Chapter 227 — Settling Matters with the Great Khan
The next day, Yeongu and his party hurried along the road and reached Huiling Fortress near the end of the hour of Mi.
The sun tilted westward, and the shadow of the fortress wall lay long across the ground.
The flags above the gate fluttered low in the cold wind.
When the cavalryman who entered first announced their return, the inside of the gate stirred quietly.
Zongwang did not dismount and tried to guide Yeongu directly to the Great Khan.
But people had already come out inside the gate.
First were the men dispatched from Goryeo.
They had gathered just behind the gate.
Even after seeing the man who had returned from a long road, they did not rush forward recklessly.
They first straightened their collars and stepped aside to both sides of the road.
Their joy was great, but where they stood was not a marketplace.
It was a place between a military camp and a royal fortress.
On one side of the road, the Fifth Unit stood in formation.
Their armor was damp with dust, and their spearheads were raised in one direction.
When Yeongu approached, the Daejeong at the front first set his spear shaft on the ground.
The soldiers standing behind him straightened their posture as one.
The sound of metal and leather straps being set in order rang out at once.
"Loyalty to the Jungnangjang!"
At the Daejeong's command, the soldiers raised their spear shafts and bowed their heads.
Those on horseback pulled their reins and halted their horses.
Those holding spears raised the spearheads toward the sky.
Those carrying bows placed their right hands on their chests.
Their voices burst inside the gate.
"You have returned safely."
The shout was short and loud.
The sound struck the fortress wall and came down again, scattering over the shoulders of the people.
Yeongu looked at them for a moment from horseback.
He did not speak at length.
He raised his right hand to his chest and answered quietly.
"You have worked hard."
At that one phrase, the faces of the Fifth Unit brightened.
Someone bit his lip, and someone tightened his grip around his spear shaft.
Those who had rolled together on the battlefield were moved more deeply by one short acknowledgment than by long cheers.
Behind them stood Kim Yun-gyeong and the newly arrived civil officials.
Instead, they held in both hands a small congratulatory placard made by pasting together long strips of white paper.
Because each person held one character and stood in place, it looked like the awkward prank of unpracticed men.
Their heights differed, and the heights at which they held the characters differed.
<奉迎還歸>
It meant, "We respectfully welcome your return."
Kim Yun-gyeong held the writing high, then lowered it in both hands as Yeongu came near.
His colleagues also bent at the waist.
It was the courtesy of civil officials.
Unlike the soldiers who greeted him with raised blades, they showed their hearts with brush and writing.
Yeongu saw them and could not keep from chuckling.
It was not a grand thing.
Yet the moment he saw the words and script of his homeland, a little of the fatigue from the long road loosened.
He pointed to the newly arrived civil officials and technicians and looked back at the Goryeo men.
"These are people newly come from Goryeo. They will suffer hardship with us, so receive them well."
At that, the soldiers of the Fifth Unit lifted their spear shafts once.
Instead of applause, spear shafts struck the ground.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It was only three sounds, but the meaning of welcome was contained within them.
The soldiers did not clap their hands.
They set their weapons straight and opened the road.
The civil officials widened their eyes for a moment in surprise at the sound, then soon bowed in return.
The Jurchen soldiers reacted somewhat differently.
Those across the road lifted their spear shafts obliquely from horseback and made a sound deep in their throats.
"Heo!"
It was a short, thick shout.
Some pressed their bows to their chests and lowered their heads.
Some patted their horses' necks and looked toward Yeongu.
To them, Yeongu was a Goryeo man, but he was already a strong man who had returned alive from the battlefield.
That fact alone was enough for him to receive courtesy.
The road inside the gate opened.
The Goryeo soldiers raised their spears and made a path, and the civil officials folded the congratulatory placard and placed it in their robes.
The Jurchen cavalry moved their horses' heads aside.
Yeongu passed between them.
He was greeted like a man who had been away for a long time and had returned.
The welcome was neither great nor splendid, but every gaze inside the gate gathered upon him.
Zongwang quietly spoke beside him.
"The Great Khan is waiting."
Yeongu nodded.
Then he looked once more at the Fifth Unit and the Goryeo civil officials.
"I will see you later."
At those brief words, the soldiers' eyes moved again.
Kim Yun-gyeong held the placard to his chest and bowed deeply.
Yeongu followed Zongwang deeper into Huiling Fortress.
In the broad yard inside the gate, Jurchen people had also come out.
They did not stand in straight lines like the Goryeo soldiers, but each held his horse's reins and stepped aside along one side of the road.
Men wearing leather armor, men in iron-scale armor, and men with fur wind-cloaks over their shoulders filled the broad dirt yard behind the gate.
Their horses breathed long breaths, scraping the ground with their forelegs, and the bows and quivers laid across their backs swayed low with each movement.
Some lifted their spear shafts toward Yeongu.
Some placed hands on their chests and bowed their heads.
Their manner was not orderly like a Goryeo military salute, but it was their own courtesy toward a strong man of the battlefield.
A low cheer spread from deep in their throats.
"Heo!"
The short, thick sound rang between the dirt walls behind the gate and the stable roofs.
Not everyone welcomed Yeongu.
Faces uncomfortable with his return were mixed among them.
