Chapter 175 — Thoughts on Collective Punishment
After passing the ferry station, they saw a group of soldiers running in formation.
It was punishment under the name of training.
"Kim Baeksu… He is making the boys suffer collective punishment again."
At Youngwoo's words, Cheolun patted his horse's back and muttered,
"This is the army too."
"Does that mean the army may do whatever it wants?"
They do not punish the individual.
They call it a control device that makes the group move as one body.
But is that truly so?
Would a fellow with such noble intentions really be serving as an army commander?
Perhaps it is less a matter of efficiency and more a means of preserving his own authority.
Youngwoo sighed.
Now that he had resigned and was trying to leave, right and wrong before and after it became clear.
It was a way of binding people together and handling them as a group in order to reduce the cost of control.
Managing each person individually takes much time and expense.
So collective punishment is used as a means to establish order in a short time.
It places pressure on the one who made the mistake by making him feel, "They are suffering because of me."
It makes his comrades resent him.
Collective punishment has a strong effect in maintaining discipline.
More than anything, it creates a structure in which soldiers manage one another and pressure one another to prevent mistakes.
Even without the commander controlling them directly, the soldiers begin controlling other soldiers.
Collective punishment had spread so widely that it was accepted as something natural.
However, collective punishment creates more problems than it solves.
People who bear no responsibility are punished as well.
It degenerates into bullying within the group.
That is the real problem.
Rather than improving combat strength, it increases tension and pressure, and deepens resentment toward superiors.
In the end, it can lead to incidents.
It is a coercive device meant to turn a group into a single unit of control, but in the long run, it is highly likely to damage the organization.
In later times, it would gradually disappear.
The words had grown long.
All Youngwoo had wanted to say was that men like Kim Baeksu loved such methods, but the preface had become long.
Men who turn one person's responsibility into punishment for the whole group are truly wicked.
Because there is nothing in their heads, they do not even know that the method is wrong.
They claim that since they suffered the same thing from their seniors, they naturally do it to their juniors.
What causal connection is there between a senior and a junior?
Youngwoo instinctively hated the ignorant method of group management that had spread through the middle ranks of the army.
He had spent a long time suffering under it because there was no choice, but he had never passed it on to the juniors below him.
Yet this bastard was the sort who turned whatever he received from above straight into collective punishment.
Then he claimed he had done nothing wrong and that he had only acted because there had been a problem.
Youngwoo hated that premodern way of running an army, where such simple errors were repeated again and again.
"Why?"
Cheolun was chuckling as he watched the soldiers being punished.
Youngwoo struck the back of his head with a sharp smack.
"What is so funny?"
"Why did you hit me? It is funny."
"That is strange. For some reason, I hate it."
"Why?"
"An individual's fault should belong to the individual. Why push it onto everyone? Our army is full of stone-headed fools who think that is natural."
"That is just the army."
"Does that increase combat power?"
Cheolun shook his head hard.
"Absolutely not. Absolutely not."
"It is also one reason why superiors are killed so often."
"Like that bastard Park Cheolgu?"
"Yes. When he fell into that pit, I felt my chest clear."
"No one helped him."
"If he had treated each matter sincerely, one by one, would the soldiers truly have acted that way?"
Cheolun nodded.
The Youngwoo he knew had no such habit.
Most men, after suffering something themselves, pass on something even worse.
Youngwoo never did that.
Because he knew the harm well.
Even if it was difficult, each problematic case had to be dealt with one by one.
"Why did you not do that, Brother?"
"If I, who think such things are a problem, did the same, what would that make me? I would be an even worse man."
Cheolun nodded.
"Brother, you are a good enough person."
"I do not want to be a good person. I do not want to hear good words from others either. I simply learned it after being harmed by men like that. At first, everything they said sounded right. But when I tried it, it was not. How unfair is it for someone without fault or guilt to be punished?"
Cheolun, still living in a place where such things were normal, sounded largely resigned.
He had lived among swarms of such men.
"Ah, it is the army."
"Does the army not need common sense? Is the army a society made by the law of monsters? No. It must not be that way. Stupid, wicked, malicious, thoughtless men do such things."
"It is not that I disagree, but if you say that, you will be beaten to death."
"Then that must not be allowed either."
They passed beside the men undergoing punishment, and the soldiers glanced at the two of them with exhausted faces.
They seemed to envy the sight of powerful soldiers in almost full arms.
Youngwoo and Cheolun looked like soldiers fighting for the state.
They were soldiers too, yet they were staking their lives on useless suffering.
There was no need to think deeply.
It was because of the bastard above them.
Should they blame their fate, which allowed them to do nothing?
Youngwoo pressed his foot into the stirrup and rose.
Then he shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Keep going!"
When Youngwoo shouted, Cheolun followed.
"Keep going!"
They had spoken with good intentions, but the faces of the running soldiers remained strained.
They had seen Youngwoo share drinks with Kim Baeksu, so they would think he was the same kind of wicked man.
That is why people say not to go near wicked men.
One is treated as wicked in the same way.
Kim Baeksu watched the two slowly move away and ground his teeth.
"Those sons of bitches… Who do they think they are?"