These changes in the Empire continued even after Hyang passed the throne to Wan and moved to the New Frontier.

Sejong, who had been responsible for the New Frontier before Hyang took over, gave birth to a new sport called New Frontier Gyeokbang, or Shin-gyeokbang for short.

Shin-gyeokbang was born from Sejong’s original love of gyeokbang, combined with the political purpose of being good for quietly discussing confidential matters while two or three or four people moved around.

The natives of the New Frontier, who had few special means of entertainment, quickly became absorbed in shin-gyeokbang.

However, shin-gyeokbang had a major problem.

There was a limit to the number of people who could compete together at once. No matter how hard they tried, four was the maximum. If more people began competing simultaneously, smooth progression became impossible. To hold a tournament with many participants, they had to divide into groups of four and enter the gyeokbang court sequentially.

Naturally, supply and demand issues arose, and applications to build gyeokbang courts flooded in, but Hyang didn’t easily grant permits.

“Though land is abundant and we could easily approve them, we need to think about nature conservation and future considerations. Let’s introduce other alternatives instead.”

Thus, what Hyang introduced as substitutes were mounted polo and mounted games.

This also had military purposes.

“Thanks to Jinpyeong, railways are being laid steadily, but it’s impossible to cover this damned vast land entirely with rails. The conclusion is that cavalry development is essential. And the environment is perfect for it.”

As Hyang said, the vast plains of the New Frontier were the perfect environment for raising cattle and horses.

“If not for transportation issues, herds of cattle would already be roaming everywhere.”

Though Hyang felt regretful, even now the natives’ greatest source of income was the livestock industry.

To be precise, it was the processed meat industry represented by pemmican.

***

For North American natives, pemmican was essential food for survival.

Until the Empire—then Joseon—arrived, agriculture was at a primitive level, and most survived through hunting and gathering.

To endure long winters with the food thus obtained, they needed preservation methods that allowed long-term storage, and thus pemmican was born.

When Empire citizens first encountered pemmican through contact with natives, they wore peculiar expressions.

“This is… subtle…”

However, once Empire citizens learned of pemmican’s greatest advantage—its ability to be preserved long-term—they began employing all sorts of methods.

No matter what anyone said, when it came to food, especially meat, Empire citizens were more serious than anyone else. Even Europeans acknowledged this.

• People from the ‘Land of Flowers’ love meat very much. More than us Europeans.

And the most representative person was Sejong. Therefore, even while busy developing the New Frontier, Sejong devoted considerable interest to making pemmican and various types of processed meat.

Of course, the first task was bringing in cattle and increasing their numbers.

This aspect also had hidden military and economic purposes.

To solve soldiers’ food supply problems, food that could be preserved for long periods was absolutely necessary.

Economically, it was to establish stable and permanent relations between the New Frontier and the mainland.

The New Frontier was a land of infinite possibilities, but developing it required enormous funds.

For the time being, this was possible with war reparations obtained from Ming. But when these reparations were depleted over time, they would have to solve this with citizens’ taxes.

If they mishandled the situation then, it was certain that Empire citizens would rebel against the Emperor and court. Not only that, but discriminating against New Frontier natives would become routine.

The same was true for the New Frontier. If they became subordinate to the mainland, at some point the New Frontier natives would rebel, and the union between mainland and New Frontier would collapse.

The optimal method to solve this was ‘establishing complementary relationships rather than subordination.’

The system that Kim Jeom, now a historical figure, had dreamed of was the answer.

And the starting point was agriculture and the processed meat industry.

***

Thanks to Sejong, who had considerable knowledge about meat and meat dishes, quite good results were produced in processed meat including pemmican.

The evaluation from Empire citizens who tasted these processed meat products released to the market was quite positive.

“This is delicious?”

“It has a different feel from jerky?”

“If you make soup with this, it would have an interesting taste?”

Receiving such positive reviews, New Frontier processed meat products established themselves in the Empire market.

And they began expanding their market further along the Empire’s trade routes.

Conversely, as the Empire imported increasingly more spices, they built increasingly close relationships with the Bengal Sultanate.

***

Though the story has digressed briefly, railways alone were problematic for New Frontier defense.

To supplement this, cavalry was needed—lots of cavalry.

However, there were limits to what the mainland and northern territories could handle, and developing them within the New Frontier themselves was the only answer.

But horses were unknown animals to New Frontier natives, making them difficult to approach.

The best method to solve this was entertainment, and Hyang introduced polo and mounted games.

And as time passed, polo and mounted games became the New Frontier natives’ favorite pastimes.

When people like something, it’s human nature to want to do it themselves, and natives applying to the cavalry began increasing.

No, even without applying to the military, they would ride their pack horses at home and hold polo matches at the village level.

“Strike while the iron is hot!”

Receiving reports, Hyang soon organized regular tournaments.

These connected the comprehensive entertainment venues now establishing themselves in the New Frontier, holding polo matches in rotation and recording wins and losses to determine rankings.

