Chapter 200

The end of 1624 was fast approaching. It would soon be time for Joseon to dispatch the Jeongjosa—the New Year’s envoys—to pay their respects to the Ming Emperor. Naturally, the delegation would include members of the Unnamed Church. Since Catholic missionaries in the Ming court already held official government posts, our people would have to exercise extreme caution; any slip-up would be a massive headache.

With the Later Jin expanding its influence and blocking the overland routes to Ming, the envoys were slated to travel by sea, much like the diplomatic missions to Japan. Navigating the waves was both arduous and perilous, a fact Joseon intended to leverage to demand even greater “bestowments” from the Emperor. Furthermore, as Joseon adopted a hardline stance against the Jurchens, they planned to demand expanded trade as compensation.

The cycle was set: Joseon and Ming would expand their trade; we would consume the silk produced from that exchange; and in return, we would supply Joseon with various strategic materials. We would then take that silk to Japan and hand it over to the Dutch, who would resell it to the Japanese for an astronomical profit.

At first glance, one might think our Dutch allies were simply earning a fortune by handling currency exchange in the middle without doing any real work. That, however, was not the case. They had a vital role to play: competition removal.

“Look, a Spanish ship!”

“Plunder everything and kill the rest!”

By constantly harassing Portuguese and Spanish vessels, the Dutch ensured that our rivals could not establish a direct link between Ming and Japan. This increased our profit margins and served as a double-edged sword by checking the influence of enemy nations.

Of course, we didn’t exactly order them to commit piracy. We simply couldn’t control their overflowing ambition for privateering. We had at least forbidden the slave trade, so if the victims had just listened to reason, casualties might have been fewer…

“What? You only seized the ship? Where are the sailors?”

“We just killed them all. We can’t sell them as slaves anyway.”

Good grief. These madmen.

I shut the window, unable to listen to the conversation between the Dutch merchants—who were essentially pirates—any longer. When Oitotan’s son, Philip, asked what was wrong, I couldn’t bring myself to give him an honest answer.

***

We had briefly departed Joseon and were staying at an estate near the Dutch factory in Hirado. Sitting cross-legged on the scratchy, uncomfortable tatami mats, I already found myself missing Joseon. As the tea finished brewing, I poured a cup for Philip. He clapped his hands as if something had just occurred to him.

“That was a truly enlightening experience,” Philip said. “It felt as if my eyes, long closed, have finally been opened.”

“Is that so, Philip?” I asked.

“Yes. Every single move my father made pierced right through to my heart. I feel I have finally grasped the essence of diplomacy and missionary work!”

I’m not exactly an expert on diplomacy myself, I thought, but I’m fairly certain you shouldn’t be learning it from your father. The same went for the missionary work. I’d seen how he “rescued” those who were about to be executed as traitors, and honestly… well, best not to talk about it.

As the saying goes, speak of the devil and he shall appear. Oitotan slid open the sliding door and stepped into the room.

“The Excelsior is ready for departure,” he announced.

We packed our belongings and boarded the ship, leaving Hirado behind. Our destination lay over eight hundred kilometers south of Hirado, and roughly a thousand kilometers from the Korean Peninsula. The journey was long and tedious. To kill time, I played poker and traded jokes with Oitotan and Philip until the monotony was finally broken.

“Land ho! Island in sight!”

“Latitude 26 degrees north, longitude 154 degrees east… That’s it! That’s the island!”

We had finally arrived at the Daito Islands.

Located east of Okinawa, these islands were reached after a calculated voyage from Ganghwa via Hirado. We surveyed the area, comparing the terrain with our maps. Fortunately, there was almost no discrepancy with the twenty-first-century maps I remembered. Most importantly, the only man-made structures visible were the outposts we had already established.

I breathed a sigh of relief. According to our inquiries, the Ryukyu people were vaguely aware of these islands, but they were too remote for them to settle. Since they were uninhabited, we expected no conflict over our occupation. While settling in the north near Hokkaido had been difficult due to negotiations with the Ainu, construction here seemed destined to proceed without a hitch.

