Chapter 221 — Armed Action
"Now then, please tell me. Why did you come out ahead of time and even make a camp like this to secure time for conversation?"
Wanyan Zongwang's head slowly nodded up and down.
Before the campfire, he made himself a comfortable seat and leaned back at an angle.
"Shall I tell you?"
"Yes. Does it have something to do with the two hundred or so cavalry waiting far over there?"
"There is an uneasy current within. I came out because I feared they might use force."
"Who? Saqmo Ari and the others? Pahahahaha."
"No. Not him."
"Hm. So they would rather kill me?"
"It seems there are some who still hold a grudge over how you stopped the atrocities then."
Yeongu only laughed.
Who could threaten him now?
Even a fairly great master could do little against him.
"You know well that they cannot do anything to this humble officer."
"If you were alone, perhaps. I am concerned that damage may occur."
He truly was a bodhisattva.
Because he spared his words, it was difficult to know the truth.
Yeongu had to weave together the fragments of information he had gained and make his own guess.
He had sent word of his arrival yesterday.
If they had moved after hearing it, they would be men now in Huiling.
Those able to receive the news would be the leaders of Huiling Prefecture.
If they mobilized troops…
At that moment, far away, very far away, low dust began to rise.
So that was why Zongwang had suggested camping in a place like this.
The plain stretched without end, so even movement ten li away could be seen at a glance.
Zongwang rose.
"I will go and return."
"I will go too."
"No. I do not wish to show them to you."
"If I wish to know, how could I fail to know?"
"Please pretend not to know."
Yeongu rarely listened to others, but he listened to Zongwang.
It was because of his bodhisattva-like conduct.
Zongwang mounted his horse and rode along the pathless road stretching north.
Piiiiiiik.
A long whistle sounded, and a group of cavalry that had been waiting in the distance rose like the wind.
They chased after Zongwang as he rode, some passing ahead of him and some falling behind.
Was it truly all right to pretend not to know?
So Cheol-un approached.
"What is going on?"
"It seems there are men who intend to attack us. That man seems to have come to stop them."
"Then why not leave them alone? We could kill them all."
"Heh. You little…"
An uneasy imagination raised its head.
If the matter had reached this scale, the Goryeo people still in Huiling and Buyeobu might also face trouble.
If they aimed only at Yeongu, that would be one thing.
But the backlash could spread to the entire Goryeo support group.
It was a difficulty he often experienced, but these bastards truly could not be predicted.
They connected things with no causal relationship at all and raised hell.
They did not hesitate to take actions that mostly looked like misunderstandings.
Then afterward they said they had not known it was so, which was truly absurd.
"Should I go?"
"Let us wait. They will come anyway."
"Wanyan Zongwang, that bodhisattva-like man, does not speak much."
So Cheol-un grinned.
"That is his charm. Everyone likes him."
"I like him too."
"Hehe."
"He looks like such a harmless good man, yet on the battlefield he is always in the vanguard."
So Cheol-un made a comparison.
"A truly strong man does not show it in ordinary times."
Yeongu tilted his head.
"You are talking about me now, are you not?"
"Jungnangjang, you are strong in ordinary times, strong in war, and always strong."
"Oh, come now."
Yeongu gave him a look.
"Send someone."
"Who?"
"It seems there is someone over there who needs to learn about the role and duty of scouts."
Where Yeongu's eyes pointed, there were nimble Goryeo soldiers who had served as scouts throughout the journey.
Yeongu raised two fingers.
"Two men? Understood."
So Cheol-un went and relayed the order, and two men quickly rode out.
The movement of the plain had the advantage of being clearly visible even from afar.
Or should that be called a disadvantage?
In the distance, where the two forces met, dust billowed up, and the two approaching scouts could be seen at a glance behind it.
A short while later, the two scouts rode back.
"Loyalty. It is the army of Dolhapsok."
*Dolhapsok was a member of the imperial clan. He served under the myriarch Seokgano of Nahan Fortress and led a detached force that defeated bandits in the mountains around Yunzhong. Later, in Jin's war against Song, especially in the Hedong and Taiyuan directions, he achieved military results.
"The two forces have met and are speaking with one another."
"What are they saying?"
"We cannot approach closely."
"And the troops?"
"Around one hundred riders."
"Hm. He brought his own mouke."
*Mouke: A unit of roughly one hundred men, formed from two squads of fifty, under a minor chieftain-level head of about three hundred households.
So Cheol-un said,
"It seems Lord Wanyan Zongwang expected that and brought two mouke, two hundred riders."
"He truly is remarkable, that man."
