Park Seong-jin was a soldier.
No matter what the world might say, Park Seong-jin was a soldier.
Great merit earned on the battlefield had granted him the privilege of exemption from constant service, yet at the core of his life was always the clear awareness that he was a man of the army.
When the state faced trouble, he advanced.
When the military called, he went out quietly, as if reporting to an office, and carried out the task assigned to him.
No one understood his own limits more clearly than he did.
If he could live long, shoulder the household's livelihood, and see his descendants provided for to the very end, his path might have been different.
But that path was blocked by a fact as unmistakable as the battlefield itself.
His father had walked it.
His elder brother had walked it.
And he believed that one day he, too, would follow it.
Military service and the right to collect revenues were things passed down through generations.
The problem lay in succession.
The son of his fallen elder brother was only three or four years old.
Even at the earliest, it would take more than a decade before the boy could assume military duty in his place.
Until then, Seong-jin would have to hold that obligation himself.
For now, he was preserving the household's military service and its attendant rights.
But if he were to fall or grow ill, someone else would have to take up that position.
"Being able to live for today does not mean the future will be at ease."
To him, this was not a maxim but reality itself.
So he thought: What if I buy land with what I've earned?
Just as a household expands as family and retainers increase, expanding farmland could sustain the family's livelihood.
After returning from the campaign, he quietly called Cheo-eun and his son-in-law Ji-ho and said,
"I want to secure enough land that, even if I am gone, the family will have no trouble eating."
He knew well that preparing for the future often became a trap into which the wealthy commonly fell.
Even so, he could not leave an unstable tomorrow 그대로 to his family.
Park Seong-jin held a deep sense of unease about Goryeo's land system.
Traveling the battlefields, he had seen regional realities with his own eyes.
A system in which tenant farmers surrendered half their harvest as rent was a yoke tightening around the lives of the people.
According to the Goryeosa, when new fields were reclaimed, the first year's harvest went entirely to the tenant, after which landlord and tenant divided the yield in half.
As public land was increasingly privatized, sharecropping became the nationwide norm.
The aristocracy ran vast estates and claimed half the harvest as if it were their natural due.
Jeong Do-jeon lamented this in these words:
"The rich sit at ease without lifting a hand, yet take in most of the sweat of those who till the land."
Park Seong-jin believed this structure was sickening the state itself.
In places like Jiangnan, where double cropping was possible, the situation differed.
But most of Goryeo's land barely sustained life with a single harvest.
If one imposed the Song standard and took half from such soil, the people could not endure.
On his own lands, he limited rent to one or two tenths of the harvest—
a highly unusual decision for the age.
Everyone around him tried to dissuade him, but Park Seong-jin would not bend.
The scenes he had witnessed during the Jiangnan expedition would not leave his mind.
Those regions could survive exploitation because their productive capacity was overwhelming.
Cheo-eun asked,
"How did you come to think this way?"
Seong-jin answered calmly,
"Jiangnan can live even after giving up half, because it can farm twice a year.
Here, even one harvest is a struggle.
If we demand half from that land, the farmers will starve.
Just because everyone does it does not mean I should do the same.
If I make the same choice, I merely stand in the same place.
Even if the age is such, there must be a hand that tries to change it—only then does the knot of the age begin to loosen."
There was another calculation in his mind.
"Above all, even if I disappear, the household must keep turning.
If the neighbors live, I live.
If the neighbors fall, my house will collapse with them."
This was closer to a judgment of survival than an act of compassion.
When the rent was lowered, the tenants' attitude clearly changed.
They came bearing food, and when there was no work, they would still show up, helping at the main house like servants.
Even when told not to bother, they continued—afraid that this favorable arrangement might be broken.
Park Seong-jin's household began to be known in the area as
"a house where the tenants eat as well as the master."
Cheo-eun asked again,
"Young master, why do you go so far?"
Seong-jin replied with a smile,
"It's not humility.
I believe my martial skill, my ability, even my connections all rode in on the tide of chance.
A monk once said, 'All things are ultimately empty.'"
Cheo-eun looked puzzled.
"You were never particularly fond of monks, were you?"
Seong-jin laughed softly.
"Who would like people who act knowing, act superior, and tell others what to do?
When I see those who recite Baizhang Huaihai's* monastic regulations while running vast estates, my heart is uneasy.
They possess wealth like the heavens, yet say they 'own nothing'—that makes it worse."
* Baizhang Huaihai (百丈懷海, 749–814) was a Chan master of the Tang dynasty.
He lived on Mount Baizhang and thus came to be called Baizhang; his dharma name was Huaihai.
He was the ninth patriarch of both the Weiyang and Linji lineages.
He established the Monastic Regulations of the Chan Cloister, separating Chan monks from reliance on Vinaya masters.
He instituted the abbot system, placed the Dharma Hall at the center instead of the Buddha Hall, and required all monks to participate in communal labor under the puqing system.
He emphasized, "A day without work is a day without food," regarding labor itself as Chan practice.
Cheo-eun added cautiously,
"You seem especially sharp toward Buddhism, young master."
After choosing his words, Park Seong-jin said quietly,
"It's true my heart has grown rough.
I find it frustrating to see people speak of enlightenment while ignoring the fact that the land they hold is the sickness of Goryeo.
…Let us say no more. I fear my mind may scatter."
After meeting the monk Bowu (普愚), Park Seong-jin's gaze grew even sharper.
His standards for judging the world and its institutions hardened, like those of a general entering battle.
Night fell red over Gaegyeong.
Torches for the eve of the Palgwanhoe swayed in the wind, washing the palace pillars in gold.
Park Seong-jin sat quietly at the edge of the gathering.
He was dressed almost like a soldier.
Even at a banquet, the habit of never letting go of his sword remained.
The king called him.
"Lord Park."
Seong-jin rose and knelt.
"I heed Your Majesty's summons."
The king smiled gently.
"I wish to commend your labors.
Your achievements in Jiangnan are difficult even for the court to fully measure.
I hear many soldiers trusted and followed you."
Seong-jin bowed his head.
"I merely carried out the orders given to me."
The king raised a cup and handed it to him.
"One who offers his life for the state is, in itself, a pillar of the realm."
At his side, the Lady Noguk spoke,
"Each time I heard news from the battlefield, my heart trembled.
Thank you for returning alive, Lord Seong-jin."
Seong-jin lowered his head even deeper.