units and you can now buy ten items. Small items are easily handled. Lose on one and make on the other nine. That’s the normal principle of profit; that’s what hucksters do. With 10,000 nyang, however, you can easily have a monopoly on one item. The principle is to get a corner on the market. Fill carts, load boats. If it’s a village, buy the whole village. Catch everything in one tight net. Of the ten thousand species of fish in the sea, get a monopoly on one. Of the ten thousand medicinal herbs and plants used by physicians, get a monopoly on one. When a commodity is concentrated in the hands of one man, the hucksters soon run out of supplies. This, of course, is bad for the people. If the authorities ever made use of my methods, it would be disastrous for the country.’

      ‘How did you know I’d give you the money?’

      ‘Anyone with 10,000 nyang would have lent me the money; you weren’t my only hope. I believed in my ability to make 1,000,000. Fate, of course, is in the hands of Heaven, so I had no way of knowing whether you would give me the money or not. But the man who listened to me was fated to be a lucky man because Heaven, not me, was in control of whether he got richer. So why not lend me the money? When money is lent, the money takes over: it creates its own success. Were it up to me personally, who knows whether I would have succeeded or failed?

      Pyŏn changed the subject. ‘These days,’ he said, ‘The scholar-officials are intent on wiping out the disgrace they suffered in Namhansan Fortress at the hands of the barbarians. Isn’t it time for high-minded scholars to stand up and be counted? A man of your talent, why bury yourself here?’

      ‘A-ha! Men have buried themselves throughout history. What about Cho Songgi? He proved himself an excellent envoy when he was sent to the enemy, but he died an old pauper. And what about the hermit Yu Hyŏngwŏn? He could have procured the provisions for the army, but he spent his time idling by the rugged sea. Those in authority will know all about these cases. I’m a man who knows how to buy and sell. The money I made was enough to buy the heads of nine kings, but I threw it into the sea and came home because there was nowhere to use it in this country.’

      Pyŏn

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