Chapter 28

A short time later, Dr. Lindley visited the conservatory once more and carefully handed over an envelope.

“…There are two individuals who are well-suited to join us in this endeavor, Your Majesty. One is currently on-site, and the other is right here in London.”

“Who is the one on-site?”

“A man named Charles Alexander Bruce. He is of military background, and while he lacks a shining botanical degree like mine, he is the one who scoured the jungles of Assam and discovered native tea tree groves.”

“A military man?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. A rather rough and unpolished military man at that, but eight chests of tea leaves he personally manufactured and shipped from Assam last January became a major sensation at a London auction. Although his processing techniques lacked refinement and the taste was rough, it was more than enough to prove the potential.”

The mention of those eight chests created a strange resonance within my consciousness.

Eight chests.

Perhaps Britain’s economic future would lay its very first cornerstone upon those eight chests.

It made me think how history was sometimes altered upon such trivial numbers.

“If someone needs to direct laborers and plant trees on-site in India immediately, there is no one more qualified than Bruce.”

“Splendid. Then who is this other person in London?”

At my question, Dr. Lindley’s expression shifted peculiarly—it was the face of a child itching to boast about a hidden treasure.

“A young man named Robert Fortune.”

“Fortune?”

“He currently works as a greenhouse attendant at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chiswick Garden. He is merely twenty-eight years old and his name is yet unknown in academic circles.”

“Then why recommend him?”

“That fellow possesses… a genius intuition.”

Dr. Lindley spoke with genuine admiration.

“His skill in handling plants is nothing short of breathtaking. Even dying plants spring back to life the moment his touch reaches them. Above all, his curiosity and ambition are extraordinary. He is not a man to be confined within a narrow greenhouse. Given the opportunity one day, he is timber that will astonish the world.”

“A talented individual recommended by academia’s top scholar? I simply cannot miss this!”

One day later, the South Conservatory of Buckingham Palace.

I set down my teacup and closely observed the man seated opposite me.

Tangled brown hair, skin tanned dark by the sun, and rough knuckles.

A man so overflowing with wild vitality that a well-tailored frock coat looked awkward upon him.

“I’ve come at your summons, ma’am.”

Robert Fortune offered a greeting in a spirited voice, but… his speech was a bit too casual?

It was the direct attitude characteristic of someone valuing utility over formality, but… hmm.

“Thank you for traveling a long way. Let’s get straight to the point.”

I pointed toward the teacup resting upon the table.

“This tea—how does it taste?”

Fortune lifted the teacup, inhaled its aroma, and took a sip.

Then he furrowed his brow slightly and replied:

“The aroma is faint and the astringency is strong… not top quality. It probably left Guangzhou quite a while ago…”

“Precisely. That is the reality of the tea we drink today.”

I set my teacup down.

“I desire for Britons to drink fresher, cheaper tea. And I wish for that tea to originate not from Qing China, but from India.”

At my words, Fortune’s eyes flashed wide open, and he leaned forward eagerly as though waiting for this exact moment, pouring out his passion:

“Your Majesty! I’ve been waiting for those very words. I am the exact man for the job, so just leave it to me!”

He produced a small map from his coat and spread it across the table.

The map was already stained with fingerprints, and the crease marks bore traces of being marked over with pencil multiple times.

This map was likely not crafted for today alone.

He had tucked this map inside his coat for many days already, and perhaps for many years.

A blueprint of a future drawn entirely by himself toward a world that had not yet called upon him—a future no one had yet read.

In the pocket of a prepared individual, such a map was always to be found.

“I’ve already drawn up a plan. Qing China prohibits the export of tea plants, and inland travel is not permitted to foreigners. But there’s no need to despair over that.”

“You have a method?”

With a solemn expression, Fortune pointed to his own head.

“I’ll shave my head clean as a cueball!”

“…What?”

A cueball?

Did I hear that right?

“Just shave the front and braid the back into a queue! Dressing in Chinese attire and imitating their speech will let us deceive them completely… I’ll infiltrate deep inland and steal—no, secure top-grade tea seedlings and seeds!”

His eyes were already racing along some distant mountain path in Qing China.
Sporting a queue, donning Qing attire, and passing through unfamiliar villages in an unfamiliar dialect—it was a picture already fully completed inside his head.

“No, Mr. Fortune. There is no need to go to such lengths.”

“Pardon? But those Qing scoundrels won’t willingly hand them over…”

“Stealing them isn’t the problem. It’s a matter of time.”

