Hŏsaeng took knives, hoes, and dry goods to Cheju Island where he bought all the horsehair he could get.
‘Soon,’ he said, ‘no one will be able to cover their topknots.’
Sure enough, before very long horsehair hats were ten times the price. Hŏsaeng made a million nyang from his horsehair trading.
One day Hŏsaeng met an old sailor. ‘Do you know of an uninhabited island,’ he asked, ‘where a man might live?’
‘Yes,’ the boatman said. I know of such an island. We got caught once in high winds and rough seas and sailed due west for four days. Eventually we came to an island. It’s about halfway between Samun and Changgi. Trees and flowers in profusion; fruits and berries everywhere; wild animals in flocks; fish without fear of men.
Hŏsaeng was delighted. ‘If you take me there,’ he said, ‘we can both be rich.’
The boatman agreed to take him.
And so it was that on a day when the wind blew fair, the two men rode the wind southeast until they reached the island. Hŏsaeng climbed to the top of a high rock and surveyed the scene.
‘The island is so small,’ he said with palpable disappointment, ‘it’s hard to know what to do. But the soil is fertile, and the water is good. I suppose I can live the life of a rich old man.’
‘But who will we live with?’ the boatman said. ‘There’s no one here.’
‘People gather wherever virtue raises its head,’ Hŏsaeng answered. ‘It’s the lack of virtue not people that worries me.’
Pyŏnsan at the time was teeming with robbers. The authorities recruited soldiers from all over the country to round up the robbers, but the robbers were not easy to capture. The robbers, of course, could not live normal lives. They were forced to hide in remote places, and they were often hungry. Their situation was dire.
Hŏsaeng went to the robbers’ mountain camp and tried to win over their leader.
‘If a thousand men steal a thousand nyang, how much is that a head?’
‘One nyang a head.’
‘Have you all got wives?’
‘No.’
‘Have you land, dry fields or wet?’
‘No.’
The robbers laughed at the incongruity of the questions. ‘If a man had land, wife and children, would he choose the bitter life of a robber?’ they asked.
‘So why don’t you get wives, build houses, buy oxen, and cultivate the land?’ Hŏsaeng asked. ‘You wouldn’t have to suffer the indignity of being called dirty thieves,’ he said. ‘You’d have the pleasures of married life. You could go around without fear of capture. You’d be rich in spirit.’
The robbers were in total agreement. ‘Of course,’ they said, ‘we want that kind of life. We just don’t have the money?’
‘Thieves worried about money?’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘That’s a good one! All right, I’ll give you the money. Come to the shore tomorrow. You’ll see boats with red flags; they’re loaded with money. Take as much as you want.’
Hŏsaeng gave his pledge and left. The robbers laughed. They said he was crazy.
Next day the robbers went down to the shore. Sure enough, Hŏsaeng was waiting there with 300,000 nyang. They were all amazed.
‘General,’ they said, bowing deeply, ‘we await your command.’
‘Good,’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘Take as much money as you can.’
The robbers fell on the bags, fighting with one another to get at the money first. It was purely an exercise in greed; not even the strongest among them was able to carry 100 nyang.
‘I feel sorry for you lot,’ Hŏsaeng said. ‘You’re not much good as thieves, hardly able to carry off 100 nyang; and there’s no point in trying to be respectable because your names are on the thieves roll. There’s just no way out for you. Take 100 nyang each and come back with wives and oxen. We’ll see how good you are then.’
The robbers agreed and scattered, each with a moneybag on his shoulder.
Meanwhile Hŏsaeng prepared a year’s provisions for two thousand people. Then he waited. The robbers returned to a man. On the appointed day, he got them all on board ship and sailed to the uninhabited island. Peace reigned in the mainland; Hŏsaeng had cleaned out all the robbers.
The robbers hewed wood and built houses in their new island home; they wove bamboo and made animal folds. The land was so fertile that the hundred grains grew vigorously. In a single year the fields produced the grain of three years; each stalk had nine ears. The robbers stored a three-year supply of grain, loaded the rest on boats and sold it in Changgi Island, a Japanese territory where the crops had repeatedly failed. They netted 1,000,000 nyang in silver from the relief they provided.
‘My little experiment is over,’ Hŏsaeng said with a sigh.
Hŏsaeng gathered together his two thousand men and women. ‘When I brought you here,’ he said, ‘I thought to make you all rich first and then to set up a new literary and administrative culture. But the land area is small and the signs of virtue shallow. I must leave this place. I advise you to put spoons in the right hands of your newborn; first from the womb should eat first.
Hŏsaeng burned the boats. ‘You can’t leave,’ he said, and outsiders can’t come.’ Then he threw 500,000 nyang into the sea. ‘If the sea dries up,’ he said, ‘someone will take it. 1,000,000 nyang is more money than this place can handle. What would a tiny island do with such a huge sum?’ he said. Then he took all those who could read and write and put them on his ship. ‘The roots of evil must be removed from the island,’ he said.
Hŏsaeng travelled all over the country, helping the poor and the weak. Finally, 100,000 nyang in silver remained. ‘With this,’ he declared, ‘I will repay Pyŏn.’
Hŏsaeng went to see Pyŏn.
‘Do you remember me?’ he asked.
Pyŏn was somewhat taken aback.
‘You don’t look any better now than you did then,’ he said. ‘Did you lose the 10,000 nyang?’
Hŏsaeng laughed.
‘Well-oiled faces belong to wealthy people like you,’ he said. ‘Does 100,000 nyang give knowledge of the Way?’ he said as he handed over 100,000 nyang. ‘It is to my eternal shame,’ Hŏsaeng continued, ‘that I borrowed 10,000 nyang from you. I gave up my reading because of a morning’s hunger.’
Pyŏn got to his feet in amazement, bowed and refused the money. He would accept, he declared, ten percent interest.
‘Do you think I’m a hawker?’ cried a very angry Hŏsaeng. He brushed past Pyŏn’s restraining arm and left.
Pyŏn followed discreetly. From a distance
