novelraw Chapter 106 : I Had No Intention of Being Satisfied with Just the Daejin Association
Chapter 106 : I Had No Intention of Being Satisfied with Just the Daejin Association
Chapter 106: I Had No Intention of Being Satisfied with Just the Daejin Association
[Daejin Association Personnel Restructuring Target List]
Overall reporting officer: Management Department Head Yoon Sang-hyeon
Headquarters (Total: 15 people)
Secretariat
Kim Young-mi, Chief: Lee Jin-seong’s direct chief secretary. Managed all of the chairman’s slush fund flows.
(Reason for removal: Core close aide, immediate dismissal and pursuit of both civil and criminal liability.)
Park Su-jin, Section Chief: In charge of abusing corporate credit cards of the executive team and falsifying entertainment expense settlements.
(Reason for removal: Conspiracy in embezzlement, dismissal.)
General Affairs Department
Park Won-bae, Department Head: Involved in creating slush funds for executives and regularly receiving tributes from subordinate departments, as well as kickbacks from partner companies.
(Reason for removal: Breach of trust, core link in embezzlement, dismissal after securing evidence.)
Oh Sang-sik, Section Chief: Park Won-bae’s right-hand man. Embezzled salaries by registering ghost employees.
(Reason for removal: Embezzlement of public funds, immediate dismissal.)
Sales Department
Bae Sang-cheol, Deputy Manager: Head of a rival faction to Director Kim Jin-su. Suspected of leaking bidding information for government construction projects.
(Reason for removal: Leakage of confidential information, dismissal and claim for damages.)
(Including 10 additional employees at assistant manager level and below from executive lines in other departments.)
Samcheok Factory (Total: 28 people.)
Directly under the Factory Manager
Jeong Dong-jin, Factory Manager: Executive Director Kim’s closest aide. Led wage skimming from site workers and embezzlement of safety management funds.
(Reason for removal: Breach of trust, embezzlement, immediate dismissal and criminal charges.)
Han Seong-cheol, Labor Section Chief: Brother-in-law of Factory Manager Jeong Dong-jin. Managed a company-controlled union and suppressed site workers.
(Reason for removal: Unfair labor practices, dismissal.)
Materials Procurement Team
Kang Deok-su, Team Leader, and three others: Habitual acceptance of money and valuables from suppliers and receipt of rebates.
(Reason for removal: Bribery in breach of trust, all dismissed and subject to legal action.)
Quality Control Office
Jo Hyeong-woo, Chief: Overlooked shipment of defective cement and manipulated quality inspection results.
(Reason for removal: Loss of trust, standby assignment followed by recommended resignation.)
(Including 21 additional implicated individuals by team.)
Taebaek Mine (Total: 11 people.)
Directly under the Site Manager
Ma Dong-cheol, Site Manager: A distant relative of Chairman Lee Jin-seong. Filed false reports on mining output and illegally sold equipment.
(Reason for removal: Breach of trust, negligence of duty, immediate dismissal.)
Safety Management Office
Seo Jeong-min, Chief: Falsified safety inspection logs and embezzled safety equipment budgets.
(Reason for removal: Occupational breach of trust, violation of industrial safety laws, dismissal and criminal charges.)
(Including 9 additional implicated individuals by team.)
When I turned the first page of the file, it was packed with names—starting from the headquarters and extending to factories and mines—intertwined like rotten roots.
I inwardly admired Yoon Sang-hyeon’s capability for producing results of this level within the short span of just one hour. It was material that would have been absolutely impossible without prior preparation.
This was not a simple copy of a personnel record. It was a report of human relationships and dirty secrets that Yoon Sang-hyeon himself had personally reconstructed.
The sharp red-pen underlines and the hastily scribbled notes in the margins laid bare everything: each person’s disposition, networks bound by school ties and regional ties, suspicious money flows, and even private weaknesses like problems with women.
I snapped the file shut, a document no different from a death list.
“Excellent.”
I said it while looking straight at Yoon Sang-hyeon.
“Everyone on this list will be cleaned out. Department Head Yoon, by your own hands. Secure the evidence and proceed with everything exactly as written in this report.”
