A while back, something went viral online: a "modern-day Heungseon Daewongun CSAT score report."
If I remembered correctly, every subject was a top grade—except English, which was catastrophically bad.
People laughed themselves silly and slapped the nickname "modern Heungseon Daewongun" on the poor kid.
That one joke was enough to tell you exactly what image the Daewongun carried in the modern imagination:
A man who can do everything—except deal with foreigners.
A walking symbol of refusing diplomatic relations.
The isolationist icon of late Joseon.
From the era of in-law politics to the Gabo Reform to the founding of the Korean Empire—he was the living textbook who stood somewhere in the background of every major event in Joseon's final collapse.
Technically, four people in the Joseon era bore the title "Daewongun."
But none had presence like Heungseon Daewongun.
In practice, "Daewongun" had become his proper noun.
And now he stood in front of me—nothing like the portraits. Just a young boy.
It wasn't only fascination. There was even a faint, ridiculous awe—like I'd stepped into a footnote of history and found myself living inside it.
"What are you staring at?" he asked. "Is there something on my face?"
"No, Young Master. I only… thought I'd heard your name somewhere before, and I blanked out for a moment."
"You've heard my name?"
The future Daewongun muttered under his breath and narrowed his eyes, clearly displeased.
"Don't tell me my name is already spreading to the point even a Ministry of Rites official's slave knows it. That's not good…"
"Ah—no, it isn't like that. I only meant… I might have heard it in passing somewhere. That's all."
"Is that so? Then it's fine."
He relaxed slightly, then returned to his earlier point as if nothing had happened.
"Anyway. As I was saying, this will end as wasted effort. Give it up. I'm telling you this for your own sake. I have no obligation to say anything at all, but you've been doing this for years. It's pitiful. They say a dull head makes for hard labor—well, you're the perfect example. Tsk, tsk."
"Is it because I have Western blood?"
"Of course. A slave with Western blood—at your age, what, ten? Do you truly think any respectable scholar-official would take a child like you seriously?"
No, they wouldn't.
Years of crashing into the same wall had produced plenty of data on that.
But if anything, my resolve to find someone powerful enough to back me only burned hotter.
Because a man I couldn't afford to miss had just appeared in front of me—on his own two feet.
In about twenty years, when Gojong ascended the throne, this boy would become the Daewongun and seize real power.
Was there anyone in Joseon with better conditions for persuasion than him?
If not… then I needed, at the very least, to leave a good impression here.
"Yet you, Young Master, spoke to me kindly just now."
"…Are you speaking of me?"
"Yes."
He stared. Then scoffed.
"As expected of someone with Western blood—you've got nerve. But even if someone recognizes you, you are still a private slave of the Ministry of Rites official. Wouldn't it be more urgent to earn your master's approval than to chase strangers?"
As if I hadn't tried.
My master—the Ministry of Rites official, Lord Kim—had returned from a Qing diplomatic mission ten years ago and risen steadily ever since. He was no minor figure.
But it seemed he disliked my existence.
He didn't like that his personal slave had slept with another man.
And worse—he was a Confucian hardliner to the bone. No matter what I demonstrated, he treated me as if I were invisible.
"If there is a gentleman who values my abilities, could he not purchase me? Under him, I might have a chance to win manumission."
"That assumes you have enough value to be purchased. You truly don't understand reality. Is it because Western blood runs in you?"
So this was the man who would one day erect stone monuments against foreign influence—no wonder he couldn't stop saying "Westerners" like it was filth on his tongue.
"If you speak with me properly, Young Master, you'll think so too."
"Is that so? Then I have questions of my own. I may as well satisfy my curiosity. How can a slave with Western blood—who speaks Joseon fluently—exist on this land at all?"
"When my master traveled to Qing as an envoy, a Qing official demanded one of his personal attendants. That attendant was my mother. Have you heard of… Britain—no, Yeonggilli?"
"I have. Yeonggilli," he said, instantly sharp, as if he refused to be caught ignorant. "A rising power in Europe. Do you truly think I wouldn't know a country you know?"
"Of course not. The one who made the request, I'm told, was a Yeonggilli nobleman—my father. I suspect the Qing official was trying to ingratiate himself with that nobleman, and so he asked my master for my mother."
"Ah. So that day led to your birth. Your master must have been in a foul mood."
A slave was unquestionably a master's property.
For someone else—worse, a foreign barbarian, even if called a noble—to use what belonged to him was humiliation, not merely displeasure.
It would never have happened if a Qing official he had to remain close to hadn't requested it.
And as if that weren't enough… my mother became pregnant.
"I was told my master initially planned to hand me over to my father in exchange for compensation," I continued. "But he returned to his homeland. And there was no way, here in Joseon, to contact a nobleman living far away in Yeonggilli—so my master gave up."
In a way, I could understand why Lord Kim refused to even look at me.
I was a reminder—a walking symbol—of an old humiliation.
