Chapter 371. Guangyou Temple — Go Youngchang's Visit 2
Youngwoo stared at Go Youngchang's handmark at the bottom of the document.
It was a plan written to kill someone.
A scheme devised to remove him.
Yet Go Youngchang had not tried to hide it.
He had not cut off the trail.
He had not pushed some innocent subordinate forward as the mastermind.
He had simply said that the final handmark was his.
Then should this be seen not as private desire, but as a public judgment?
Should he take the words at face value—that they had merely tried to remove an obstacle to founding a state?
From the perspective of those trying to establish a new order in Liaoyang, Yi Youngwoo had certainly been a troublesome obstruction.
He had stalled the meetings, opposed a state name, opposed a throne, and poured cold water on everyone's enthusiasm.
Seen that way, one could even argue that Youngwoo himself had become the problem by continuing to linger in Liaoyang.
To them, he was both a contributor and an obstacle.
A blade they had needed to open the city, but one that refused to return to its sheath after the city had been taken.
Perhaps he had become something like a chicken rib—too valuable to throw away, too troublesome to keep.
Youngwoo's lips twisted slightly at the thought.
A chicken rib.
There was something ridiculous about himself, caught between someone else's country, someone else's city, and someone else's dream.
Helping the Balhae soldiers return home had been one thing.
But there was no reason he had to bear the whirlpool that followed—thrones, state names, assassination, retaliation.
Go Youngchang wanted to become king.
That desire was obvious.
And yet perhaps he did not think of that desire as selfish.
When the cause of restoring Balhae became mixed with the conviction that he was the man who had to do it, a person could stop recognizing his own ambition for what it was.
Perhaps Go Youngchang truly believed he had acted for the public good.
Perhaps he genuinely thought Balhae could only stand upright if he became its king.
That was precisely the problem.
A man who knowingly acts from selfish desire is dangerous enough.
A man who wraps that desire in the name of public righteousness is worse.
Such a man feels less guilt.
He repents more slowly.
He calls the dead sacrifices.
He calls removal punishment.
And he calls his hunger for power a righteous cause.
Youngwoo drew a deep breath.
Go Youngchang deserved some credit for bringing the document.
But that did not make what was written inside it just.
Confessing a crime openly did not erase its weight.
It only meant Youngwoo did not have to draw his sword immediately.
Youngwoo folded the document on the table.
Outside, the evening chants continued softly.
While the Buddha's name was repeated beyond the walls, one man's ambition and another man's judgment sat facing each other in the small room.
Youngwoo looked at Go Youngchang and spoke in a low voice.
"I will give you credit for bringing the plan itself. But calling this document an act of public righteousness does not make what is written inside it righteous."
Go Youngchang could not raise his head.
Youngwoo continued.
"If I am a chicken rib to you, I can accept that much. But I find it even harder to accept making a king of a man who tried to dispose of that chicken rib by dripping poison through a ceiling and sending nearly a hundred men to their deaths."
Go Youngchang answered.
"I approved the matter. Hold me responsible. My subordinates are not guilty. Punish me alone."
A man like this might indeed inspire his subordinates to follow him with their lives.
At the very least, Go Youngchang did not push responsibility onto someone else.
He had brought the plan himself, acknowledged his own handmark, and stated plainly that the final responsibility was his.
That degree of nerve and accountability was not common.
And yet, to Youngwoo, he was still a frog at the bottom of a well.
A man staring at today's throne without even calculating whether he might be dead tomorrow.
Unqualified.
Not enough in him.
Those thoughts kept returning.
But if the man had such a firm sense of responsibility in his head, perhaps there was something to work with.
Then again—was that really true?
In a time this chaotic, who could be placed in power and be expected to perform perfectly?
Liao was collapsing.
Jin was rising.
Balhae refugees were pulling an old dream back into the light.
Goryeo, Song, and Western Xia were all entangled in the same shifting world.
In the middle of a current that vast, where could one possibly find someone fully qualified from the start?
Whoever was raised up would be lacking.
Whoever was seated would fall short in some way.
Then was Youngwoo holding Go Youngchang to a standard he had never demanded of others?
He had never questioned the Jurchen Great Khan's right to lead on the basis of qualifications alone.
That was because he had accepted the Jurchens, their culture, and their goals as realities from the beginning.
They had rough edges.
They were ignorant in many things.
But Youngwoo had first looked at their strength and direction.
He had thought those flaws could be corrected.
And in fact, they had tried to correct them.
Why could he not do the same with Go Youngchang?
Was it because Go Youngchang wanted to become king?
Because he had spoken the name of Balhae too easily?
Or because Youngwoo had seen Okjeong's face and watched that grandiose dream begin to pull an individual life into its wake?
Youngwoo slowly removed his hand from the folded document.
Go Youngchang was lacking.
He was dangerous.
But was that lack alone enough reason to abandon everyone here and walk away?
There were already Balhae soldiers in Liaoyang.
There were civilians inside the city.
There were young soldiers eating rice soup at Taepyeong Tavern.
They were not people who should die for Go Youngchang's throne.
Should I stay for a while?
The thought settled heavily in Youngwoo's mind.
Leaving would be easy.
He could simply draw a line and say this was someone else's country, someone else's dream, someone else's ambition.
But if Liaoyang burned after he left, and the people who had gathered under the name of Balhae once again became tools of rebellion and died for it, that too would not be easy to erase from his mind.
Youngwoo let out a deep breath.
He had no intention of making Go Youngchang king.
But he could not turn away from preventing Liaoyang from becoming a sea of blood overnight.
He needed to draw that line clearly.
He would not help with a throne.
He would not help establish a state name.
But he would help defend the city.
He would help feed the people.
He would help buy time between Jin and Liao.
For now.
Those words fit best.
He would not remain forever.
Only long enough to see whether Liaoyang could learn to stand on its own, or whether it would inevitably collapse under its own weight.
As the empire weakened, new states would spring up everywhere like mushrooms after rain.
This would only be one among many.
There was no need for him to pour his heart into every one of them.