Six Flying Dragons: Episode 23

by HeadsNo2

Now we’re starting to see a pattern emerging whenever a task needs doing that requires going outside, since Jung Do-jeon loves to send the young’uns out for the sort of things he can safely outsource without having to worry. If it requires manual labor, is a late-night mission, or involves physical danger at all, you can bet he’ll put the dragons on it. Just like you can bet all the hot-blooded males in the group have at least one eye on Boon-yi, whose ideology really does bring all the boys to the yard.

SONG OF THE DAY

Lee Juck – “거짓말 거짓말 거짓말 (Lie Lie Lie)” [ Download ]

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EPISODE 23 RECAP

While Lee Seong-gye confronts General Jo over going behind his back to select Crown Prince Chang as the new king, Jung Do-jeon and Jung Mong-joo do the same with Lee Saek, his former teacher and General Jo’s co-conspirator in the kingly plot.

To make things worse, Lee Saek, General Jo, and Queen Jung all seem to be working in cahoots together against Lee Seong-gye. They even reinstate Lee In-gyeom, thanks to the edict of their tiny king. (Obviously they haven’t heard that the man is dead.)

Bang-won tries to find the not-a-peddler now that he suspects him to be the mysterious scholar, but to no avail—they can’t even find the little boy who led them to him, since no boy by that name exists in the village. They unwittingly pass by the man they’re looking for, but he’s got bigger fish to fry when the dismaying news of Lee In-gyeom’s reinstatement reaches him.

General Jo and his cronies think they’re meeting with Lee In-gyeom, only to be faced with Ha Ryun instead. They’re about to find out what Bang-won is currently telling his father and older brothers: that Lee In-gyeom is dead.

Ha Ryun admits to masquerading as Lee In-gyeom to fool them, but claims it was necessary to make sure the dodang didn’t fall into Lee Seong-gye’s hands. He tells them to remember his simple, two syllable name very well, and come looking for him when they need him. While they’re on the subject though, he’d like a government post.

Bang-won, Shin-jeok, and Jung Do-jeon work through the information they’ve gathered on the burned scholar who masterminded recent events, and though Jung claims he doesn’t have an idea as to who it could be, he has his suspicions.

By using information that may or may not be made up as a bargaining chip, Ha Ryun is able to get General Jo to start thinking long and hard about giving him the position of finance secretary. His lackey, LEE SUK-BEON, realizes that they’re being followed…

…But that realization comes too late for them to do anything about it, since they soon find Bang-ji’s sword held to their necks. Jung Do-jeon appears then, congenially greeting his old colleague, who he calls by the nickname Ho Jeong.

He knows Ha Ryun’s been in and out of exile the past eight years, and guesses that the burn mark on his wrist came from a torture session with the hot iron. That’s all the chitchat he’s up for, since he asks the main question on his mind: “Why did you help General Jo Min-soo?”

Ha Ryun admires Jung Do-jeon’s sharp intellect, since Jung knows exactly how he’s been working in the shadows since the incident and Jangpyung Gate and even the Liaodong Expedition. He was always there, but Jung now wonders if he went into exile because he was against the expedition.

It’s no secret that Jung Do-jeon has an uncanny ability to read people, Ha Ryun notes uncomfortably. But he knows Jung Do-jeon wants to know why he got involved when he’s not interested in worldly affairs, and challenges him to guess why he put Prince Chang on the throne.

“To the one who only has but a hammer, the world looks like a nail,” Jung Do-jeon notes. But since he knows Ha Ryun has no interest in the bigger picture, he guesses that he got involved with Prince Chang and General Jo in order establish himself as a strategist.

So then Jung Do-jeon lobs a question at him: “What am I trying to do? Make a guess.” When Ha Ryun doesn’t, Jung leaves him with a warning to stop playing with fire and people’s lives. Ha Ryun tries to lighten things up by telling Jung to just consider this a game of baduk between them, and looks quite sour when Jung throws back that Ha Ryun’s never been able to defeat him at that game.

Now that Ha Ryun’s in the game, Jung Do-jeon tells his followers that they have to advance their reformation plan if they want to stay ahead. Meanwhile, Ha Ryun tells his somewhat inept bodyguard, Suk-beon, that he’s accomplished his first goal by getting his name circulating amongst Lee Seong-gye’s people.