Guided by the team already working on the forward base, we explored the island.

“The warehouses and port facilities are currently under construction on the northern side, as you can see,” a supervisor explained.

Our surveys revealed a limestone island with generally flat terrain and well-developed limestone caves. We were lucky to find such a large, uninhabited island, but its advantages didn’t end there. The most encouraging find was the resource buried beneath the soil.

“It appears there are massive deposits of phosphorite in this area! It’ll be perfect for shipping back to California!”

Phosphorite! 

This was a massive win. Even in California and the rest of the American West, sourcing phosphates was a challenge. While the East had an abundance of supply, transporting it overland to the West was prohibitively expensive in an era without a transcontinental railroad. With this source, we could mine phosphorite to revolutionize Western agriculture and manufacture gunpowder. Distributing this supply would grant us immense leverage.

Phosphorite remains a precious resource even in the twenty-first century. By securing this production site, the Continental Covenant stood to gain significant strategic and economic advantages. Furthermore, the island possessed another massive benefit: its tropical climate.

This meant we could cultivate sugarcane.

The reason the Satsuma Domain made a fortune after conquering the Ryukyu Kingdom was largely due to the fact that Ryukyu was one of the few places in East Asia where sugarcane could thrive. If we could grow sugarcane and manufacture sugar to sell in Joseon and Japan, the profits would be substantial.

However, there was a catch. Sugarcane cultivation is notoriously hard on the soil and requires an staggering amount of labor. The work is grueling, which is why in places like Ryukyu or Hawaii, it was traditionally performed by slaves or foreign laborers in slave-like conditions. We had no intention of running such an exploitative industry, so we had half-given up on the idea of sugar… until recently.

“The King of Joseon suggested that he has quite a few people he needs to send into exile,” Oitotan noted.

“I suppose… we can’t exactly refuse, can we?” I replied.

“Of course not.”

And that was that. One way or another, this place would be more than just a warehouse and a coaling station. It would play a pivotal role in surveying the local geography, maintaining maritime hegemony, and protecting our interests in East Asia. Once we factored in the phosphorite exports and the sugarcane plantations as a cash cow for regional trade, this island was set to become the heart of our operations.

Building such a critical facility required an enormous amount of resources—bricks, stone, cement, timber, and the labor to put it all together. We couldn’t exactly ship these materials from Virginia, on the other side of the world. It would have been a logistical nightmare…

“Here are the cement and bricks brought from Joseon,” Oitotan said.

“Ah, finally!”

…if the King of Joseon hadn’t been Yi Hon.

***

Lately, the reformist monarch Yi Hon spent his days looking out from the palace walls with a look of immense satisfaction. It wasn’t because the nation’s goods were becoming more plentiful, or because discipline was being restored, or even because the military was growing stronger.

Yi Hon was no economist; he couldn’t grasp the complexities of national wealth. He simply knew that even in times of famine, the royal treasury was overflowing with cotton, which meant the state’s finances were healthy. Nor did he find joy in the restoration of traditional discipline; he was an enlightened monarch who had broken free from the stale old order. He had physically slaughtered Neo-Confucian justifications along with his brothers.

The strengthening of the military was, admittedly, satisfying. He had been bitter after losing over ten thousand troops and thousands of muskets during the previous expedition to Sarhu. But now, five years later, thousands of muskets were pouring in almost for free, allowing him to rebuild his army. That alone set his mind at ease.

Yet, the primary source of his happiness lay elsewhere. In the scenery beyond the walls of Changdeokgung stood a strange, Western-style building.

The hall was provisionally named Seokjojeon—the Stone Hall—because it was built of stone. In a Joseon that possessed almost no multi-story buildings, it was rising tier by tier with overwhelming majesty. Though it was designed in a typical Tudor style with a red-brick exterior—vastly different from the actual historical Seokjojeon—no one found it strange. It was made of stone and brick, after all, unlike the other wooden halls.