I explained while ticking off my fingers:

“Now, Mr. Fortune. Suppose you departed right this instant and stole the seedlings. You’d plant them in India a year from now? How long would it take for those trees to grow and reach a state where their leaves can be plucked?”

Fortune hesitated briefly, searching through his botanical knowledge before answering.

“Usually, tea trees require at least three to five years after sowing before their leaves reach a harvestable state… To obtain commercially meaningful yields would require… an even longer time…”

“Perhaps five years, or even seven years to yield a proper commercial product.”

I let out a sigh.

“Yet we lack time. I wish to see results starting as early as next year. Our trade deficit is swelling like a snowball every single month. If we wait five full years, Britain’s coffers will run completely dry.”

“That… is true.”

Fortune wore a troubled expression.

Upon his face, two distinct forms of diligence were colliding: the diligence of respecting the slow pace of time as a botanist, and the diligence of delivering results within a given deadline as someone entrusted with a task.

There was only one path where these two forms of diligence could coexist without wounding one another.

“Is there any necessity to steal them from Qing China? When tea trees are already growing on our own soil.”

“…!”

Fortune’s pupils wavered. He caught the meaning behind my words.

“Assam!”

“Indeed. As I understand it, last year—in 1838—eight chests of tea produced in Assam arrived in London. I heard an auction was even held this past January, receiving quite favorable reviews.”

“…Precisely correct.”

Fortune clicked his tongue in awe.

It was a fact I hadn’t known myself, being preoccupied with other matters, but I had learned through Dr. Lindley shortly before that the first batch of tea manufactured in India had debuted on the London market in January of this year, 1839.

“Yet is it not strange?”

I asked, resting my chin in my hand.

“If tea is already growing in India and even receiving favorable reviews at auctions, why on earth are we still chaining ourselves to Qing China? Why is mass production not happening?”

Seeing that the potential for success had been visible in 1838, why had there been complete silence up until now in 1839?

At this question, Fortune’s expression darkened.

He hesitated briefly before speaking in a bitter tone:

“Your Majesty, though it is shameful to admit… it was closer to a man-made disaster.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, several decisive reasons prevented tea cultivation in Assam from leading to commercial success.”

Fortune held up a single finger.

“First, the blind obsession with Chinese black tea and the sheer blunders committed by the East India Company’s idiots.”

“Obsession?”

“Yes. The idiots at the East India Company are shackled to the fixed idea that Chinese tea is superior without exception. Even though wild tea plants were scattered all across the Assam jungles, they dismissed them as low-quality weeds and wouldn’t even give them a second glance…”

Fortune struck his chest in frustration.

“Instead, they obsessed exclusively over planting seedlings brought from China at massive expense in Assam. But those fools failed to realize that Assam’s climate and soil differ from China’s. Naturally, most of the Chinese seedlings withered or rotted away, wasting precious time on this absurd trial and error.”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

Wasn’t this the classic case of kicking away good fortune with one’s own feet, getting ruined while coveting someone else’s meal?

Ignoring native species that had adapted locally and survived for thousands of years.

“And the second?”

“Conflict with the technicians.”

Fortune’s expression twisted further.

“Just as building a sturdy bridge requires a sound-minded engineer, making tea naturally requires people skilled in the art of tea-making. So the company brought in Chinese technicians, but…”

“Were they lacking in skill?”

“Skill was part of it, but rather than proper artisans, most of them were vagrants or criminals from the backstreets of Guangzhou. So how could they possibly be kept under proper control?”

He went on to explain that the attitude of the British managers also played a role.

They forced the technicians into the humid, hot jungles—horrific environments where malaria ran rampant—and worked them like beasts.

“In the end, the technicians went on strike or fled. Instead of any proper transfer of skills, they were too busy grabbing each other by the collars, so how could work possibly run smoothly?”

“Good grief.”

“Third is the lack of processing technology—the art of tea-making itself.”

Fortune fingered the empty teacup.

“The leaves in Assam are gigantic. But if having leaves alone made tea, every nation would produce it. Wouldn’t those frog-eating fellows drink tea then? You have to roast, roll, and dry them at the proper temperatures, but people didn’t know how. So even the tea made in Assam turned out worse in flavor than Chinese varieties, or even rotted away with mold.”

He let out a deep sigh and extended his final finger.

“And finally… the Assam Company itself was a problem.”

“There was a company trying to produce and import tea from India?”

I was slightly surprised.

Or rather, I was flustered, realizing that there were people who had recognized the business’s potential and established a company before I had.

