Beyond lay what is now Manchuria, but which was known by us as the country of the Hong-du, or “Red Heads.”
They were wild raiders, on occasion crossing the Yalu in great masses and over-running northern Cho-Sen like locusts.
It was said they were given to cannibal practices.
I know of experience that they were terrible fighters, most difficult to convince of a beating.
A whirlwind year it was.
While Yunsan and the Lady Om at Keijo completed the disgrace of Chong Mong-ju, I proceeded to make a reputation for myself.
Of course it was really Hendrik Hamel at my back, but I was the fine figure-head that carried it off.
Through me Hamel taught our soldiers drill and tactics and taught the Red Heads strategy.
The fighting was grand, and though it took a year, the year’s end saw peace on the northern border and no Red Heads but dead Red Heads on our side the Yalu.
I do not know if this invasion of the Red Heads is recorded in Western history, but if so it will give a clue to the date of the times of which I write.
Another clue: when was Hideyoshi the Shogun of Japan?
In my time I heard the echoes of the two invasions, a generation before, driven by Hideyoshi through the heart of Cho-Sen from Fusan in the south to as far north as Pyeng-Yang.
It was this Hideyoshi who sent back to Japan a myriad tubs of pickled ears and noses of Koreans slain in battle.
I talked with many old men and women who had seen the fighting and escaped the pickling.
Back to Keijo and the Lady Om.
Lord, Lord, she was a woman.
For forty years she was my woman. I know.
No dissenting voice was raised against the marriage.
Chong Mong-ju, clipped of power, in disgrace, had retired to sulk somewhere on the far north-east coast.
Yunsan was absolute.
Nightly the single beacons flared their message of peace across the land.
The Emperor grew more weak-legged and blear-eyed what of the ingenious deviltries devised for him by Yunsan.
The Lady Om and I had won to our hearts’ desires.
Kim was in command of the palace guards.
Kwan Yung-jin, the provincial governor who had planked and beaten us when we were first cast away, I had shorn of power and banished for ever from appearing within the walls of Keijo.
Oh, and Johannes Maartens.
Discipline is well hammered into a sea-cuny, and, despite my new greatness, I could never forget that he had been my captain in the days we sought new Indies in the Sparwehr.
According to my tale first told in Court, he was the only free man in my following.
The rest of the cunies, being considered my slaves, could not aspire to office of any sort under the crown.
But Johannes could, and did.
The sly old fox!
I little guessed his intent when he asked me to make him governor of the paltry little province of Kyong-ju.
Kyong-ju had no wealth of farms or fisheries.
The taxes scarce paid the collecting, and the governorship was little more than an empty honour.
The place was in truth a graveyard—a sacred graveyard, for on Tabong Mountain were shrined and sepultured the bones of the ancient kings of Silla.
Better governor of Kyong-ju than retainer of Adam Strang, was what I thought was in his mind; nor did I dream that it was except for fear of loneliness that caused him to take four of the cunies with him.
Gorgeous were the two years that followed.
My seven provinces I governed mainly though needy yang-bans selected for me by Yunsan.
An occasional inspection, done in state and accompanied by the Lady Om, was all that was required of me.
She possessed a summer palace on the south coast, which we frequented much.
Then there were man’s diversions.
I became patron of the sport of wrestling, and revived archery among the yang-bans.
Also, there was tiger-hunting in the northern mountains.
A remarkable thing was the tides of Cho-Sen.
On our north-east coast there was scarce a rise and fall of a foot.
On our west coast the neap tides ran as high as sixty feet.
Cho-Sen had no commerce, no foreign traders.
There was no voyaging beyond her coasts, and no voyaging of other peoples to her coasts.
This was due to her immemorial policy of isolation.
Once in a decade or a score of years Chinese ambassadors arrived, but they came overland, around the Yellow Sea, across the country of the Hong-du, and down the Mandarin Road to Keijo.