Chapter 377. The Road Back
Chonggi asked,
"Commander Yi, are you not coming back to the army anymore?"
"People do not want me there."
Chonggi's eyes widened.
"Surely not."
"That is how people are. If they do not want to see you, it is better not to keep showing up in front of them anyway."
"We do not feel that way. We won because of you, Commander."
"I did not help because I wanted praise. The Balhae people had nowhere else to go, so I helped. My part ended there."
"Then are you going back to Goryeo now?"
Youngwoo looked along the snow-covered road as he answered.
"I am not sure. I have no plans yet. I like Guangyou Temple, so I think I will stay there for a while."
"I understand."
Chonggi could vaguely sense the friction among people far above his own station.
For a moment, the thought crossed his mind that they should not be treating Youngwoo this way.
But what could he possibly do?
Chonggi dismounted and began walking beside him.
His horse followed slowly with the reins hanging loose.
"Commander Yi."
"Yes?"
Chonggi hesitated, choosing his words, then spoke quietly.
"You know how we feel, don't you?"
Youngwoo turned his head.
"Yes."
Chonggi continued, looking down the snowy road.
"During the two weeks on the way back, the things you showed us awakened the soldiers' spirit again. We had been trapped in defeat for a long time. All we could think was that nothing would work no matter what we did. We thought we needed some grand solution, and because that grand solution was beyond our reach, we believed there was nothing we could do at all."
He glanced back at the soldiers pushing the carts.
"But what you told us was very simple. Keep the spacing between front and rear ranks during a march. Store horse fodder separately from the grain meant for men. Dry wet arrows immediately and sort out the ones with damaged fletching. At night, do not assign sentries only to watch people—have them watch the horses too. When making camp, do not leave carts scattered wherever they happen to stop; turn them into windbreaks and barriers. On snowy roads, widen the hoofprints left by the first horses so the carts following behind do not sink. Before a battle begins, decide where the water, firewood, and arrows will be stored, and decide in advance who will drag the wounded out when someone goes down. None of it sounds extraordinary when you say it aloud. But once we changed those things one by one, the men became less exhausted, fewer horses were injured, and there was less confusion at night. That was when it finally began to feel as though we were becoming an army."
Youngwoo shook his head.
Did I really nag them that much?
Because he could not see himself directly, he saw himself through others.
Words spoken from another person's mouth returned like a mirror and reflected him back at himself.
Youngwoo felt his face grow warm for no reason.
Of all things in the world, he hated nagging.
What he hated even more was unsolicited advice.
He knew better than most how irritating it was when someone looked down on another person's life in the name of advice, or judged another person's steps in the form of nagging.
And yet he had done both.
He could say that he had meant well.
He had wanted them to avoid injury.
He had wanted the army to hold together better.
He had wanted the Balhae soldiers to survive.
But good intentions did not make nagging cease to be nagging.
It had only turned out well because they had accepted what he said.
Had they refused, it could just as easily have become arrogant interference.
Only after listening to Chonggi did Youngwoo realize how much he had been talking all this time.
Marching intervals.
Horse fodder.
Arrows.
Camp layout.
Night watch.
The placement of carts.
Every one of those things had seemed necessary to him.
To the people listening, it might have sounded like an endless stream of criticism.
He gave a short laugh.
It was a laugh of embarrassment and relief at the same time.
"You are giving me too much credit."
He had criticized easily because they were different.
He saw many things.
And once he saw them, he had found it difficult to simply let them pass.
He thought they were problems.
He thought the difficulties coming in the near future would begin from those very problems.
No.
That was not all.
He had believed he knew better than they did.
He had believed things would improve if they changed them the way he said.
That belief must have been present in every word he spoke.
Why had he become so attached to people and a place he intended to leave behind anyway?
Perhaps things he should have done long ago, but failed to do, had remained somewhere inside him.
Perhaps the things he had once missed were now appearing again in front of these people, and he felt that letting them pass a second time would leave him uneasy for a long while.
Youngwoo lowered his gaze to the snow for a moment, then said briefly,
"You are giving me too much credit."
Chonggi did not back away.
"The same goes for archery and for the preparations when making camp. You always said it was simply the Goryeo way, or the Jurchen way, or something you had seen somewhere else. You said everyone already knew these things. But those were exactly the things our army needed most."
Youngwoo fell silent for a moment.
The cartwheels creaked over the snowy road.
Ahead of them, the monks were tightening the ropes around the bundles of firewood.
Then Youngwoo smiled lightly.
"It was the feeling of an older brother hoping his married sister would live well."
Chonggi did not laugh.
Instead, his expression became even more respectful.
"No matter what those above us may say, please do not forget that the warriors of Balhae still respect and care for you."
Youngwoo gave a small laugh.
The smile soon brightened.
He had found a sense of fulfillment in an unexpected place.
It was something he had forgotten amid political arguments and the weariness of betrayal.
"Thank you."
The feeling reached him more deeply than he let show, but Youngwoo answered only briefly.
He was still not good at receiving praise, accepting gratitude, or showing what he felt.
When they returned through the south gate, a group of people was waiting there.
They were members of the Balhae leadership.
Apparently, word had reached them that Youngwoo had gone out to gather firewood.
He did not want to face them again.
Youngwoo wrapped himself in his cloak and blended into the rear of the procession.
While Chonggi went ahead to report something, Youngwoo quietly slipped into a side alley.
Then he took a long detour through the inner streets of the city.
He had done nothing wrong, yet he was avoiding them.
Did that mean he had done something wrong after all?
What had he done wrong?
What had I done?
He trudged down the alley.
The road was slippery in places.
Lazy fools had not even cleared the snow in front of their own houses.
It had been trampled down and frozen smooth, shining beneath his feet.
He had told them not to come to the temple, so they probably would not.
Youngwoo took the long way around and headed back toward Guangyou Temple.