“……Me, you say?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
At my counterquestion, his shoulders flinched. I had seen straight through his ambition to carve out the rotten flesh.
“I’ll give you one week. By then, everything must be finished. If even a single person on this list remains, there will be no place for Department Head Yoon.”
Yoon Sang-hyeon swallowed hard enough for his Adam’s apple to bob visibly.
“However, if you clean everything up without a sound…….”
I deliberately paused. After confirming that his eyes were burning fiercely, I continued in a low voice.
“This time, I’ll create a new department called the Planning and Coordination Office.”
“The Planning and Coordination Office?”
“Yes. I have no intention of being satisfied with just the Daejin Association. I plan to bind multiple companies into one and grow them into this country’s greatest corporate group.”
“A corporate group…….”
“In Japan, they call it a conglomerate. In the media or academia, they call it a concern.”
I laid my massive blueprint out before his eyes. In the mind of an elite tightly bound by ambition, the picture I was showing must have been vividly forming.
“The Planning and Coordination Office will be the groundwork for that and the future command tower. It won’t be tied to any specific department and will wield immense authority encompassing personnel, planning, and even inspections across the entire company. The Daejin Association is only the first beginning. And the head of that department will become the most powerful figure in this company.”
As my explanation continued, Yoon Sang-hyeon’s breathing grew rough. His ambition was reacting violently to the shining future drawn before him.
“The head of the Planning and Coordination Office will become my eyes and ears, and my hands and feet, moving my empire. As long as I permit it, there will be no limit to that authority.”
He promised infinite power, but clearly defined its limits. By attaching the premise of ‘as long as I permit it,’ I made it unmistakably clear that nothing could be done without my approval.
I rose from my seat and walked over to him. Placing a hand on his shoulder, I whispered in a voice only he could hear.
“Department Head Yoon. If you wield that blade properly, I intend to place that Planning and Coordination Office firmly in your hands. What will you do?”
It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. Yoon Sang-hyeon couldn’t say a word for a while. His shoulders trembled faintly.
Before long, he stood up from his seat and bowed deeply in front of me.
“I will become the President’s blade.”
“Haha, nothing has been decided yet. For now, just finish this matter first.”
I deliberately smiled gently as I handed the file containing the report back to him.
“There must be no noise. Ah, right. The Secretariat has been driven out for now, but formal procedures haven’t been followed yet. The people on that list will be dealt with, and the rest will be properly paid their severance. Handle it with that understanding.”
“Yes, President.”
He bowed once more in greeting, took the file, and left.
Left alone in the conference room, I naturally moved toward the window overlooking Taepyeong-ro. Watching the people hurrying back and forth below, I sank deep into thought for quite some time.
‘The Planning and Coordination Office will need to create a Secretariat to keep it in check.’
The chief secretary had already been decided.
The blueprint I had shown Yoon Sang-hyeon was only a part of it.
The next day, 5 a.m.
In front of the Daejin Association headquarters lobby, with the darkness not yet fully lifted, a rugged military jeep waited, emitting a low engine rumble.
As I climbed into the back seat, Executive Managing Director Choi Cheol-gyu, who was already seated inside, bowed his head with a stiff expression.
“Are you ready, Executive Managing Director?”
“We can depart at any time, President.”
Yoon Ji-seong took the wheel. Sitting beside him was a taciturn-looking man sent by Cheon Sang-do. It was a precaution, just in case.
It was nothing like the comfortable train journey toward Busan. The moment we left Seoul, the asphalt-paved road vanished, replaced by an endlessly stretching unpaved gravel road.
Each time the jeep crossed a deep rut, it sprang skyward before crashing back down. Whenever the chassis jolted, my entire body slammed against the seat, sending aches through my bones.
“Are you all right, President?”
Executive Managing Director Choi asked with concern, but I merely nodded silently.
How many hours had we driven? Around the time the sun climbed high into the sky, we stopped briefly at a shabby roadside soup shop. With coarse barley rice and watery soybean paste soup, we barely filled our stomachs.
We set off again. The real hell began once we started crossing the rugged mountain ranges of Gangwon Province.
