Chapter 15: A Black Field and a Red Cross
TL: Hanguk
James Sergent, head of the Sergent family and the talk of all Mississippi these days.
Rockefeller, the young man he had handpicked, had been living through one astonishing experience after another since arriving in Mississippi.
He didn't let it show on his face, but he was firmly convinced that slavery was a barbaric, backward institution.
The planters who clung to such a degenerate system were, he had concluded, losers who would soon be weeded out by the march of the times.
Even so, the reason he had decided to stay at James Sergent's side and watch was a hunch that this man might be something different, and what he actually saw with his own eyes exceeded anything he had imagined.
Crack!
"Whooooa! Home run! My third of the season!"
"Hey, you son of a bitch! Don't throw the bat!"
"What? The guy who served up the homer is the one with the problem. I feel like flipping my bat, so what's it to you!"
"You ever heard of sportsmanship? Sportsmanship!"
"Then let's go ask the Master whether that's bad manners or not!"
Come Sunday, the Sergent plantation transformed into an athletic field for physical training.
A few of the real die-hards threw the ball and swung the bat on weekdays too, whenever they finished their work early.
And that wasn't the end of it.
Performance was tallied by teams that rotated every month, and the men were handed something called an incentive, which they used to buy extra scraps of meat or cheap bread to fill their bellies.
But even that alone made them visibly more motivated, and at the end-of-month gatherings they all ate, drank, and even sang together.
Rockefeller now understood why James had gone looking for an additional agricultural broker like Hewitt & Tuttle.
At this rate, of course he'd have no choice but to procure more food.
"This is inefficient. And yet, however much the efficiency improves, the outlay somehow isn't any greater? Why?"
Looking at the ledger, he was more astonished still. Compared to last year and the year before, the plantations Sergent ran had increased their yield of clean cotton beyond any comparison.
With revenue exploding to this degree, even loosening the purse strings for extra food made no dent in the profit margin.
"Thorough division of labor, and the efficient harnessing of desire, converting it into efficiency."
Rockefeller realized for certain that James was different from the other planters scattered all across the South.
"I've gotten in touch with the doctors at the MSMA, and it looks like we'll be holding a meeting this week. Want to come along too?"
"No, sir. Weren't you the one who said there'd be little good in people seeing me together with you, Mr. Sergent?"
"True enough. It's easier for your own business that way, too. Still, they're doctors over there, so there's no particular need to worry."
Agriculture, and now medicine on top of it.
The planters and politicians of the South, who had no idea what James was up to behind the scenes, praised him as the most exemplary planter in all the South.
But Rockefeller was certain.
The others might not see it, but from the way James was handling agricultural supply and medicine, and now trying to deal in war materiel through Rockefeller himself, his aim was obvious.
He was moving in the firm conviction that a war would break out.
"Was no one uncomfortable about you building a hospital to care for black people?"
"Between the Sergent and Miner families, the slaves alone number fifteen hundred. If anything, it's strange there wasn't one until now. And on top of that, when I offered to provide cheap medical care to the local residents as well, they actually welcomed it with open arms."
"I see. The political world will certainly look favorably on it too. Nothing to lose there."
A planter lauded as the most exemplary in the South was, in truth, moving in the certainty that war would come.
And looking at the principles behind his actions, it seemed to lean toward the side where slavery would not endure.
No, even if slavery did endure, the Southern planters trusted him, so he would still be able to live on enjoying his social renown.
The ultimate art of self-positioning, and a long-term investment that lost nothing whichever way things flowed.
And on top of all that, in the long run, an ambition vast enough to put the entire cotton industry of the South beneath his feet.
The more he watched, the more it felt like encountering some new civilization from another age.
No matter how much of a genius a man was, if it wasn't backed by theory, that brilliance was bound to be a one-off.
But Rockefeller, having seen the advanced techniques here and witnessed their effects at a glance, found himself rewriting his very conception of management without realizing it.
*
Having read the official letter Governor McRae had sent regarding the hospital's establishment, I stepped out of my room, closed my eyes for a moment, and sank into meditation.
The conviction that I was drawing steadily closer to my goal made even my mind feel sharper, clearer.
The groundwork was done.
If all I wanted was to live comfortably once the war ended, I could simply move all my assets to the North or to England under a borrowed name and be done with it.