There were those who avoided his eyes, those who pressed their lips tightly, and those who exchanged low words among men of their own mouke.
What had happened on the field yesterday had already entered the fortress ahead of him.
The rumor that the Eighth Mouke had collapsed, the rumor that Dolhapsok had knelt, and the rumor that Yeongu had broken more than a hundred riders alone were all mixed in their eyes.
So the welcome in that yard was not only warm.
There were both cheers and silence.
There were both respect and wariness.
The Jurchen opened the road, but not all of them stepped back with the same heart.
Even so, they left space for Yeongu to pass.
At that moment in Huiling Fortress, there was no one who could carelessly block him.
At that time, the Great Khan was waiting for Yeongu inside the palace fortress being newly built in Huiling.
It was the place where the founding of the state had been declared not long before.
On the ground where they had announced it to Heaven and Earth and raised the name of a new country, a palace fortress was now rising.
It was not yet a completed palace.
There were places where pillars had been raised but the eaves were not yet fully closed, and on one side of the packed-earth courtyard, timber and stone lay piled.
Marks of ink lines used by craftsmen remained at the bases of pillars, and the smell of freshly cut wood and wet earth mixed in the wind.
It was still rough to call it a palace fortress.
But Jin had no proper place yet.
The hall where the Great Khan would sit, the courtyard where the generals of many tribes would be called to stand, and the space where edicts would be issued and military orders divided were all being made there.
So state affairs were conducted inside an unfinished palace fortress.
On one side, the sound of hammers could be heard.
On the other, military orders were being given.
Newly appointed officials hurried back and forth.
Beside craftsmen trimming wood, generals in armor passed by, and on earth floors that had not yet dried, the commands of the new country were handed down.
The Great Khan was seated inside that unfinished palace fortress.
It was a place where the rough strength of a country just being built was felt before the dignity of a high hall.
The flags were new, the unpainted pillars held the raw color of wood, and on the faces of people crossing the courtyard, strange excitement and uncertain unease showed together.
"Loyalty. Lee Yeongu, Jungnangjang of the Goryeo army, has returned."
Yeongu bowed in a posture too ambiguous to be called a military salute and too awkward to be called the courtesy of a subject.
As a Goryeo general, he showed courtesy, but he did not prostrate himself like a subject of Jin.
Seeing that awkward etiquette, the Great Khan instead smiled brightly.
His face said that the mere fact that Yeongu had returned made such a mismatch no matter at all.
"You have come well. I thought you would never return."
"That was my intention. But His Majesty the King of Goryeo did not permit it."
The Great Khan burst into laughter.
"A grateful thing."
Yeongu looked back at the people standing behind him.
The newly arrived Goryeo envoys stepped forward.
There were civil officials, craftsmen, and technicians with rough knuckles among them.
Their clothing was not splendid, but their packs, tool chests, and thick palms spoke first of what kind of men they were.
Yeongu said,
"This time, more technicians were sent."
The Great Khan's eyes brightened.
"Oh."
"They are men who know mining, pig iron, and ironmaking.
It is difficult to arm everyone merely by hammering whatever iron can be obtained here and there.
The thought is to find and open mines here, draw out iron, and make armor and weapons."
The Great Khan leaned a little forward from his seat.
He rejoiced even in generals who won battles, but when he heard that men who could make iron had been brought, deeper joy appeared.
Soldiers are formed by men, but armies endure on iron.
Without bows and blades, armor and horse gear, arrowheads and spearpoints, no matter how brave a tribe may be, it cannot fight for long.
"This is truly something to be thankful for," the Great Khan said slowly.
"We have always lacked iron. We repaired what we took, divided what we obtained, and joined again what had broken. But now you are saying we will obtain iron from our own land?"
Yeongu nodded.
"Yes. We will find veins, burn charcoal, and set up furnaces.
Good ore will be chosen and roasted, the fire will be strengthened with bellows to obtain iron lumps, and then they will be forged again into usable iron.
It will take time, but if this work is not begun, we will always have to depend on the warehouses and spoils of others."
The smile on the Great Khan's face sank slightly.
In its place, a more serious light rose.
He looked one by one at the newly arrived technicians.
Those men might feed the country longer than those who came bearing swords.
Victory on the battlefield could be gained in a day, but mining iron, melting it, and making weapons was work that changed the roots of a country.
"Good," the Great Khan said. "I will provide the people, horses, and food needed. If they must look at mountains, let them look at mountains. If they must burn charcoal, I will give them forests. But the people here do not know those methods, so you must lead them well."
Yeongu gave courtesy again.
"I will do so."
The Great Khan smiled again.
It was not a bright smile like before.
Within that smile were expectation, calculation, and the desire of a man building a new country.
"You have brought a great gift the moment you returned."
Yeongu introduced the newly arrived men one by one.
Those who knew mining, those who selected ore, those who burned charcoal, those who knew how to handle bellows and furnaces, and those who could hammer lumps of iron into weapons and armor plates came forward in order and offered their courtesy.
They did not show the authority of generals, but the more the Great Khan looked at them, the brighter his face became.
When the last man withdrew, the Great Khan nodded with great satisfaction.
Receiving one sword-bearing general was a joyful thing, but obtaining people who could draw out iron was the work of setting the bones of a new country.
The Great Khan was not a man who failed to understand that meaning.