525.They say A military man is shaking the state—Goryeo's future is in danger.
The rumors that had scattered through Gaegyeong's alleys suddenly fused overnight.
"They say His Majesty is handing court authority to Park Seong-jin."
"They say another Secretariat is being built above the Secretariat–Chancellery."
"A military man is shaking the state—Goryeo's future is in danger."
The words clumped together like snow, growing larger, as if someone had rolled a snowball down a hill.
The king already understood what was happening.
It was a counterattack by those who had lost from the land confiscations.
With the direct path to reclaiming land blocked, they raised the specter of fear—royal authority and military power.
Instead of rent, they summoned the word treason.
If fear took root, land would once again be safe.
The king made his decision.
The moment the Secretariat–Chancellery assembly ended, he issued the order.
"Track down those who are stoking false rumors.
Not only those who spoke them—dig up the roots from which the words sprang.
Seize everyone who blurred the facts.
Punishment will be severe."
He summoned the military directly.
Seated at the commanders' platform, he spoke.
"When civil officials shield one another, hands and feet are bound.
So the military will act.
Trace the flow of words upstream and find the source."
The military moved.
The Office of Mounted Police and the Ministry of War investigated by different methods.
Arrests were carried out under the form of executing military orders.
Those seized gave statements before documents and confrontations.
Words passed to others returned as chains of testimony.
Records stacked, layer by layer.
Those who spread the rumors were transferred to the Mounted Police.
The king made it explicit.
"Those who resented the land confiscations spread words to undermine the state.
Strip the speakers of office.
Confiscate their privately held lands and return them to the treasury."
Some denied it outright.
"Your Majesty, I never said such things."
The military already had records—
where, with whom, and what words were exchanged.
One statement hardened into fact through three testimonies.
Each account locked with the next, narrowing every escape.
Hearsay solidified in mouths—then collapsed as mouths bit one another.
Even so, one by one, arrests continued.
Taken from taverns.
From back alleys behind market stalls.
From outside their own gates.
They clung to justification until the end.
"You are suppressing public opinion."
Some within the court echoed it.
"No one will dare speak."
"The country will become suffocating."
When those words reached the king, he crushed them with a single sentence.
"Arrest the one who says that first.
If it is public opinion, let it be brought openly before the throne.
Words whispered in secret are not public opinion.
If one cannot say where they heard it, that one is the culprit."
The air in the royal hall froze.
The word public opinion vanished from mouths—
because to speak it now required showing one's face.
Park Seong-jin said nothing.
He did not intervene.
He did not step forward.
The court felt that silence as a heavier weight.
Seong-jin knew the source of the current.
This slander rose from the pain and resistance of vested interests.
There was no need to shout back.
Watch.
Endure.
And if needed, draw the sword.
That was all.
His silence sharpened the court's nerves.
"Seong-jin stirs the people—the state is in danger."
"The king means to entrust the court to a single warrior."
"Goryeo's future is tipping."
The more the words spread, the firmer the king's resolve became.
He refused to treat this as Seong-jin's personal problem.
He pulled it into the king's domain.
Words that shook royal authority would be broken by royal authority.
That was his way.
The flood of rumors lasted several days.
The number of arrests rose with it.
Trials followed one after another.
Stripping of office and confiscation of land proceeded together.
The king convened court again and proclaimed:
"It is not Seong-jin who has shaken the people.
You tore the people apart.
The king will mend it.
Those who disturb the state with falsehoods will be punished, without regard to the weight of their words."
To the vested interests, it was lightning.
To the people, spring rain.
The court began to split—
between those preparing even more extreme schemes
and those abandoning resistance to hide.
Through it all, Park Seong-jin never stepped forward.
By not stepping forward, his presence only grew stronger.
The center of power is always filled with strange scenes.
Those who climb seat by seat eventually hesitate at nothing when pressed.
On the surface they are called scholars, entering office by examinations, lineage, and reputation.
The moment power brushes their fingertips, they bow first of all.
That choice is not foolishness.
It is the most efficient judgment for preserving position.
Private interest before public duty.
Vested rights before the will of the people.
From there, decisions roll along a predetermined track.
Logic, justification, emotion—all flow in one direction:
self-preservation.
Any official of Goryeo belongs to the privileged.
Most rose not by examination but by hereditary appointment.
Even without stipends, they do not fear hunger.
Every household keeps private retainers.
Some have more warriors than slaves.
Here lies the reason force became necessary.
Public order and the suppression of rebellion had already slipped from the state's hands.
Those who guard their homes with swords rather than law speak of law.
That contradiction is the strangeness of power.
Land is even more naked an issue.
Privately held estates left by ancestors swelled over generations.
They pushed free commoners aside.
Manors expanded like fortresses—
swallowing clusters of thatched huts, digging ponds,
raising two-story pavilions, keeping rare beasts.
To protect that splendor, excuses are manufactured.
Falsehoods are spun.
State affairs are pushed aside.
One who pays bribes to keep his seat will not devote himself to the realm.
One who stops at nothing for advancement drifts far from sound judgment for the people.
Park Seong-jin understood that structure precisely.
What he saw in Jiangnan was the same.
Wealthy families funded warlords.
Warlords, in return, protected their lands.
Wars guarded not the state, but fences of money.
The words Yoon Dam had once delivered to Chen Youliang echoed exactly:
"An army built with the rich man's money does not fight for the people."
The statement was solid.
Seong-jin accepted its obviousness.
Desire and interest bind people.
Even sincerity moves within the frame of vested power.
Once that fact is acknowledged, the flow of action becomes visible.
That recognition formed the ground of his judgment—
and became the starting point of the course he would choose next.