The craftsmen from the Continental Covenant had presented Yi Hon with models and blueprints of the hall. The sheer grandeur and dignity of the design made him giddy just imagining it. It wasn’t just because it was ornate, exotic, or massive. It was because he knew exactly what it took to build such a structure.

A project of this scale required immense logistics, mobilizing hundreds or even thousands of people to transport and work the materials. During the construction, all those resources and laborers would be under the direct control of the official in charge—someone “trustworthy” appointed personally by the King.

By simply arming those men with clubs, a King could seize control of the capital. There was a reason ministers traditionally loathed grand royal construction projects: they provided a persistent justification for the King to hold onto manpower and resources.

“Your Majesty,” the Covenant craftsmen had said, “we need a factory to supply the bricks for the palace. Please help us acquire land near Hanyang.”

To the Joseon court, these craftsmen were a godsend. They provided a free excuse to launch a massive project.

“Ah! How could I begrudge resources for a project meant to uphold the monarch’s dignity?” Yi Hon replied. “However, the law forbids granting land near the capital to foreigners. I shall record Oitotan as a merit subject and grant him the fields; you shall build upon them.”

“Pardon? But Lord Oitotan has refused to be recorded as a merit subject…”

“…”

“T-thank you, Your Majesty. I shall consult with Lord Oitotan immediately.”

By subtly offering a political link to Oitotan, who had previously refused all honors, Yi Hon seized control of the factory by imposing labor duties on the local population. Thus, Joseon’s first modern brick factory was established almost by accident.

But it didn’t stop there.

“You say you need yanghoe—cement—to build the palace?” the King asked.

“Yes,” Philip replied in polite Joseon speech. Yi Hon couldn’t understand why the son was so fluent while the father remained so clumsy. He never even suspected that Oitotan was faking it. “We intend to build cement factories in Jecheon and Samcheok, where limestone is abundant. It will be useful for more than just the palace.”

“Hmm,” the King mused. “Since the time of the Founder, the state has limited the granting of fields to merit subjects to the Gyeonggi region. Samcheok, in particular, is the seat of a Protectorate, making it difficult to grant. How can I needlessly dismantle the people’s livelihoods?”

“In that case,” Philip suggested, “what if the equipment inside belongs to us, but the factory itself belongs to the state? Provided that Joseon builds the factory for us…”

“What do the ministers think?” the King asked.

“Let us follow Philip’s words and establish a new government office,” the ministers replied.

Thus, the local factories were incorporated into royal ownership. This was the direct result of Yi Hon personally meeting with the Covenant people. Brick factories, limestone mines, and cement factories were developed in various locations, and coal mines were opened for excavation.

Each factory and mine functioned effectively as the King’s personal domain. Since the Covenant people were foreigners, the task of controlling the subordinates and managing the land fell to the officials Yi Hon dispatched. The funding for the entire process was easily covered by the cotton supplied by the Covenant.

For the Covenant, it was a deal that allowed them to build and operate factories safely under the protection of royal authority, with labor gathered through the King’s direct and indirect support. As brick and cement factories rose across the eight provinces and mines were actively developed, the surplus rural labor—displaced by the influx of Covenant cotton—was funneled into these projects.

And when the Covenant craftsmen hired that labor, they paid in gold and silver coins. This prompted the court to suggest collecting taxes in gold or silver in the areas surrounding the factories. Yi Hon, who had originally opposed the Daedong-beop (the law to replace tribute with a uniform tax), naturally changed his mind once his personal stake in the system grew.

Lee Yi-cheom and the other ministers followed the King’s lead. They bought up land near the factory sites and resold it for a massive profit, or built houses, taverns, and fields upon it to collect a steady income. The posts of local magistrates near the construction sites became highly sought after, with the resulting “tokens of appreciation” flowing back to the Great Northerners.

The Royalist faction grew stronger. By launching a project to build a single grand palace, Yi Hon had achieved industrialization, the strengthening of royal power, and the expansion of a monetary economy.

Indeed, Yi Hon was a reformist monarch.