Chapter 374. Communal Labor 2
"Is this how communal labor is usually done? In Goryeo?"
At Chonggi's question, Youngwoo nodded.
He remembered going to temples with his mother before leaving home as a child and helping with one thing or another.
They had called it ullyeok—communal labor.
Sometimes they gathered firewood.
Sometimes they made kimchi.
Sometimes they ground soot to make ink.
"Yes, that is how we did it. When people who are not specialists have to do necessary work, it is better to do it together. Someone teaches from the side, someone lightens the load, someone adds strength. It is not the kind of work one person can easily handle alone."
The memory felt impossibly distant.
It had been only a little more than ten years, yet it seemed as if a century had passed.
It was a time he could no longer return to.
And even if he did return, the time he had once seen and felt would no longer be waiting there for him.
Chonggi pointed toward a stand of fairly large trees.
"That looks like a good place."
The guest-receiving monk ordered the equipment unloaded.
They had brought saws, axes, sickles for clearing brush, even brooms for sweeping snow.
Someone had even brought down a hammer whose purpose was not immediately clear.
There were twenty monks and fifty soldiers.
Youngwoo had thought only twenty-odd men had followed them, but apparently all fifty under Chonggi's command had come along.
The guest-receiving monk pointed out several places.
Monks and soldiers began clearing the snow with brooms and shovels, making paths as they went.
They pushed aside snow deep enough to reach the ankles and scraped frozen ground with the tips of their shovels, advancing little by little.
The monk selected several tall, straight trees.
Those carrying axes went first.
They began chopping into the bases.
Thump. Thump.
Each time an axe bit into wood, the dull sound echoed through the mountain.
At first everyone attacked the work with enthusiasm.
After a few swings, shoulders stiffened and breathing grew heavy.
The man with the axe shook out his hands and stepped back.
Another took his place.
He too chopped diligently for a while, then passed the axe to someone else.
These were not men accustomed to this sort of work.
Even so, with so many hands, progress came little by little.
Someone cleared snow.
Someone cut branches.
Someone waited his turn with the axe.
Off to one side, a soldier who seemed to have worked as a woodcutter before took up the axe.
His posture was different.
He did not simply bring it down with brute force.
He drove the blade in with the rotation of his waist and shoulders.
After about a quarter of an hour, one tall tree came crashing down with a tremendous roar.
Craaaack.
The snow-covered branches shook all at once, and the falling trunk swept through smaller limbs around it before slamming into the ground.
Powdered snow burst into the air.
The guest-receiving monk ran over like a man possessed.
"Branches first! Start over there! Over there!"
Those with sickles began cutting away the smaller branches.
Thicker ones were removed with hand axes.
The long trunk could not be moved as it was, so it had to be cut into lengths about as long as a man's forearm.
Soon the sawing began.
People gathered along the fallen trunk.
Two at a time gripped a saw from opposite sides and pushed and pulled.
At first sawdust flew readily.
But after only a few strokes, breathing grew rough and arms began to tremble.
When one man stepped back, another took over.
Then another.
And another.
That was how the communal labor continued.
Few were truly skilled.
Many were clumsy.
But with enough people working together, trees came down, branches were cleared, and lengths of future firewood began piling one by one across the snow.
They looked almost like a colony of ants at work.
Those chopping with axes, those sawing, those trimming branches, and those carrying the cut wood to the carts naturally separated into their own tasks.
Whenever someone ran out of strength, the person beside him took over.
Without anyone needing to issue grand orders, fallen trees were stripped of branches and chopped sections steadily accumulated on the carts.
For hard work, they combined their strength.
For work that could not be sustained for long, they took turns.
When a man wielding an axe stepped back panting, someone else immediately took his place.
When a monk had pushed and pulled a saw a hundred times or so and his arms began to shake, another monk of similar build silently sat down where he had been.
No one needed to be told.
Their bodies found the empty spaces on their own.
Even a single fallen tree required many hands.
One person cut away the smaller branches with a sickle.
Another removed thicker limbs with a hand axe.
Beside the two men sawing, those waiting for their turn stood catching their breath.
A short distance away, soldiers dragged severed branches into piles, while the novices gathered small dead twigs and stacked them near the carts.
The trunks were as thick as a grown man's torso.
They could not be carried whole.
Cutting them into movable sections was another task in itself.
Too long, and they would not fit easily on the carts.
Too short, and they would spend all day sawing.
The saw did not bite deeply with each pass.
Wet wood and frozen inner grain gripped the teeth.
As two men sat facing one another, pushing and pulling, sawdust slowly spilled out.
At first white breath streamed from their mouths.
A little later, sweat formed on their foreheads.
Even in the freezing wind, heat rose along their backs.
When one section finally came free, three soldiers moved in.
Two lifted from either side.
One supported it from below.
Their feet sank into the snow and their backs bent under the weight, but they still carried it to the cart.
Once loaded, the wood was tied down with rope so that it would not roll back off.
Watching them, Youngwoo felt something inside him loosen.
People moved the same way on a battlefield.
No one person could do everything.
Someone stood at the front and blocked.
Someone pushed from behind.
Someone filled the gap from the side.
The skilled ones set the direction.
The less skilled added strength.
Tasks that could not be continued indefinitely were passed from one person to another.
That was what ullyeok had always been.
People gathering to divide necessary work among themselves.
People enduring difficult work together.
That simple thing was unfolding quietly on the snowy mountainside.
Youngwoo looked up at the sky.
It seemed likely to snow again.
At this rate, when would the work ever end?
Perhaps it never truly would.
What could not be done today could be done tomorrow.
What could not be done tomorrow could be continued the day after.
If this body could not finish it, perhaps it would be continued again under some other bond of fate.
If life ended in a single turn, people had to hurry through everything.
But if the road continued again, if the mind found another body, if unfinished cultivation awakened somewhere else, then there was less reason to rush.
One only had to do as much as could be done now.
If one could not finish an entire tree, one could at least cut a few branches.
If one could not fill a whole cart, one could fill half of it.
If the snow returned, one could come back tomorrow.
Youngwoo looked at the snow-covered mountain path, the fallen trees, and the monks passing axes from hand to hand.
Human affairs were no different.
Things were not finished all at once.
One did as much as one could reach, then continued again.
Perhaps that was the state of mind of someone who lived within infinite time.
Once the soldiers joined in, the work sped up considerably.
Some among them had gathered wood in the mountains before.
The sound of axes biting into trunks changed.
So did the angle at which saw blades entered the wood.
Before long, another tall tree crashed down with a thunderous roar.
Branches heavy with snow shook violently through the air, and the thick trunk swept through neighboring trees as it fell.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-BOOM.
The mountainside seemed to tremble.
The monks cheered.
The soldiers immediately rushed in, trimming branches and judging where the trunk should be cut into sections.