When the dreamlike journey around the world ended and we arrived in the United States, it was already June. Since I left Korea in February, it had taken almost four months.
I had started calling the Ford couple Mom and Dad even before we arrived in America, and as soon as we arrived, Dad formally adopted me.
My new name is Henry K. K. Ford. K. K. stands for my Korean name, Kim Kyeng-hee. Including my real name in my new name was to prevent my lineage from being questioned later.
In the 21st century, even adopting a single child would involve background checks and investigations to ensure the child wasn't being adopted through kidnapping or other illicit means. However, in 1896, an era where even the 19th century hadn't ended yet, there were absolutely no such issues in adopting an Asian child.
Since it was a case of a great white American gentleman adopting a pitiful Asian orphan, even if the parents were alive, there would be plenty of people asking what the problem was.
Seeing the couple touring Korea together, I assumed Dad was quite wealthy, and someone traveling around the world in first class on a passenger ship couldn't possibly not be rich. But when we arrived in America and I saw my parents' house and learned about Dad's workplace, I realized Dad was even richer than I had thought.
Dad was a financier working on Wall Street and owned a house on Manhattan's 53rd Street, where the wealthy resided in New York.
The house on 53rd Street in Manhattan was an antique European-style marble mansion. "Antique" meant the architectural style was classic, not that the house was old. My parents' house, which had a quite spacious yard and garden, had over 20 rooms and employed seven staff members, including a cook, servants, and maids.
It was the same while traveling through Europe: when my parents introduced me as their son, people frowned, wondering why a wealthy white couple had adopted a lowly Asian child. But upon hearing about my background, their treatment changed drastically, accompanied by surprised expressions as if their disdain had never happened.
To protect me, my adoptive parents introduced me as the son of a duke executed by the king due to political strife in an unnamed Eastern country. Although there was no title of "Duke" in Joseon, considering my father's status, introducing him as a duke wasn't far from the truth.
Compared to the various small states across Asia at the time, Joseon was by no means a small country. Although the land wasn't very large, the population was 15 million, and its geographical importance was significant.
Perhaps that's why, unexpectedly, Korea was a fairly well-known name among European intellectuals. Although not as much as China or Japan, at least there were far more people who knew about it than before the Korean War, especially among the intellectual class.
Since my father was a prime minister who had organized the cabinet four times in such a Joseon, the biggest figure in Joseon politics, I, as his only son, might have been a more important figure than some petty royalty or nobility.
This was the same even after returning to America. The household servants, who initially ignored me with looks that seemed to ask where they had picked up a yellow monkey when my adoptive parents introduced me as their adopted son, changed their tune completely upon hearing that I was the son of a duke.
Furthermore, when they discovered my fluent English skills and the fact that I could speak several foreign languages, including French and Russian, they looked at me even more differently. Also, my handsome appearance, resembling my mother with a high nose bridge and large eyes with distinct double eyelids, was a great help to me in this country of terrible racism.
The biggest cause of racism is appearance that looks overly alien to their eyes. Since I scored points on appearance first, it was natural that the sense of racism weakened.
Dad pointed to a large room and said,
"This will be your room from now on."
Along with the joy of having my own room, I became worried. Even though I had gained future knowledge, my body was fundamentally only six years old, or eight in Korean age. Moreover, in Korea, I always slept with my mom, and even after boarding the ship, Mom and Dorothy, knowing that I was afraid to sleep alone and suffered from severe nightmares, always slept with me, so it was fine. But now that we had arrived at the main house in America, if I were told to sleep alone, it was obvious I would suffer from severe fear every night.
Seeing my fear, Mom comforted me.
"Don't be afraid. Until you are no longer scared, Mom or Dorothy will always sleep with you."
Phew!
Don't scold me for not being able to sleep alone despite having future knowledge. American kids are used to sleeping alone, so they have no problem with it, but I don't have that habit, so I still can't sleep alone. Regardless of what memories and knowledge I possess, since my body is that of a six-year-old, emotional aspects like affection, joy, sadness, anger, fear, wonder, and admiration manifest just like a six-year-old's emotions.
A few days later, on Saturday, we decided to visit my aunt who lived nearby. Mom was the eldest of three sisters, and since her sisters lived close by, they had promised to meet.
My aunt's house was a massive mansion with a garden much larger than ours. Our house building wasn't even half the size of that, yet it had over twenty rooms. With that size, it seemed like there would be over 40 rooms.
"Welcome, Henry. I'm Jane, your aunt. Everyone calls me Jessie, so you can call me Aunt Jessie. And this is my husband, Jack, your uncle."
Aunt Jessie was ten years younger than Mom and had a son who was now four and a daughter who was two.
My uncle said,
"I'm Jack Morgan. You can call me Uncle Jack."
Jack Morgan... where have I heard that name? Surely not THAT J.P. Morgan. No, just in case, I should ask.
"If Jack is a nickname, what is your real name?"
"It's John Pierpont Morgan Junior. Since I have the same name as my father, everyone calls me Jack."
"John Pierpont Morgan? Are you the son of J.P. Morgan, sir?"
"It seems even a little kid like you knows my father's name."
"I saw grandfather's name several times in the newspapers I read on the way here."
"Oho, you read even that? John, this kid is really amazing."
When Jack Morgan looked back at Dad and spoke, Dad replied in a slightly boastful tone.
