The Wet Sacks Weighed Two Counterweights More Than the Dry

Wet sacks weighed two counterweights more than dry ones.

Han Seorin did not wipe the knife she had used to slit the bag open. Water and rice bran dripped from the blade together. The grain on the outside had swollen, and the inside was hollowed out by a hand's width. The lower shop's inspection sheet listed it as normal weight.

"Weigh the same sack again."

When the weighing clerk tried to lift the wet bag off the scale, Seorin stopped him.

"First the weight now. Next, empty the sack and weigh what's actually edible. Last, the water and the spoiled portion."

If the three figures were folded into a single total, the fraud would be hidden again.

Oh Bokrye came up onto the weighing platform with the laborers' council. She looked at the water pooling on the floor before she looked at Seorin's face.

"Count the people first."

Four laborers who had carried the sacks stepped forward. Two belonged to Seorin's lower shop, two had sold their labor at the reed ferry warehouse. Water from the wet sacks had soaked through their clothes, darkening their thighs.

"Who poured the water in?"

Jeon Haksu, a laborer from the lower shop, bowed his head.

"The shop's purchasing agent ordered it."

"When?"

"Last night, after midnight."

"How many sacks?"

"I saw twelve. I don't know about the other warehouses."

Oh Bokrye had only the twelve recorded. She did not lump in the rest that no laborer had witnessed as the same fraud.

Seorin flipped over the inspection sheet. Her own trading house's mark was there, along with the inspector's name and the scheduled payment date. There was no forged seal of Ito's, no serial number from Yun Taeseong Trading House. It was her own ledger, and she could not blame an outside attack for it.

"Bring the purchasing agent here."

Jeon Haksu spoke.

"He fled the moment he heard about the correction notice."

"His family?"

"They're in the back room of the shop."

"Don't touch the family. Seal only the shop's strongbox and the account books."

Oh Bokrye laughed sharply.

"Still the same. A person bolts, and you tie up the paper first."

"If the paper bolts too, there's no way to make good on who skimmed how much."

"And who's making good on it?"

Instead of answering, Seorin spread out her trading house's own finance sheet. The cost of the credit alert notice, the half shared with Yun Taeseong Trading House, the advance for the cart detour, and now the loss from the wet sacks. The grain hadn't dried yet, so the exact loss couldn't be fixed.

"Whatever edible amount is missing from today's ration, I'll buy it now with my own capital."

"How much?"

"I don't know."

Oh Bokrye narrowed her eyes.

"You'll pay back what you don't even know?"

"While we're weighing the spoilage and the water, we start with the minimum confirmed shortfall. The rest gets paid once it's dry."

"Dates."

"The minimum shortfall, before sundown today. The remainder, tomorrow at noon."

"And if there's no money?"

"I'll sell my trading house's bonds, and if that's still not enough, it comes out of my own dividend first."

Seorin wrote her own name on the list of collateral. She could have cut it off by saying this was the lower shop's doing and the main house knew nothing about it. Then contractual liability would have fallen on the purchasing agent and the shop owner. But the inspection sheet had been transacted under her own trading house's name. If the main house had taken the benefit of the credit, the main house had to cover the loss first.

"I'm sorry."

Oh Bokrye raised a hand.

"Does that dry the scale?"

Seorin closed her mouth.

"Skip the apology and hand over the inspection authority."

"To whom?"

"Whoever the laborers' council picks."

"Our trading house's weighing clerk has to be there too."

"Fine, but the power to stop the work is ours as well."

Oh Bokrye cut the demand into three parts. The laborers' council would elect two inspectors to open and check the sacks. If there was wetness, damage to a sack, or a smell, unloading would stop immediately. If the trading house's weighing clerk got a different figure, they would not average the two, they would record both.

"And the inspectors' wages?" Seorin asked.

"The trading house pays."

"Then people will attack them as inspectors bought with my money."

"That's exactly why who picks them matters."

"The trading house pays the wages, and dismissal happens only by a vote of the laborers' council. Agreed."

Oh Bokrye didn't name anyone on the spot. She called all twenty two members of the laborers' council to the scale. If only those present at today's unloading voted, the night shift would be left out. She proposed picking one from the day shift and one from the night shift.

The first candidate was Im Chunbae, who had spent a long time watching the scales. The second was Na Okdong, who handled the sack stitching. The third was Gwon Malsun, who had come from a different unloading crew. If only people from her own crew went in, the inspection authority would become a new monopoly.

"Gwon Malsun isn't one of ours," someone said.

"Does wet rice stay dry just because it came in on a different rope?" Oh Bokrye snapped back.

The vote wasn't by hand but by a scrap with a name written on it. Those who couldn't write put their own rope knot into the box. Im Chunbae and Gwon Malsun were chosen. Na Okdong fell short of votes but agreed to take on advising on sack damage.

Seorin wrote the two inspectors' names beside the inspection sheet, not above it. She built a new form to avoid the structure where the trading house's inspector wrote the original and the laborers' council only confirmed it. Trading house measurement, laborers' council measurement, reason for work stoppage, condition for resuming. The order of the four columns didn't place either side above the other.

Im Chunbae weighed the first wet sack again. Gwon Malsun opened the sack and set aside the edges that smelled rotten. The edible grain was poured onto a clean straw mat.

"The scale reading's the same," Im Chunbae said.

"Because the water logged husk went up with it," Gwon Malsun answered.

