Imperial Calendar Year 18 (1466).
At the temporary imperial palace in the New Frontier, Hyang was wrestling with stacks of documents.
After processing mountains of paperwork, Hyang examined the final remaining document and sighed.
“Even after all that wrestling, my worries remain unchanged…”
After muttering this terrible pun, Hyang stared at the document and cursed.
“This damn population problem—it’s the same in both the homeland and the New Frontier…”
***
As Hyang noted, the population issue was a shackle that held back the Empire’s progress.
To address this population crisis, the Empire actively pursued policies to encourage childbirth.
These childbirth encouragement policies had been in place since before the nation bore the name “Empire,” back when it was called Joseon.
Looking at history before Hyang’s intervention, there are records that in King Sejong’s 16th year (1434), Sejong ordered paternity leave for men.
“Recently, a pregnant woman died during childbirth because she lacked assistance. This is deeply regrettable. What use is maternity leave for women if they receive no help during childbirth and postpartum recovery? Since it is only natural for couples to help each other, husbands should also be given leave.”
Of course, this benefit was primarily given to those of the lowest social classes, like slaves. However, support for families with multiple children was provided regardless of social class.
While there was no special support for twins, families with triplets or more received 10 seok of rice and beans.
This policy continued for generations.
After Hyang’s intervention and the transformation into an Empire, this policy was operated more actively and targeted a wider range of social classes.
In history before the intervention, support for families with triplets or more was a one-time benefit.
However, after intervention, support was provided to families with two or more children. Parents received childcare subsidies amounting to 10% of the average imperial worker’s wage. This percentage increased with more children—families with four or more children received up to 40%. For families with more than nine children, the limit was exceeded, providing up to 60%.
This childcare support ended when children graduated from public elementary school, as the social convention at the time considered children of 13-14 years (the typical graduation age) to be adults.
The problem was that birth rates, which had risen rapidly thanks to these aggressive support policies, began to increase more slowly at some point.
Hyang and the officials, well aware that population was the Empire’s greatest weakness, began investigating the cause.
After confirming the results, Hyang and the officials sighed.
“Huh, so improved living standards are the cause…”
Hyang’s face looked particularly serious as he reviewed the report.
‘Is this already 21st century Korea?!’
As the Empire’s economy developed, the average marriage age of imperial citizens began to increase.
In the past, when families lived in poverty, parents arranged marriages for their children as quickly as possible to reduce the number of mouths to feed.
However, as the number of economically stable households—not quite middle class by 21st century standards, but close—increased, the rate of early marriages gradually decreased.
This delay in early marriages was due to the high value placed on education.
“Was this intense passion for education engraved in their DNA?” Hyang muttered to himself.
Indeed, the homeland imperial citizens’ enthusiasm for education was remarkable.
“At the very least, my children must attend middle school!”
“Of course! Shouldn’t my children be more successful than I was?”
Parents who wanted their children to rise higher in social status than themselves invested heavily in their children’s education.
Additionally, this period had not yet fully established the ideology of male superiority. As a result, sending both sons and daughters to middle school became the minimum duty of parents.
Another reason for the slowing birth rate increase was, ironically, comprehensive entertainment venues.
Until then, entertainment for common people—excluding the upper class—consisted merely of drinking alcohol or watching traveling performance troupes when they visited villages.
Naturally, the most accessible form of recreation for common people was the nighttime activities between couples, which led to higher birth rates.
However, the availability of various forms of entertainment at permanent comprehensive entertainment venues contributed to slowing the birth rate increase.
The final reason was medical. Pregnancy and childbirth placed a serious burden on women’s bodies.
Even in the 21st century, there were many dangerous situations where mothers and fetuses faced life-threatening conditions during childbirth, and despite medical advances, tragic incidents were not uncommon.
If this was true in the 21st century, the risks were much higher in this era.
Although female and child-oriented physicians began to be trained, starting with Princess Jeongso, most births were still attended by midwives, making the risks for mothers extremely high.
As a result, the rapidly increasing birth rate began to slow down gradually.
***
The situation in the New Frontier was somewhat different from the homeland.
First, most of the native inhabitants lived in tribal units and still relied on primitive agriculture and hunting for their livelihoods. This made the lives of tribal people very difficult.
Moreover, due to their medical knowledge remaining at an almost shamanistic level, the survival rate of newborns was very low.
In other words, population growth was inevitably slow.
However, as people from the Empire began to arrive, the situation slowly started to change.
Under the Empire’s influence, natives began to move beyond their traditional and sole means of production—agriculture and hunting—increasingly entering commerce, industry, and military service.