"Didn't I tell you beforehand? He's incredibly smart. Because he read more books than me, I got scolded terribly by Laura and Dorothy."
So, Dad's brother-in-law, Mom's brother-in-law, Aunt's husband is the son of THAT J.P. Morgan?
Even in the 21st-century modern era, John Pierpont Morgan, famous for the investment firm J.P. Morgan, is the financial emperor of this era.
You could call him the Rothschild of the modern age, but in fact, even the Rothschilds in their prime couldn't match Morgan. There were many families famous for finance in Europe, especially the Medicis, Fuggers, and Rothschilds, but the financial power they enjoyed in their prime falls short of the financial power John Pierpont Morgan enjoys right now.
The King of Finance, who enjoyed the strongest financial power in human history, is none other than John Pierpont Morgan. And to think my uncle's father is that very John Pierpont Morgan, I've completely hit the jackp...
At Aunt Jessie's house, or more accurately Uncle Jack's house, there were several families gathered besides Aunt Jessie's. Listening to the conversation, they were Uncle Jack Morgan's family, that is, the Morgan family, and most of them were interested in me.
They introduced themselves to me one by one, then sent me and the kids out to the garden to play separately while they went into their own conversation.
"So, you're saying that child's mother tried to strangle him to death?"
"She probably chose death rather than staying as she was and suffering shame and humiliation."
"So that child's biological father was the biggest figure in politics who organized the cabinet four times."
"There were many complex circumstances, so one can't simply say who was right, but it was clear he was the biggest figure in politics."
While the adults were talking, I took the kids out to the garden and started playing with them. There were quite a few children in the Morgan family, all of whom were at least two years younger than me.
The oldest, Aunt's son Junius Spencer Morgan, was four years old, and there were also three-year-olds and two-year-olds, so it was a bit hard to play with them, but I did my best to entertain them.
These kids are, so to speak, my cousins or similar relatives, and kids at this age originally listen to their peers much better than adults. To them, a cousin like me who is two years older is someone they must follow unconditionally, a great being who knows the truths of this world full of wondrous things.
I thought that if I trained these kids well from now on, they could become talents I could use well in the future.
Right now, they are just snot-nosed brats, but anyway, they are children of New York's, no, America's top financial family. It was a sly desire that if I tamed them to listen to me well without any sense of racism from now on, maybe financial support would be possible in the future.
You say childhood education is useless once their heads get bigger?
Oho, do you think I can't even think of such basic things? Just think about it. If I make a car and bring it out for the first time, and these kids fall head over heels for that car and pester their moms and dads to buy them a car too, wouldn't initial sales be decent?
Wait, a car? Why am I making a car? Just because my name is Henry Ford doesn't mean I'm the real Henry Ford who left his name in history, so why should I make a car?
No. Since my name is Henry Ford anyway, there's no law saying I shouldn't make cars. Leaving Asia aside, even coming from Europe to New York here, I never saw a single car. In 1896, it seems like the time when there should be a few, but I really didn't see a single one.
Whether in Europe or America, the streets were full of carriages and streetcars, and there wasn't a single automobile. That means automobiles are that rare, and it's before the automobile industry has emerged. So, where is the law saying I can't make cars? I don't possess great knowledge, but at least I can avoid the trials and errors that people of this era would make.
In my head, I began to review one by one what was needed to make a car.
In a car, the engine is the most important thing, so making cylinders, making pistons, making engine heads, making spark plugs, making carburetors, making connecting rods, making crankshafts... oops, there are a lot. But these are all things I've touched while repairing cars with my own hands, so there's nothing that seems particularly impossible.
The only thing is that there are no alloy steels suitable for cars in this era, but I can make those too. As far as I know, I heard that the original Henry Ford used vanadium steel when making the famous Model T, overwhelming other cars in durability and performance, and with the low price added, it became a popular car.
Vanadium steel, I can make something like that easily. No, wait. To make alloy steel or special steel, do I need to make it from an electric furnace? Was there an electric furnace in this era?
Countless items I would have to make in the future were passing through my head.
When I died and woke up, besides gaining future knowledge, I developed a few more peculiar abilities. Thinking this might be a special perk given because the owner of the future knowledge appeared in a novel he read, I used to shout "Status Window" several times where others couldn't see while on the ship.
In the end, no matter what I did, a status window didn't appear, but the perks were definitely there.
The first perk was memory. The owner of my future knowledge was a person who graduated from Seoul National University and even studied abroad, originally a talent with a good head and excellent memory, but the memory given as a perk was not at that level.
Everything I saw just once in books, newspapers, or on the internet, even memories the owner of the future knowledge had completely forgotten, I remember vividly like a photograph. So, I remember all the various chemical formulas or alloy ratios that were in the books the owner of the future knowledge read.
The second perk is calculation ability. It's not just at the level of being good at calculation; it was almost equivalent to a computer's calculation ability, as if a spreadsheet program like Excel was installed in my head. Dad tried to teach me math while coming on the ship, but after seeing my calculation ability, he just gave up teaching.
The third perk is physical strength. Not stamina, but brute strength. So, my stamina is just like a six-year-old kid's, but my strength has become almost at the level of an adult. It seemed like this strength would become even stronger when I became an adult. However, since this strength is too alien an ability, unlike memory or calculation ability, I was hiding it even from my parents and Dorothy.
The last perk, I just hope there won't be an occasion to use it.