Black Corporation: Joseon

With each exchange between King Sejong and Hyang, the bundles grew larger and larger.

This wasn’t just because of the petty vengeance mixed into the work process.

The main reason for this gradual increase in volume was the problem of mindset and communication.

***

As Hyang became fully involved in the creation of Hangul, he introduced a large portion of 21st-century grammar and notation systems.

The use of the term “large portion” here was due to the unavoidable issues caused by the time gap between the 21st century and the mid-15th century.

In other words, it was a problem of mindset.

Another obstacle, the communication problem, was an unavoidable issue that arose from conducting everything through written correspondence rather than real-time conversation.

Even when looking at the same sentence, their understanding couldn’t be exactly the same, leading to continuous conflicts. As related points, rebuttals, and counter-rebuttals continued, the volume gradually increased.

“This won’t do! At this rate, we’ll need to move it by cart!”

In the end, Hyang had no choice but to appeal this issue directly to King Sejong.

Putting down the bundle that had grown as large as his own body, Hyang immediately got to the point with King Sejong.

“Father, at this rate, we absolutely cannot produce proper results quickly.”

King Sejong nodded at Hyang’s words.

“That’s true. By now, we should have finished organizing and started creating the example book…”

“The work keeps getting delayed because there’s a communication problem between you and me, Father. To be more specific, it’s because misunderstandings arise as we exchange written messages like this.”

“Misunderstandings…”

As King Sejong stroked his beard and pondered Hyang’s words, he nodded.

“That’s probably the most accurate description. Well, even with the writings of ancient sages, people often come up with different interpretations…”

Recalling incidents from the royal lectures that he hardly held anymore, King Sejong nodded and turned to Hyang.

“Your words are correct. But there’s a problem. Creating a writing system unique to our Joseon will be more than groundbreaking; it will be close to revolutionary. Even the ministers who are currently obedient might be likely to rise up. Therefore, we need to keep it secret until it’s fully completed. But won’t meeting every night at Gangyeongjeon or the Crown Prince’s palace draw the ministers’ attention?”

While eunuchs and court ladies were not supposed to disclose what happened inside the palace to outsiders, there were always those with ‘slightly’ loose lips everywhere. So far, they had entrusted the work to carefully selected individuals, but they couldn’t guarantee how long the secret would be kept.

As King Sejong’s point was valid, Hyang racked his brain to think of a suitable method.

After a moment of consideration, Hyang soon recalled a useful entity.

“Father, how about using the secret guards?”

“The secret guards?”

“Yes, order the secret guards to find a suitable secret location.”

“Hmm…”

At Hyang’s suggestion, King Sejong stroked his beard and calculated the pros and cons. After weighing various possibilities, King Sejong soon made his decision.

“That seems good. I should tell them to find a suitable house within 2 gak (about 30 minutes) of Gyeongbok Palace.”

“Yes, if you and I can work without misunderstandings for even 2 shijin, no, 1 shijin (2 hours), the work will become much easier. Working outside might draw attention, but in exchange, we can greatly increase the speed and shorten the time.”

“I understand. I’ll summon the captain of the Royal Guards tomorrow and have him proceed with this.”

***

The captain of the Royal Guards, having received King Sejong’s order, immediately relayed the command to the secret guards.

“His Majesty commanded that a tiled house might draw attention, so find a suitable thatched house.”

At the captain’s words, the directors of the secret guards stared at him blankly.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you think there’s a thatched house suitable for His Majesty within 2 gak of Gyeongbok Palace?”

“Ah… Tsk!”

The captain of the Royal Guards smacked his lips and amended his order.

“Just find a suitable house. One where the inside isn’t easily visible from the outside, and easy to guard. Also, a place where we can return to Gyeongbok Palace as quickly as possible in case of emergency.”

“Yes, understood. But why are we suddenly looking for a house? Could it be…?”

At the second director’s question with a strange look in his eyes, the captain’s face turned fierce.

“It’s not what you’re thinking. Don’t make such baseless assumptions. If you do…”

The captain’s eyes were full of killing intent as he trailed off, glaring. Seeing this, the second director immediately bowed his head.

“I won’t even think about it!”

The secret guards lived up to their name. Within three days, they found a suitable house and acquired it through appropriate negotiations.

After cleaning the interior and furnishing it with the necessary furniture for work, the secret guards immediately reported to King Sejong.

From the night after receiving the report, Hyang and King Sejong put their heads together in that house to exchange opinions about the writing system.

The writing system born through this process ended up quite different from the Hunminjeongeum in the history Hyang had learned in the 21st century.

The first noticeable thing was that the writing system was divided into two parts.

Hyang completely separated the letters used to write the language commonly used by Joseon’s people and those created to represent foreign language pronunciations – ᄼ, ᄽ, ᅎ, ᅏ, ᅔ, ᄾ, ᄿ, ᅐ, ᅑ, ᅕ, etc. (Note 1) – and explained the reason to King Sejong.

“These modified letters are for recording foreign sounds, so ordinary people don’t need to know them. Therefore, it would be better to separate this part and have only interpreters or those learning foreign languages study them.”

“Wouldn’t it be good for all people to be able to speak one or two foreign languages?”

At King Sejong’s point, Hyang shook his head.

“If that were easy, you wouldn’t have needed to create letters to replace Chinese characters, Father.”

‘Does he want to turn Joseon into the Netherlands?’