As more natives relocated to imperial settlements in search of better lives and interacted with immigrant farmers from the Empire, Native the New Frontier gradually gained more comfortable lives, and birth rates began to rise.
However, a warning light appeared in what seemed to be an entirely positive situation. The cause for alarm was disease.
***
As more imperial citizens from the Old Continent arrived in the New Frontier, contact with the native inhabitants became more frequent.
In this process, diseases carried by imperial citizens began to spread to the natives.
This was fatal to the New Frontier natives who had been isolated from the Old Continent since the Ice Age. What were mild illnesses for imperial citizens often became life-threatening diseases for the New Frontier natives.
Of course, Hyang, who had anticipated this, advised Sejong to send a significant number of physicians from the beginning.
However, the number of the New Frontier natives hovering between life and death due to diseases brought by imperial citizens often exceeded the physicians’ capabilities.
“If we mishandle this, all natives of the New Frontier will become hostile to us. No matter how difficult, we must send more physicians and establish educational facilities as quickly as possible.”
“Your words are correct.”
Accepting Hyang’s advice, Sejong sent more physicians to the New Frontier.
The problem was establishing educational institutions. In a situation where proper communication was difficult, establishing educational institutions was unimaginable.
Eventually, the establishment of medical training institutions became possible only after Sejong arrived in the New Frontier and began formal operations.
Later, Hyang, who arrived to replace Sejong, added his own seasoning to the mix.
He gathered shamans from tribes that had submitted to the Empire, collected and organized their knowledge—primarily about medicinal herbs—and established it as a proper discipline.
The herbal medicine texts compiled from shamanic knowledge soon became a great help to physicians working in the New Frontier and aspiring medical students.
This opportunity led to the birth of a new profession among the New Frontier natives.
The herb gatherers.
***
It wasn’t only the New Frontier natives who were endangered by diseases carried by imperial citizens.
The reverse also occurred.
The most representative example was syphilis.
In the 21st century, both theories of its ancient existence and its introduction by Columbus coexisted, but in this era, it was a very unfamiliar disease to imperial citizens.
Physicians examining syphilis patients shook their heads with perplexed expressions.
“Where on earth did they contract this…”
After persistently tracing the infection routes of patients, physicians finally discovered the cause.
“So it was relations with native women…”
“Does that mean there are many patients among the natives as well?”
“That’s right. Let’s investigate.”
Expanding the scope of their investigation, physicians confirmed serious results:
- Many natives were already infected.
- The fatality rate was very high.
- If infected women became pregnant, or pregnant women became infected, the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, or birth defects was extremely high.
After confirming these results, physicians began working diligently to find a treatment.
They searched through medical texts to identify diseases with similar symptoms and treatments, then applied them to patients who came for treatment.
However, despite trying various methods, no treatment showed significant results.
Each time Hyang received a report filled with despair, he had to resist the urge to speak out and instead encouraged the physicians.
“It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. Tell them to try a little harder. The physicians are doing well.”
After encouraging the physicians, Hyang, left alone, sighed.
“Huh, I’d like to tell them what I know, but if I say too much, future generations will definitely spread rumors that I’m an alien.”
And as Hyang predicted, physicians who had tried every possible method finally found an answer.
It was the Blue Bacteria Solution created under Hyang’s direction.
With an ‘all or nothing’ mindset, when they administered the Blue Bacteria Solution, syphilis patients began to show definite improvement.
“This is it!”
“We found it!”
The physicians, filled with joy, submitted a report to Hyang.
“Tell them they have done admirably. Record the names of the physicians who discovered the treatment and reward them.”
“I obey your command!”
That night, left alone, Hyang browsed through the report and sighed quietly.
“So the fierce history of challenge and response has begun.”
The ‘battle between antibiotics and bacteria’ was a conflict with no foreseeable end. Whenever new, more effective antibiotics emerged, somehow superbugs resistant to those antibiotics would appear.
Hyang’s face as he examined the report was not particularly bright.
The current Blue Bacteria Solution was very primitive compared to 21st century penicillin or other antibiotics. While it showed remarkable effectiveness now, there would come a time when the Blue Bacteria Solution would become useless. And considering the level of the solution, that time would likely come sooner than expected.
“The problem is that medicine wasn’t my area of expertise, and with current medical concepts, they can’t understand germs or viruses. Sigh.”
Exhaling deeply, Hyang looked at the sky outside the window.
“We need talented people in medicine soon… That would make solving the population problem much easier…”
With a face full of concern as he gazed at the sky, Hyang scratched his head and grumbled.
“Ah! Why isn’t there anything easy around here!”