And he hadn't even been paid.
Just seeing me would twist his stomach.
Not that understanding meant forgiving him.
Petty bastard.
"From what I hear, your master has no reason to value you," Yi Ha-eung said. "So you seek someone outside who will. I can understand the desire. But as I said, it won't change the fact that it's a futile effort."
"As I said, if you speak with me properly, your thinking will change."
"Speak, then. Have you read the Great Learning—no, you won't have. Have you completed the Little Learning?"
Good lord. He's coming in hot.
I'd wondered what topic he wanted to discuss. Of course—it was the Classics.
"I know the Thousand Character Classic… roughly."
"And the Analects? Mencius?"
"I haven't read them."
"The Doctrine of the Mean? The Book of Odes? Documents? The Book of Changes—have you read even one?"
My head spun.
I'd studied economics, accounting, construction, law—even if only on the surface.
But Confucian scholarship? I'd never had any reason to dig into it.
Why would I?
I'd never needed to scam Confucian scholars, and no con man ever demanded I look like a Confucian scholar.
The problem was that in Joseon, the Analects and Mencius were worth a million times more than any cutting-edge economic treatise in Britain.
"A man who hasn't even read the Little Learning," he said coolly, "what profound conversation could I have with you? This is precisely why no scholar-official will lend an ear to your words."
"Even without reading the Analects, I know fundamentals. Even without mastering the Doctrine of the Mean, I can still discern people's motives and the contours of reality."
"That arrogance comes from shallow understanding," he snapped. "Though I concede—it is unrealistic for someone of your birth to read the Classics."
Oh, so you're a child and already this insufferable.
At this point in history, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations had been out for decades in Britain, and Jean-Baptiste Say was developing his ideas in France—yet here we were, arguing over the Four Books and Three Classics.
If I'd known I'd end up in Joseon, maybe I should've taken a job in my first life that required impersonating a Confucian scholar.
I'd expected this, but hearing those words from a ten-year-old made my chest feel tight.
"Young Master," I said carefully, "I have heard that the West is developing at a terrifying pace. They may be barbarians who ignore propriety, but their technology cannot be dismissed. Even the great Qing cannot ignore Western power—they are wary of it."
"Did your master say that?"
"Yes. I recall overhearing him say something to that effect."
I had no choice. I'd have to borrow my master's name as leverage.
What could a ten-year-old do to verify my claim?
He wasn't going to march into a third-rank official's household and interrogate him about whether he'd said it.
"Western learning, Western learning," Yi Ha-eung muttered. "I have heard that talk again lately. That Joseon must absorb Western technology, learn their superior ways."
"If we continue like this, the gap in military power will widen too far. And if they come with advanced weapons, I believe we may suffer the same humiliations we once endured at the hands of barbarians."
"You understand one thing and miss two," he said sharply. "This subject came up at an academy, not long ago. Some with radical ideas suggested we should open the ports and bring in foreign learning—yet it is nothing but short-sightedness."
The moment isolation entered the discussion, his expression sobered completely.
So he'd mocked me—what conversation could we have—and now he was the one speaking with the greatest enthusiasm.
He continued, almost lecturing.
"I will admit this: Western techniques are impressive, and their devices are curious. But if such things flow into Joseon without limit, what then? We will only buy, never sell. Our daily goods, our silver, will drain endlessly into foreign lands. What trade is that? What learning is that? We would only bind our economy to theirs."
"…You're right," I admitted. "Total openness is absurd. I'm not advocating that."
This time, I was genuinely surprised.
He wasn't merely chanting "close the gates" like an idiot. He had a real understanding of imperial-era trade dynamics.
And he was ten.
The details of his future policies might be ruinous, but his worldview—his ability to see the shape of power—was not something I could casually dismiss.
A man doesn't seize a nation by accident.
Records called him brilliant from childhood. It seemed they weren't wrong.
And the fact that he was even engaging seriously with the words of a slave his own age suggested he had promise.
Perhaps it was simply because he was young enough that prejudice hadn't fully fossilized yet.
"If we open even a crack," he said, "we will be forced to yield more and more. We must lock it completely. Show not even a sliver of weakness."
"Your reasoning has weight, Young Master. But isn't that… merely choosing to die slowly?"
Silence fell.
Had I gone too far with my wording?
But I couldn't help it.
When you're nobody, and you need someone powerful to notice you, you have to provoke attention—cleanly and decisively.
As expected, Yi Ha-eung's gaze changed entirely. He stared at me as if seeing me for the first time.
"Die?" he said, voice dropping. "Do you mean Joseon will fall? Even a low slave must know there are lines one does not cross."
Even without real authority, the fact he was royal kin was obvious.
Mention the fate of the nation, and you struck a nerve.
What I said next could decide my future—perhaps even this country's.
So my answer was only one thing.
"Yes," I said. "If things continue as they are, the worst outcome you can imagine will come to pass."
Straight ahead. No detours. Like a man.