The tournaments organized this way drew enthusiastic responses from New Frontier natives.

***

As polo gained popularity, jangchigi (field hockey) also began gaining popularity.

Jangchigi, hitting a ball with wooden sticks, was a familiar pastime to Empire citizens.

Though mounted polo was popular, horses were still expensive animals.

Even for well-established farms, it was normal to have only one or two pack horses per household. They couldn’t drag out such precious pack horses every time for matches, and those who came from the Empire began playing jangchigi, which was also familiar to them.

And seeing this, neighboring natives also began enjoying jangchigi together.

As this happened, jangchigi began spreading among natives even faster than polo. This was because they could join matches without horses.

The problem arose here.

Even those from the mainland had different rules depending on their hometown origins. In this situation, as it spread among natives, having no rules became the rule.

As this happened, matches proceeded quite roughly, and when emotions between sides intensified, big fights breaking out became routine.

Especially since it was a match played with clubs perfect for beating people, when fights broke out, they immediately became bloody brawls.

And as such incidents frequently occurred, physicians and soldiers responsible for public order faced wide-open doors of hardship.

“There’s no justification to prevent them from playing…”

“We can’t just arrest them for getting hurt while playing…”

Eventually, they had no choice but to write petitions to Hyang.

Checking the flooding petitions, Hyang sighed.

“Haah~. Since it was notorious along with stone fights… In a way, mounted polo is more gentle…”

In the Empire’s mainland too, jangchigi was notorious along with stone fights.

However, since they couldn’t just sit idle, Hyang gathered officials from the mainland to put their heads together on how to create rules.

Officials from the mainland also actively participated since they had memories of seeing blood while playing jangchigi in their youth, and unified rules were soon created and distributed throughout the New Frontier.

• Conduct jangchigi matches according to these rules!
• Violations will be considered crimes and punished!

Thus, jangchigi established itself as a proper sport.

As an aside, ‘ice jangchigi’ played on frozen lakes in winter was notorious as the game retaining the most of the initial violence.

Thanks to being wrapped in protective gear from head to toe to prevent injuries from slipping or falling on ice, violent body contact instead became routine.

***

As rules were established this way, an interesting thing happened—the jangchigi rules established in the New Frontier spread to the mainland.

This was because the mainland was the same, with different rules in every village and brawls breaking out when disputes arose.

As unified rules were applied this way, jangchigi also developed its own framework and established itself as one of the matches held at comprehensive entertainment venues.

Establishing itself at comprehensive entertainment venues, jangchigi grew explosively.

Unlike shin-gyeokbang which needed various types of clubs depending on time and place, polo which needed expensive horses to maintain, or archery which immediately became criminal unless at permitted ranges, it was possible with just regulation-conforming sticks, balls, and dyed vests to distinguish teams.

Thanks to such convenience, growing explosively, jangchigi became the first sport to hold tournaments targeting the entire Empire regardless of mainland, northern territories, or New Frontier.

***

While the Empire was rapidly changing internally like this, the outside of the Empire was also busily changing.

The place changing most busily and most anxiously was Europe.

As Hwangbo In had predicted, the fires of an arms race had been lit.

At the forefront of this fierce arms race were England and France, Portugal and Spain, and the Ottomans.

The arms race began with the development of explosive silver.

As explosive silver, which the Empire had kept as a secret, was also developed in Europe, nations recognized as European powers began the arms race in earnest.

And in the shadows behind them were the Secret Guard and Florence.

***

The Secret Guard, having obtained intelligence about ‘explosive silver development’ at a Parisian gisaeng house, immediately transmitted the information to Seoul.

After transmitting the intelligence, Secret Guard executives in charge of Europe gathered in one place.

The executive presiding over the meeting looked around at the attending executives and spoke.

“Do you agree that this matter is a ‘Class A situation’?”

At his question, the other executives all nodded.

“We agree.”

Since it was an era when rapid communication was impossible, the Secret Guard deployed overseas was given sealed orders corresponding to several assumed crisis situations.

Among ‘situations harmful to the Empire’s security,’ Class A was the highest grade.

With the executives’ agreement, the executive presiding over the meeting took out a small wooden box from one side and placed it on the table.

Subsequently, the attending executives took out small keys from their bosoms and inserted them into the keyholes in the box.

If all keys weren’t inserted in the prescribed order, the self-destruct device inside would activate, burning all the confidential orders inside.

Inside the safely opened box were several sealed documents titled with Class A grade situations.

And among those situations was one marked ‘explosive silver.’

Seeing that title, all the executives couldn’t hide their surprise.

“These prediction documents were all created by His Majesty…”

“The rumor about seeing a thousand li while sitting doesn’t seem to be an exaggeration…”

The executives mentioning rumors about Hyang soon composed themselves, tore open the sealed envelope to check the orders, and all couldn’t hide their puzzlement.

“Huh?”

On the first page of the order document from the envelope was written only a single line of command.

• Let it leak.