But I couldn't spend a second life, won as if by a miracle, that way.
After the war ends, after slavery is abolished, whether the North wins or the South wins, however America flows from here.
I won't let outside circumstances dictate my life.
Just as I said before I closed my eyes at the end of my past life, I will become the master of this life and this age.
Even if the North wins and the age of the North arrives, just as in the original history, then if I spread this hospital across the whole country, thousands, tens of thousands of those Northerners will owe me their lives.
When that happens, no one will be able to tear me down over my origins as a planter, and no one will be able to attack me.
It's only been a few months since I started living as James Sergent, but there's something I've felt down to my bones.
A mere upstart with nothing but money has a ceiling on how high he can climb.
For all that I'm a grand planter of the South, don't I still have to bow and scrape the moment I'm standing before the big-name politicians?
Maybe that's part of why the planters so envy the European aristocracy and ape their ways.
Capital, politics, and prestige.
To live without being bound by anyone, a man has to possess all three of those.
Now I'm off to drive in that final wedge.
I rose from my seat to start moving in earnest from here on out.
***
The Mississippi State Medical Association, the MSMA, was not in great shape.
In truth, "the medical system of the American South is not in great shape" couldn't even begin to describe it, and not just in Mississippi.
It was, without exaggeration, an utter shambles, a complete disaster, a hellscape with no equal in this world.
About twenty years before this, during Andrew Jackson's tenure, the phenomenon known as Jacksonian Democracy had swept across America.
To sum up the idea simply, it was anti-elitism and thoroughgoing laissez-faire.
It wasn't as though it had no positive elements at all, but the medical field in particular took a nuclear bomb that came close to catastrophe.
On top of that, American medicine at the time wasn't especially good, so when the alternative medicine then on the rise came into the spotlight, the phenomenon only grew worse.
"The medical licensing system is nothing more than a tool for the privileged to crush their competitors!"
As this absurd slogan caught on, public opinion spread that the state issuing licenses for particular professions was an unjust regulation.
In the end, medical licensing became a dead letter, and in the South now, any Tom, Dick, or Harry could see patients just by claiming to be a doctor.
With things this way, quacks of every kind ran rampant, and the so-called cure-all snake oil was being briskly peddled all over the place at this very moment.
After some twenty years of side effects piling up, just as the citizens were starting to sense that something wasn't right, Mississippi was struck, to add insult to injury, by a massive outbreak of yellow fever that produced countless casualties.
Judging that things would truly become unsalvageable at this rate, the doctors of Mississippi banded together to set this disorderly chaos straight, and that organization was the MSMA.
But however fine the ideals, nineteenth-century America was already a capitalist society.
Without money, an association couldn't operate.
The MSMA, which had ambitiously held even a founding ceremony in 1856, had not managed to hold a single general assembly since, and was in no position to carry out any proper activity at all.
"But it'll be all right now. We've got ourselves a solid patron."
"Hahahaha! At last we'll be able to hold our general assembly."
"But I heard he's still a young man. Why would someone so young take an interest in this sort of thing already?"
"He works his slaves brutally, so he must have plenty of them falling sick or getting hurt. I'd wager it's a bit of showmanship to make up for that."
"Well, either way, all we have to do is produce results from this. There's nothing wrong with humoring one young upstart well enough to secure operating funds."
They would have to treat niggers en masse, true, but the association's doctors were looking ahead to a time when their influence would grow.
In this age when the medical license had become a dead letter, they hadn't a shred of doubt that their association would be a single ray of light.
And a short while later, the nouveau riche who was to become their money man arrived.
"A pleasure to meet you. I'm James Sergent, owner of the Sergent plantation."
"Welcome. I'd heard a great deal, but I never imagined you'd be so tall and handsome in person. Hahaha! I'm the association president, William Gadberry."
"Come, sit over here. Ah, I'm the secretary, Kraft."
Not a smile left the faces of the association members as they received the dependable money man who would cover the association's operating costs from here on.
What pleased them especially was that he wasn't some wily old fox who'd been through every kind of hardship, but a young man only just beginning to taste the wider world.
It wasn't as if they hadn't met young rich men of this age once or twice.
Most young planters were the sort who, flattered just enough and treated like nobility, would open their wallets without stint.
They'd have bet their entire fortune that this young man, decked out in luxury goods from head to toe, was no different.