The Netherlands and nearby Northern European countries used English as fluently as their native languages. However, this was possible because their languages were all like branches spreading from the great root of the Roman Empire.

Hyang’s argument continued.

“Why did you create a new writing system, Father? Wasn’t it to make it easy for the people to learn and use? Is there any need to make them put in unnecessary effort? And…”

Pausing briefly to wet his throat, Hyang continued.

“When our Joseon becomes strong, it won’t be us learning foreign languages, but foreigners learning our Joseon language and writing.”

King Sejong immediately responded to Hyang’s words.

“How wonderful would that be? No, we should make it so.”

“You will make our Joseon like that, Father.”

At Hyang’s words, King Sejong replied with a somewhat embarrassed expression.

“You’re gilding your father’s face.”

***

As Hyang and King Sejong directly put their heads together and exchanged opinions in real-time, the work progressed at an incredible speed. The work that had been dragging on for nearly three months since Hyang first took on the task was nearing its final stages after about two weeks.

Despite spending only an average of 1.5 shijin (about 3 hours) on the work each day, the speed was dazzling.

The last hurdles of the rapidly progressing work were three things.

The issue of spacing between words, the choice between vertical or horizontal writing, and the naming of this new writing system.

“Spacing between words… It looks good, but haven’t we been writing well without spacing until now?”

To King Sejong’s point, Hyang immediately replied.

“The same was said when punctuation marks were first introduced, but how is it now? Aren’t we using them so well that it would feel strange without them?”

***

From the time he first began to stand out, Hyang strongly advocated for the introduction of punctuation marks. In fact, he didn’t just advocate for them, but actively used them.

Although he was young, with the Crown Prince actively pushing and King Sejong’s support continuing, punctuation marks soon became established.

And these established punctuation marks quickly proved their usefulness, becoming a part of not only official documents but also letters and private documents among the people.

The ones who suffered the most in this process were those dragged into the Records Office. They had to use punctuation marks in the process of organizing, categorizing, and rewriting past records. This meant that they couldn’t simply transcribe old records, but had to examine each sentence and word carefully.

***

“That’s true, but won’t people say it’s a waste of paper?”

At King Sejong’s point, Hyang replied with an incredulous expression.

“With cheap paper already overflowing, who would say such nonsense?”

Hyang had transferred the technology for mass-producing yellow paper using pulp to the private sector. Of course, it wasn’t free. He collected a tidy sum in technology usage fees and sales of papermaking machinery.

This pulp papermaking technology released to the private sector led to mass distribution of paper and polarization.

Traditional Korean paper (Hanji) was sold as a luxury item, while yellow paper and bleached white paper made from yellow paper became established as low-cost products.

With their decent quality and low prices as weapons, yellow and white papers soon began to gradually dominate the paper markets in Ming and Japan.

In the end, after several rounds of debate, King Sejong accepted word spacing.

“The benefits outweigh the drawbacks, and it’s especially useful for understanding sentences, so it would be good to use it.”

***

After adopting word spacing, King Sejong and Hyang engaged in another heated debate over the issue of horizontal versus vertical writing.

“If we use metal pens, left-to-right horizontal writing wouldn’t be much of a problem. But this is only for metal pens. When writing with a brush, left-to-right horizontal writing is very inconvenient. For the simplest example, when dipping the brush in ink from the inkstone and moving to the paper, what if the ink drips? Also, we’ve been using right-to-left vertical writing all this time, so changing to left-to-right horizontal writing will face strong resistance.”

Hyang nodded at King Sejong’s point.

“You’re right. However, using left-to-right horizontal writing will make many things easier. For the simplest example, if you look at the reports created in the court, they contain many tables, formulas, and graphs. If we use left-to-right horizontal writing, it will be much more useful when using these. Of course, as you said, Father, if we force the government and people to use left-to-right horizontal writing right now, there will be strong resistance. We can start by having the government use left-to-right horizontal writing for documents created from now on.”

“There will still be considerable resistance. Do you have any good strategies or tools to persuade them?”

At King Sejong’s question, Hyang’s expression momentarily became enigmatic.

“Why that expression?”

At King Sejong’s question, Hyang quickly composed his expression and answered.

“Ah, it’s nothing. I just happened to think of a tool.”

King Sejong’s eyes sparkled at Hyang’s words.

“Oh? What is it?”

“It’s called a typewriter.”

After hearing Hyang’s explanation, King Sejong was very pleased.

“If it’s made properly, it will be very useful! Especially for those with poor handwriting!”

King Sejong really liked the idea of the typewriter. He often had headaches when reports or petitions written in poor handwriting were submitted.

***

Thanks to the hidden card of the typewriter, left-to-right horizontal writing was easily approved.

The last remaining issue was what to name this newly born writing system.

“Do you have a name in mind, Father?”

“At first, I thought of ‘Ija (易字)’ meaning ‘easy characters’, but I put it aside because it might be seen as the ‘Yi (易)’ of change and cause unsavory rumors. So now I want to call it ‘Jeongeum (正音)’, meaning ‘correct sounds’. Because the people can correctly record their speech.”

As Hyang nodded at King Sejong’s words, he opened his mouth.

“How about adding ‘Hunmin (訓民)’ to that? Because the people can correctly understand your intentions, Father.”

“Hunmin… Hunminjeongeum…”

After repeating it a few times, King Sejong soon nodded.

“That’s good.”

***

Note 1) https://namu.wiki/w/훈민정음’s dental and palatal sounds