Truthfully his name is now on everyone’s lips, including Da-kyung’s and her father’s. Da-kyung promises to learn more about Ha Ryun while pushing her thoughts of Boon-yi aside, and whether she owes Boon-yi for staying behind to buy them time to escape from General Choi’s forces.

To that end, Da-kyung visits Jukryong with a box of gold bars to buy any information he can collect on Ha Ryun. He offers her two gold bars in exchange for telling him why she wants to know, but Da-kyung is too smart to fall for it. She won’t do any of his work for him, that’s for sure.

Jung Do-jeon pays a visit to the other name that’s been on everyone’s lips, JO JOON (pen name: Woojae), who greets him violently and accuses him of sending men to steal written materials from him.

He throws Jung Do-jeon off his property and claims he’s hidden them so well no one will ever find it, while Ha Ryun watches curiously. He guessed that Jung Do-jeon and Jo Joon were connected and now has the proof, but what he plans to do with that is anyone’s guess.

Jung Do-jeon has Boon-yi use her men to kidnap Jo Joon so they can have another chat, and as you can probably imagine, Jo Joon is not happy about it. But Jung’s intentions are good, as he urges the recalcitrant man to reveal the research he’s done, the same research that whoever stormed his house tried to steal.

Jo Joon obstinately refuses to do so, claiming that what he researched will never come to pass anyway. But Jung Do-jeon doesn’t leave it up to him, and fishes though his clothes to find the book he’s kept hidden. In it, he’s detailed a plan for land reform that would give citizens like Boon-yi’s people the land they need to actually survive and thrive off of.

This is something Jung Do-jeon is very passionate about, and something he knows Jo Joon is equally passionate about, or else he wouldn’t have gone all over the country to gather data for his plan. It calls for an even distribution of land based on the number of citizens, which Jung claims will help the people and the country as a whole.

Jo Joon is still adamant that the plan will never work, causing Jung Do-jeon to call him out on carrying it around with him still—if he really believed there was no hope for it, wouldn’t he have burned it by now? “Because you did the work, is it yours? Do you have a right to hide such exceptional work from the world?” Jung asks.

“No, no one in this world has such a right!” he declares emphatically. Then, taking Jo Joon by the shoulders, he adds, “Let’s do this together.” At last, Jo Joon relents.

At the same time, Ha Ryun attempts to warn Lee Saek about Jung Do-jeon’s possibly dangerous plans for the future, claiming that he’s always been full of dangerous ideas. To make his point, he even quotes Jung’s “To the one who only has but a hammer, the world looks like a nail” speech, which Lee Saek hilariously doesn’t understand.

But Ha Ryun knows that Jo Joon’s been wandering the country working on some project, and guesses that it’s got something to do with complete land reform. Whether he knows more than what he’s telling is up for grabs, but he’s succeeded in planting the seed of doubt in Lee Saek’s mind.

Jo Joon has his doubts that Jung Do-jeon will be able to implement the land reform plan when they haven’t even been able to get the lands stolen by the evil dodang members back to the citizens, but Jung tells him that if he doesn’t trust in his power, he can trust in Lee Seong-gye’s.

After hearing about Jo Joon’s plan, Boon-yi can’t hold in her excitement. It spills over in her chat with Bang-ji, as she finally tells him what her dream is: for the two of them to return to their hometown and farm their own land with their own families. “I hope that you’ll dream this dream with me,” she adds.

She turns to explain the whole land reform concept to her people, who all rejoice at the thought of being given their own land to farm. The catch being, of course, that they have to first take that land from the nobility.

In the New Joseon Cave, Bang-ji haltingly tells Yeon-hee about Boon-yi’s dream for the future, and how she wants the two of them to go back to their hometown, start families, and tend to their land. “If all this ends,” he ventures, “what will you do after?”

Yeon-hee pauses a moment before diplomatically saying that Boon-yi’s dream will definitely come true, and that they’ll have to work harder to make it so. She turns to leave, but the next words Bang-ji speaks stop her dead in her tracks: “Do you want to go together?”

“No, I do not,” she replies. She waits until she’s away from the cave before she allows herself to truly process the question as tears spring to her eyes. “Thank you for asking, Ddang-sae,” she thinks to herself. Bang-ji just mopes in the cave.