As James strolled over at his leisure and removed his coat, the black slave who had followed behind him took it respectfully.
"First, I'm delighted to be able to undertake such a historic venture together with all of you."
"As are we."
"This hospital project isn't merely for the Sergent and Miner families. We'll provide quality medical care at reasonable prices to the region's poor as well, dramatically raising Mississippi's medical infrastructure."
"Just hearing it puts me at ease. Hahaha! Truly a man of noble character, befitting the South's next Cotton King."
"On that note, first we'll build a hospital to care for our families' slaves, and our next goal will be to build additional hospitals beyond Natchez, throughout all of Mississippi."
He's pouring it on like this when we haven't even properly buttered him up?
It was welcome, but at the same time a doubt rose up.
"Er, Mr. Sergent? We're grateful, of course, but is there a reason you're investing on such a large scale?"
"The plantations I inherited aren't only in Natchez but elsewhere in Mississippi as well. I'm still expanding them even now. And when it's none other than I who's making the investment, shouldn't I do it well enough to be called the best in the South?"
"Ah, yes. So that's the thinking."
He's already handling well over seven hundred slaves, and he's still buying more and expanding his land?
Is this man seriously planning to plaster all of Mississippi with his own slaves and cotton plantations?
"In exchange, since this side is the one investing, there should be something we get in return, no? Leo, the documents."
At James's gesture, the black slave swiftly set a thick stack of documents on the table.
President William's eyes grew wider and wider as he ran through the papers.
"A product bundling quarantine, transit, insurance, and freight together, with ownership of the data the association obtains from running affiliated hospitals vesting in James Sergent, the association holding viewing rights, certification royalties and the education pipeline to be negotiated later... what is all this?"
There was an enormous amount more written after that, but the conditions the association members couldn't easily accept came down to three.
1. Final approval over the appointment of the hospital's chief medical officer rests with James, the investor.
2. All operating methods (hygiene, recordkeeping, etc.) of the James Clinic to be established this time will become the MSMA's official standard going forward.
3. Viewing rights to all of the hospital's data belong to James Sergent.
"These are authorities I ought to take. As the investor responsible for operations, I think it only natural that I should take this much authority."
"What do you..."
"Because I intend to expand this venture on a far larger scale."
James cut William off mid-sentence and went on, and at the same time Leo set a single sheet of paper in the center of the table where everyone could see it.
"This is an official letter sent directly by Governor McRae. It states that, depending on this project's results, the state of Mississippi will guarantee the validity of the certificates our association issues."
"I-is that true?"
The moment they heard the words "the Mississippi governor's guarantee", the association members' faces changed completely.
The MSMA's fundamental purpose.
Their dream of issuing certificates only to proper medical practitioners, newly replacing the license that had already become useless, had had a shortcut blown wide open for them, all too easily.
"You all get to achieve your purpose simply, which is good for you, and if the project goes even better, I may come to found, on the foundation of this hospital, a vast medical organization spanning the entire United States."
President William, who had meant to coax James, became aware that he and the others were instead on the receiving end of a notice: whether or not they would become part of this colossal plan.
After that, matters such as the association's operating plans and a dispute-mediation body were discussed, and the medical doctors of Mississippi, as though possessed by a ghost, resolved to join in James's noble plan.
Having essentially acquired the entire association whole, James paid courteous respects to the doctors' resolve and rose from his seat.
"Then, as it's about time, I'll take my leave. Leo?"
The young black slave swiftly helped James into his coat, walked off with a crisp, measured stride, and opened the conference room door.
"If you head back now, the timing will be just right. Let us go, Master."
James departed as lightly as he'd come, and only the association members, looking as though they'd been bewitched by something, were left behind.
"Good grief... it's as if a typhoon just blew through."
"He did say he was born in 1836, didn't he? That's twenty years old?"
"Could he be planning to run for president someday?"
"Does he mean to scatter his own slaves across the whole United States?"
"Since he says he'll build hospitals even up North, maybe he means to get niggers hired en masse at the factories."
Sighs that might have been questions, or might have been muttering to themselves, rose up here and there, but naturally no answer came back.
All they could confirm was their own handwriting, signed in agreement on the contract James had left behind.
And the assortment of cross designs, of every shape and color, under review as the organization's symbol.
*****
Join our Discord for announcements or to report any mistakes.