They wrote down the sack's full weight and the sorted grain's weight separately. They didn't convert the water weight into a precise conversion table. It varied by the type of grain and how long it had been wet. What was confirmed was that in the one sample sack, the amount fit for rationing was less than what the inspection sheet had listed.

"Open all twelve," Oh Bokrye said.

The lower shop's clerk blocked her.

"Breaking the seals drops the goods' value."

"Not breaking them drops the value of people's stomachs."

"We need the main house's permission."

Seorin took out her own seal and stamped the work stoppage form.

"That's the main house's permission. Open all twelve. Don't mix them with the dry ones."

The sacks were split open one by one. Seven were only wet on the outside, three had spoiled through to the inside and smelled it. Two had less water than what Jeon Haksu had reported seeing. Even under the same order, the workers had poured different amounts of water or stored the sacks in different places.

Gwon Malsun divided the mats into three groups. What could be rationed right away, what needed to dry and be checked again, what had to be thrown out. The lower shop's clerk argued that even the grain to be discarded could be washed and used for porridge.

"Who eats it?" Oh Bokrye asked.

"If it's boiled at the relief station..."

"Will you eat the first bowl?"

The clerk had no answer. Seorin subtracted the grain that smelled spoiled from the ration total. Throwing more away meant a bigger loss for the main house, but she didn't push it onto the relief station under the name of cheap porridge.

"Who confirms what gets discarded?" Im Chunbae asked.

"The two inspectors and one cook from the relief station," Seorin answered. "The trading house records the amount and the cost. Whether it's edible is decided by the people who'd eat it."

Oh Bokrye cut in.

"Don't throw anything out before someone from the relief station comes to look. Otherwise later someone can claim you sold off perfectly good grain on the side."

The spoiled grain stayed on the mat marked off with a red cord. Guarding it cost wages too. Han Seorin recorded the discard loss and the watch wages separately. If the two were lumped together as "spoilage cost," it would erase who had let it spoil and who had guarded it.

The account book brought from the shop's strongbox also arrived. The purchasing agent had transferred only the inflated scale reading, after the water was poured, onto the main house's invoice. Payment for the inflated portion hadn't gone out yet. They had caught it before the money left, but the grain meant for rationing had already spoiled.

"Then can you write that there's no loss?" the lower shop's clerk asked.

"Only the money hasn't gone out yet," Seorin said. "The grain, the time, and people's clothes are already soaked."

She stamped a payment hold on the invoice. Then she tied the shop owner's share of dividends up as a candidate for compensation. But she paid for today's dry grain purchase out of her own capital first, without waiting for the investigation to end. Recovering the responsible party's money and covering the ration couldn't be finished at the same moment.

Oh Bokrye asked Jeon Haksu again.

"Did you wet all twelve yourself?"

"Nine were me. Three were Park Chundol."

"Why didn't you say so before?"

"I was afraid he'd get taken too."

"Covering for him just means a bigger fall."

Seorin didn't put Park Chundol's name in the criminal column. She only listed him as subject to investigation over the time he received the order, the amount of water, and what he was paid. She did not lump the purchasing agent's order, the laborer's execution, and the main house's inspection failure into a single crime.

By the time the weighing was finished, the grain fit for rationing was noticeably less than the inspection sheet's total had shown. The exact loss would have to be measured again after drying. Seorin calculated only the confirmed minimum shortfall and bought dry grain from two nearby shops. Prices had risen since the credit alert.

"It's more expensive than usual," the scribe said.

"So who pays for it?" Oh Bokrye asked.

"I do."

Seorin poured out a pouch of silver coins beside the scale. She set down a token subtracted from her own dividend along with it. The grain arrived before sundown, but it did not cover the full sample loss. Only the minimum shortfall was filled, and the remainder was left for tomorrow.

Oh Bokrye looked at the money and didn't smile.

"Filling it today isn't trust."

"I know."

"Trust is the two inspectors standing by the scale again tomorrow."

Seorin did not leave the expiration date of the inspection authority clause blank. It would remain in effect until the laborers' council agreed to end it, or until three public comparisons resolved that it was no longer needed. The main house could not end it alone.

"Do the other unloading crews get inspectors too?" Gwon Malsun asked.

"Today you're covering that role. Starting tomorrow we'll take one candidate from each shift," Oh Bokrye said.

Seorin expanded the cost column. Wages for the two inspectors, replacement of the opened sacks, the sorting mats, the drying time, the halted unloading. Today's processing had slowed further.

At the far end of the docks came the sound of water barrels rolling. Three palace guards and three dispatch army soldiers stood before the well, rifle barrels lowered on both sides. Between them stood a pole tied with white cloth and two hourglasses.

The clerk who had brought the notice called out.

"Both sides agree to a two day truce. For forty eight hours, shared water access, transport of the wounded, and no armed presence around the well."

Oh Bokrye set down the piece of wet sack she was holding.

"On the same day water was used to fake the weight of rice, water is what gets the guns lowered."

Seorin counted the empty barrels heading to the well more than she read the truce notice. Shared water access had been agreed on, but who would draw first, who would inspect the barrels, and who would bear responsibility for contamination had not yet been decided.

The first guard set his water barrel down beside the well. The dispatch army soldier across from him set his down at the same distance. Between them, on the ground, the first hourglass meant to measure the forty eight hours was turned over.

At that moment, water that had run off the wet sacks spread along the groove in the weighing platform and into the drainage channel toward the well.