"That is so. His thoughts run deep."
"If even someone like Dolhapsok is rebelling, then the road ahead is a mountain range upon a mountain range. Why stop them? It would have been better to let them come."
"That is what I say…"
Yeongu took jerky out of his pouch.
The dried meat was flat and tough, about two finger joints long, and because he had carried it for a long time, its edges had curled slightly.
So Cheol-un took it and threaded it lengthwise onto a thin skewer.
He did not put it directly near the fire, but first looked at the breathing of the embers.
He chose a place where the outer flame had died down and the inner fire glowed red, then held the skewer at an angle.
As the dried meat slowly received the heat, the stiff grain loosened little by little, and a very thin sheen of oil spread across the surface.
At first, the smell was faint.
The scent of salt and smoke quietly rose as it met the warmth of the fire.
After a while, the edges of the meat curled inward, and yellow drops of oil glittered in the firelight.
When one drop of oil fell onto the coals, a small flame fluttered up, and at that moment the smell of roasted meat spread wide through the campsite.
People turned their heads one by one.
A man who had been wiping horse sweat stopped his hand.
A man tying a waterskin also glanced over.
After swallowing dust and cold wind all day, that fragrance pierced even more clearly.
As the salty smell of meat mingled with the scent of charcoal fire, saliva gathered in the mouth by itself.
So Cheol-un pretended not to notice and turned the skewer once.
The roasted side curled golden brown, and a small char settled along the edge.
Each time the firelight passed over the meat, the dried flesh grew plumper and gradually regained a little sheen.
On the faces of those who smelled it, the same expression appeared without words.
No one asked first, but everyone was watching when that meat would come down from the fire.
Yeongu suddenly looked back and spoke to Cheol-un.
"Share one piece each. Those people do not even know we have things like this."
"Ah, why not just give it all to me?"
"The smell is killing people. Share it."
Cheol-un rose while grumbling and placed one piece each into the mouths of those who watched with eager eyes.
Even the same meat tasted better when roasted.
d.
Yeongu knew his face well.
Because the two of them had never spent time alone together, there was naturally some distance between them.
Wanyan Zongwang introduced him.
"This is Dolhapsok of the Eighth Mouke."
Yeongu smiled faintly.
"I am Lee Yeongu. We have seen each other before."
He had seen him several times in meetings.
They had never spoken one-on-one, but he knew the face well.
"I have seen you stand in the vanguard in several battles."
"Then why did you come today to kill me?"
At Yeongu's question, Dolhapsok could not speak.
The sound of him swallowing could be heard.
Unable to answer, he looked at Zongwang.
"That is not—"
"That is exactly it. There are times when saying things plainly is better."
"That is, he says he came to say that it is not right for Jungnangjang Lee to abandon us and leave, then return again."
"With the entire fighting strength of the Eighth Mouke fully armed?"
Dolhapsok could not speak and clenched his fist tightly.
Yeongu continued.
"You came to kill me, Lord Zongwang stopped you, and you were persuaded."
"..."
"It is not too late even now. With one hundred riders, you must have thought it worth trying. I think the same. I do not want to stand with villains who kill people like beasts. In battle, we fight in order to survive. After battle ends, that must never happen. Never. From now on, I will personally kill such men. I will not beg them to stop."
Zongwang tried to stop him. He opened his palm and waved it left and right.
"That is not—"
Yeongu did not listen and mounted his horse.
Looking down from horseback, he shouted.
"Come out, you son of a bitch! Do not mumble with words. Let us do it with blades!"
Mounted, Yeongu withdrew twenty-some jang.
No, he advanced.
That place was before the Eighth Mouke.
He connected the long banner pole.
The already long banner grew even longer.
As the banner unfurled, red and blue lines were drawn through the air.
It looked like long streams of blood spreading across the sky.
Dolhapsok had come out secretly, intending to kill Yeongu.
He had not imagined that Zongwang would already be there.
Dolhapsok had fought as a mouke commander in the armies of Zongwang and Zonghan.
He could not move recklessly.
No, with a single command, it seemed he could erase that man from the world.
At a simple order, one hundred riders would charge toward him.
One dae was fifty riders.
The front line of twenty riders consisted of heavily armed cavalry with spears and blades, and the rear line of thirty riders consisted of lightly armed mounted archers.
There were two complete Jurchen battle lines, the typical formation in which mounted archers loosed arrows to throw the enemy line into disorder, and heavy cavalry charged afterward.
One hundred against one.
Dolhapsok's hand rose.
Zongwang shouted.
"No! Stop!"
Perhaps people are weak before temptation because of a kind of inertia.