After convincing Lee Seong-gye that they need Jo Joon on their side, he takes him to meet the man himself, who’s currently enjoying drinks with Master Hong in the army mess hall.

What starts off as an innocent enough back-and-forth over Lee Seong-gye’s ability to take his research and implement it takes an unexpected turn when Jo Joon challenges Lee Seong-gye to kneel down if he wants to prove how badly he wants the reform.

Lee Seong-gye tries not to take offense to that, deciding that they should reconvene when Jo Joon is sober. But since Jo Joon is never sober, he claims no such time will ever come. “Kneel down!” he bellows. Understandably, Lee Seong-gye leaves.

Jung Do-jeon tries convincing Lee Seong-gye that he needs to gain Jo Joon’s trust, though he’s not advocating for him to kneel. Nor can he convince Jo Joon for him, since this is a matter only the two of them can hash out—the most he can do is simply to bring them together.

He explains that Jo Joon is just looking for proof of Lee Seong-gye’s resolve, since the land reform he’s proposing is a matter that will be a hundred times more difficult than establishing a new nation and king. “It’s about confiscating all the land in this country and dividing it amongst the people,” he stresses.

What Jo Joon is looking for from him is his resolve to give away all his own private land, his wife’s private land, and all the land his sons own. The way he speaks so passionately, it’s like he’s also unsure whether Lee Seong-gye truly has the resolve to endure the hatred, resentment, and bloodshed that will undoubtedly arise from him implementing the reform.

Proclaiming that he’ll find his own way to prove his determination to Jo Joon, Lee Seong-gye pays him a second visit, this time with a sword in his hand. He orders Jo Joon to kneel, and cuts him off before he can guess what he’ll say next—contrary to what Jo Joon and others would believe, he has knelt to someone before.

But the person he knelt down to and swore loyalty to is also the same person he betrayed and killed a few years later (must’ve been Jo So-saeng), so him kneeling to others means nothing. “However, I have never betrayed anyone who knelt before me,” he adds.

So if Jo Joon wants his research to be distributed among the public and implemented, he should do the same. Though Lee Seong-gye is asking him to kneel, Jo Joon seems very pleased with the resolve he’s shown through the proposition.

Ha Ryun goes to General Jo and his minister minions with the information he’s gathered on Jo Joon, having followed him to a cave where he’s been compiling all his research on how much farm land, farmers, and land possessions in the country—many of them unrecorded.

Which means, he adds a bit more delicately, that their illegal land holdings as well as the sadaebu’s illegal land holdings have been recorded. Now, Ha Ryun has his captive audience in the palm of his hand. The question remains, where is the research?

Jung Do-jeon asks that same question of Jo Joon, after the latter reveals that an assassin broke into his house to look through his books. Guessing that it was someone sent by Ha Ryun, Jung asks where his research is now, which is when Jo Joon tells them he drew it on a map. Bang-won, Bang-ji, and Moo-hyul are ordered to go with him to find it.

Meanwhile, Ha Ryun tells his audience that he knows where to find Jo Joon’s research, but that he’ll need money for the journey. And maybe that position as finance secretary, which he’s again denied.

He’s caught on the spot when Minister Woo Hak-joo asks who he was originally chasing that he stumbled across Jo Joon’s trail, and covers by saying it was nothing important.

However, multiple flashbacks reveal otherwise—Lee In-gyeom had actually tasked him with finding the secret organization behind the Red Seal, and it was while he was searching for the not-a-eunuch that Lee In-gyeom saw again the day he was being carted off to exile that he’d discovered Jo Joon. Innnnteresting. So it’s not Ha Ryun behind the seal after all.

Boon-yi invites herself on the boys’ quest to find Jo Joon’s research, since she can’t just wait idly by when their findings have the potential to fulfill so many people’s dreams. Bang-won relents and says he’ll take responsibility for her, but since that’s a loaded term, Bang-ji gets all upset, “Why would you? I’ll be responsible for my own sister.”

Poor Moo-hyul is left behind with a handful of cabbage, and mutters to himself, “I’ll also take responsibility. Who wouldn’t?” This just in: Boon-yi is the luckiest woman in Goryeo.