“Yes, but the company established this time is jerked around by investors sitting in glamorous offices in London. People who haven’t the slightest clue what the muddy boots of the field are like. Reports get fabricated, funds leak off in bizarre directions… It’s a miracle they haven’t gone bankrupt.”

Listening to it all, I leaned back against the backrest.

The arrogance of civilization.
Insensitivity to the suffering of others.
Impatience in the face of technology.
And management disconnected from the field.

These four problems seemed independent at first glance, but they were actually four branches sprouting from a single root.

And the name of that root was the habit of failing to respect anything other than oneself.

Yet paradoxically, the fact that all four problems had surfaced might well serve as the clue to their resolution. A disease without a name could not be eradicated, but a disease with a name could at least be treated by compounding medicine targeted directly at it.

“So to summarize…”

I looked straight at Fortune.

“Doesn’t this mean we simply need to solve these four problems?”

“…Yes. Well, theoretically speaking, that is.”

So it boiled down to this.

How to enter Seoul National University?

It was the exact same logic as saying one just needed to study Korean, English, and Math well, focusing primarily on textbooks.

“We simply need to move from theory to reality.”

I stood up and walked over to the map hanging on the wall.

I pointed to the Assam region on the right side of the Indian subcontinent, where rugged mountain ranges stretched onward.

“First, yank out all those Chinese seedlings. We must focus on native Assam trees (Assamica) that are hardy and have large leaves. Those adapted to the locality will be best.”

“A wise judgment, Your Majesty.”

“Second, send back the Chinese technicians, or select only those with genuine skill and offer them exceptional treatment. And above all… we must have local Indians taught the techniques.”

“Indians, you say?”

“How long are we going to keep pampering the Chinese? We must train dexterous locals and cultivate technicians of our own.”

I paused to catch my breath before continuing.

“Third, the method of tea-making. You must resolve this, Mr. Fortune.”

“Me?”

“How the Chinese roast the leaves, how they adjust the temperatures, how long they allow fermentation. Don’t go stealing secrets—research it and build a scientific manual. Not relying on mere intuition, but creating a standard process anyone can follow and replicate.”

Fortune’s eyes widened.

It was an order to develop processes rather than merely collect plants, but that should be more than enough to stimulate his inquisitive spirit.

“And finally, management.”

I curved the corners of my lips upward.

“Leave that to me.”

I returned to my seat and stood before Fortune.

“What do you say? Rather than risking your life wandering the Chinese interior disguised with a queue, wouldn’t it be swifter and surer to go to Assam and direct this enterprise I speak of?”

Robert Fortune looked up at me blankly for a moment.

“…I expected to hear an interesting tale.”

Remaining silent for a long stretch, Fortune finally curled the corners of his mouth upward.

“I thought it was simply a matter of digging up plant roots, but instead you want me to revive a dying company and spark an industry that will feed all of Britain?”

“Lacking in confidence?”

“Not at all. If anything, my blood is boiling.”

With a confident expression, he accepted the letter of appointment I extended.

“I’ll lop off the heads of the fools trying to cut down native Assam trees and make true tea leaves flourish in their place. Give me a year—no, just until this autumn’s harvest season.”

“I look forward to it.”

Then, as if about to withdraw, Fortune hesitated and asked with a hint of wariness:

“Yet Your Majesty, there is one thing I wish to ask.”

“Speak.”

“Why choose me of all people? No matter how much Dr. Lindley recommended me, I haven’t shown you a single thing yet.”

That question might well have been the remnants of pride still lingering within him.

The pride of refusing to have one’s value validated solely by the judgment of others.
Because that pride remained, this man could continue to be truly himself.

Yet someone whose pride had crumbled would ultimately live out their life as another’s shadow, no matter how genius their talents.

“When everyone else said it was impossible, you were the only one who said you’d find a way to make it work.”

The man who had said he would go even if it meant shaving his head into a queue.

That proposal was foolish. Perhaps reckless, and lacking in practical feasibility.

Yet within that proposal lay the resolute determination to surrender one’s appearance, identity, and safety for a single handful of unfamiliar soil. The weight of that resolve heavier than a degree, heavier than a career, and heavier than the sentences of any letter of recommendation.

Where resolve resided, a genuine human being existed.

Something passed across Fortune’s expression.

It was joy, yet not arrogance; pride, yet not conceit.

It was closer to that nameless gratitude experienced when a stranger discovers a fragment of oneself that one had given up on because no one else had ever noticed it.

“As expected, Your Majesty knew how to recognize my true worth.”

Only then did Robert Fortune flash a brilliant smile.