Right or wrong, once something is done, it is done.
We have seen a world where anything can be made to happen.
Even if it leads to ruin, if we can escape the uncomfortable and unstable present, we do it.
Perhaps it is the difficulty of enduring uncertainty.
And at last, he lowered the hand holding the small flag, then raised it again.
From behind the mounted archers in the distance, drums sounded.
Dum. Dum. Dum.
Thirty riders lifted their bows first.
Then another thirty turned their horses slightly aside and set arrows to their strings.
More than sixty mounted archers aimed at Yeongu over the heavy cavalry of the vanguard.
Bowstrings drawn from horseback were pulled back as one.
The thin sound of leather gloves and horn bows meeting spread through the air.
At the end of that brief stillness, the arrows left the strings all at once.
The arrows rose like black dots, then soon bent low.
Over sixty arrows cut through the wind, rushing toward Yeongu's horse's head, his chest, helmet, and shoulders.
Arrow shafts brushed against one another with a whistle-like sound, and the iron heads flashed again and again in the sunlight.
The heavy cavalry in the front line lowered their shields slightly and opened the way, while the mounted archers behind already held their second arrows in hand.
Zongwang kicked his horse forward and shouted.
"Stop!"
His cry was loud and rough, but it came later than the released bowstrings.
They saw Zongwang's face, and they heard his voice.
But they were not following Zongwang's command.
They were following Dolhapsok's command.
Dolhapsok was their mouke.
He was the head of their village, the man with whom they had built a name on the battlefield, and the leader of brothers and friends who had shared horses and bows from childhood.
At that moment, Yeongu raised his shield.
His left arm shot upward, and the edge of the round shield covered the front of his helmet.
The first arrow struck the shield with a dull sound.
Soon after, arrows collided with the shoulder plates of his armor and the iron plates over his chest.
Ting. Tadang. Kadeudeuk.
Iron heads slipped, arrow shafts snapped, and some bounced away without finding a gap in the scale armor.
Yeongu's right hand moved like lightning.
The back of his blade scraped the air and knocked away two incoming arrows, and the sword tip, turned by his wrist, pushed aside an arrow that had been about to bury itself beneath his neck.
When he turned his horse slightly to the left, an arrow that brushed past the horse's ear drove itself into the dirt behind him.
The shield covered his face and heart.
The armor supported his body.
The blade cut away the iron heads that came through the gaps.
He advanced through the rain of arrows.
"Haa!"
A clear and straight battle cry broke through the sound of arrows.
Yeongu's horse lowered its body, then sprang up again.
Each time its hooves struck the ground, dirt flew, and there was no hesitation in the hand holding the reins.
Single horse, single rider, he drove straight into the enemy line of more than one hundred riders.
Behind him, there were no troops following.
Before him stood layered heavy cavalry with spears raised and mounted archers with bows in hand.
The heavy cavalry of the Eighth Mouke moved belatedly.
The cavalry in the front line tucked their spear shafts under their armpits and kicked their horses.
When the heavy horses poured forward at once, the ground rumbled low.
All their spearpoints aimed at Yeongu's horse's chest and thighs, its flank and nape.
Some spears were meant to stab the rider.
Others were meant to bring down the horse.
Those who had survived battle always chose their targets precisely.
Yeongu did not receive them head-on.
Before the first spearpoint touched his horse's chest, he tugged the reins short and set the horse's head half a cheok aside.
One spear skimmed past over the horse's mane.
His shield pressed the second spear shaft downward, and his blade struck the third spear's grip upward.
Into the gap opened in that instant, the horse thrust its body.
Yeongu's knee pressed into the saddle, his waist turned, and the banner in his right hand spread horizontally.
Pararararak.
The red and blue banner cut through the air.
The sound of cloth filling with wind and the sound of metal striking human armor burst out together.
The shaft of the banner struck the side of the first rider's helmet.
His neck snapped to the side, and his body slipped from the horse's back.
The continuing turn broke the second rider's spear shaft and shoved the third rider's shoulder and chest all at once.
The bodies of the three men fell to the ground in nearly the same rhythm.
Yeongu did not stop.
The speed of his horse did not lessen, and the rotation of his hand was faster than that speed.
He gripped the banner long, then drew it in short.
After drawing it in short, he released it into the air again.
Those who came close were struck with the shaft.
Those who brushed past to the side were split by the blade.
Those who thrust spear shafts forward had their balance stolen as he twisted them aside with his shield.
When one horse fell sideways, two riders behind lost their reins and tangled over it as they collapsed.
A shout rose once, loud and great, then split into screams and the cries of horses