Every time we climbed a precarious cliff road that looked ready to collapse at any moment, the engine groaned with metallic cries.
“They say that in the old days, people got dragged off by tigers while crossing this road.”
Executive Managing Director Choi said with an easy laugh. Even at his half-joking words, I couldn’t laugh. The vibrations and noise seeping into my bones were leaving my entire body utterly exhausted.
Thus we drove for more than half a day straight. Only when the sun began sinking toward the western mountains did the blue expanse of the East Sea and the towering chimneys of a massive factory finally come into view in the distance.
But what greeted us was not the lively noise of a bustling factory. What wrapped around the entire massive complex was a heavy, desolate silence, like death itself.
As the jeep came to a stop, I dragged my stiff body out of the vehicle.
Executive Managing Director Choi Cheol-gyu and Director Yoon Ji-seong followed silently behind me. In the wide open space before the factory’s main gate, hundreds of laborers were already standing like stone statues, waiting for us.
On their faces, resignation weighed heavier than hope, and distrust deeper than expectation.
At that moment, a group that had been lined up in front of the laborers approached us.
Instead of oil-stained work clothes, they wore neatly pressed suits. Instead of dust-covered boots, their shoes gleamed. As if flaunting their continued comfort, they greeted me with the laborers arranged behind them like a folding screen.
“Oh my, President! You must have had such a hard time coming all the way out to a place like this.”
The one who stepped forward with a booming laugh was Factory Manager Jeong Dong-jin, whose name sat on the very first line of the death list.
I didn’t respond to his greeting. Instead, over his shoulder, I slowly swept my gaze across the hundreds of laborers standing silently behind him. They were the true owners of this factory.
At my disregard, Factory Manager Jeong Dong-jin’s face stiffened for a brief moment.
That was when it happened. When Executive Managing Director Choi Cheol-gyu, standing beside me, moved.
He didn’t spare even a glance for Jeong Dong-jin’s group. Passing by them as if they were stones by the roadside, he walked straight into the center of the open ground where the laborers were gathered.
“Factory Manager!”
“Executive Managing Director Choi, you’ve come!”
The first to recognize him were the elderly veteran workers with graying hair. Starting from their cries, a stir began to ripple through the once-frozen crowd of laborers.
“……You came.”
He finally managed to open his mouth. As if his throat were choked, his voice cracked roughly.
“You’ve suffered a lot. Truly…… you’ve suffered so much.”
He tightly grasped the rough hand of the elderly worker closest to him with both of his own.
Over the hardened face of the rugged man, a single line of hot tears streamed down. Watching that scene, the faces of Jeong Dong-jin’s group drained to an ashen gray.
When the commotion in the crowd finally subsided a little, I opened my mouth quietly. My voice wasn’t loud, yet for some reason it rang clearly across the entire open ground.
“Here today, we will first pay one month’s worth of your overdue wages.”
At those words, all noise in the open ground stopped as if it were a lie.
Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned toward me at once. What surfaced in their gazes was not cheers, but deep distrust.
I didn’t find it unpleasant. It wasn’t unreasonable for them to react this way. To people who had gone hungry for three months, the words ‘wage payment’ must have already been an empty promise they’d heard dozens of times.
Sure enough, open mockery surfaced on the faces of Factory Manager Jeong Dong-jin and his followers.
They looked utterly convinced that in the current climate, it was impossible to procure the cash needed to pay wages for so many laborers.
Ignoring their gazes, I lightly jerked my chin toward Director Yoon Ji-seong, who was waiting beside the jeep.
Receiving the signal, Yoon Ji-seong and one of Cheon Sang-do’s subordinates guarding his side silently opened the rear door of the jeep.
What they pulled out of the vehicle were two heavy money bags.
Thud, thud!
The dull sound of the bags hitting the ground sliced through the air thick with distrust. Without caring in the slightest about their stares, Yoon Ji-seong undid the locks on the bags.
The moment he opened them, all the murmuring and sneers that had filled the open ground froze solid. Inside the bags were mountains of freshly printed, crisp stacks of Korean won.