[Webtoon] Put in 10%, win 10 times over — the wildest bull market of 130 years ago [Walkspot]

Incheon at the port-opening era — the wildest bull market of all

In 1896, Incheon

drew people, goods and money from every direction.

And a rice futures exchange

opened its doors.

Rice did change hands there,

but in practice, short-term trades chasing market price gains

through futures were far more active.

With only a small deposit,

traders could deal in volumes far beyond their means.

When prices moved even slightly,

someone hit it big,

and someone else lost everything in an instant.

Among the countless rice-market speculators,

the one who showed the most dramatic rise and fall

was a Joseon man named Ban Bok-chang.

In his twenties he amassed a fortune of hundreds of thousands of won

and was hailed as the "god of the rice market" — the young and rich of his day.

He held a lavish wedding at Joseon Hotel,

and his success story spread across the country.

But the legend did not last.

Within just a few years he went bankrupt,

was detained on fraud charges,

and his marriage ultimately fell apart.

He suffered a stroke at a young age

and is said to have died around the age of 40.

Ban was not the only one brought low.

Yangban in their traditional hats and city gentlemen alike

rushed to the rice market dreaming of a windfall,

and a string of bankruptcies, flights and tragedies followed.

The rice-market frenzy left its mark not only in the newspapers of the day

but also as a defining social backdrop in Yi Kwang-su's "Regeneration" and Chae Man-sik's "Turbid Currents."

The rise and fall of the rice-market god.

The Joseon retail traders who plunged in dreaming of a quick fortune.

This summer's bull market calls to mind

the scorching rice-market frenzy of a hundred years ago.

To be continued...