Using the gold given to him by General Jo, Ha Ryun goes to Cho-young to hire twenty of her best spies as protection/help for the quest, while Team Bang-won follows the direction on Jo Joon’s map to an unremarkable and vacant-looking building.

Following the written instructions, Bang-won knocks a set pattern onto the door, which should presumably give them access. Only nothing happens. Detecting the smell of blood in the air, Bang-ji breaks down the door to reveal the recently murdered inhabitants inside. Ha Ryun’s men must have already gotten to them.

One of the men, mortally wounded but alive, is able to tell them that a group of men stole the research. Bang-ji remembers passing a suspicious group earlier, and takes Moo-hyul with him to hunt them down.

They come upon the group of thieves meeting another, larger group of soldiers, with both expecting a certain someone to arrive. When Bang-ji’s attempt at diplomacy fails, he laments how his title of best swordsman has done nothing to deter attacks. “I agree. You’re not even the least bit scary,” Moo-hyul adds unhelpfully.

So it’s two against a small army, but two of the best swordsmen in the country. They’re forced to stay behind and deal with the resolute men while the one carrying the casket of research runs away.

Luckily, Bang-won spots him from a nearby cliff and takes the chest after shooting him down with a bow and arrow. Only when he’s well on his way does he realize he’s being followed by Cho-young’s Amazonian army, and by the time he thinks to draw an arrow, he’s already surrounded.

He vows to take down the first one to approach him, and he does just that when one of the spies sacrifices herself so her sisters can nab him. They’re ready to kill him for killing one of theirs, but their leader says she doesn’t have the authority to take his life.

They take him with them instead, while Boon-yi watches from her hiding place nearby.

Moo-hyul and Bang-ji are doing pretty well for themselves for being vastly outnumbered, at least until a blue-clad figure jumps into the fray. He knocks Moo-hyul down flat, which leaves Moo-hyul agape with surprise—it’s not often that someone can beat him in terms of sheer strength.

We don’t see who the man is because of his wide-brimmed straw hat, but he’s an excellent fighter, able to parry all of Bang-ji’s blows and even toss him into the air.

Bang-ji lands on his feet like a cat, and cuts the brim of the man’s hat to reveal a blast from the past—it’s Gil Sun-mi, Gil Tae-mi’s twin brother.

Bang-won is brought before Ha Ryun, recognizing him as the pretend peddler from before. “I have also been extremely curious about who you are,” Ha Ryun replies. “Lee Bang-won, is it?”

 
COMMENTS

They’re certainly not making it easy to track all the different players in this game, are they? But I guess that’s what adds to the intrigue, because there’d be no fun in knowing everyone and their motivations at this stage. As it is, it’s the good kind of challenge to do some guesswork when it comes to looming questions like who’s behind the Red Seal, and who—if it wasn’t Ha Ryun or Jung Do-jeon—got to Jo Joon’s people first.

And, more importantly, what does Gil Sun-mi have to do with all of this? He’s always been a mystery, though it’s safe to say that he’s a much better person than his twin brother at heart, since he saved Bang-ji all those years ago. The only other glimpse we got of him was when he placidly witnessed his brother’s death, but why was he in the capital in the first place? Why has he chosen to stay under the radar all these years when his swordsmanship skills could likely rival those of his brother’s?

I was so expecting Ha Ryun to be behind the Red Seal that I was honestly (but quite pleasantly) surprised to find out he wasn’t, since it means there’s still something much bigger at work. Or maybe it’s all an elaborate ruse and he is behind it all, because I have a hard time believing that he’s pulling all these political strings for no greater purpose than that he feels like it, or that he wants to make a name for himself. Like Jung Do-jeon said, he’s playing with lives, and whatever he puts into motion now can have lasting repercussions that are well beyond his comprehension.

Of course, the question remains as to whether Ha Ryun is actually so foolish, or if he’s got an act going in order to make sure people like Jung Do-jeon continue to underestimate him. Considering the impact he’d have on history, I’m inclined to believe it’s the latter, though he’s playing it off so well that it’s entirely possible he’s just been flying by the seat of his pants thus far. Or he’s a calculated manipulator and master schemer secretly orchestrating everything from the shadows. You don’t have two-toned eyebrows and a good heart in dramaland—it’s either one or the other. That much I’m at least certain of.

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