270.
Strategic Council — Three Heroes and the Path of a Single State
Inside a temporary camp on the outskirts of the city, late spring rain drifted lightly outside.
Within the tent, generals and civil officials sat around a round table.
Spread upon it was a large map, marked with three red points: Jinling, Pingjiang, and Poyang Lake.
The three points stood opposed, each checking the others.
Yi In-jung rose and spoke.
"A sealed directive has arrived from the King.
We are to observe the situation in Jiangnan, follow the Yuan's wishes where possible, yet not forfeit Goryeo's interests.
In other words, the choice of sides is left to our judgment."
One civil official nodded.
"That means the court itself has yet to decide.
The Yuan's momentum is already broken, and the three southern states all seek independence."
Yi In-jung gestured toward the map.
The vertical crease between his brows deepened.
"First, Chen Youliang.
He commands the largest army and controls the rivers and lakes.
His blood runs hot, his civil governance is coarse.
If we ally with him, military merit comes quickly.
But promises made to such a man do not endure."
His finger moved to Pingjiang.
"Zhang Shicheng.
Lord of a wealthy commercial city.
His coffers are deep, his fortresses solid, and the quality of his troops is even.
To aid him is much like aiding the merchant guilds.
He is strong now—but can one truly walk with him for long?
A merchant changes the moment conditions change.
One cannot lean the fate of the world upon that."
Finally, he pointed to Jinling.
"Zhu Yuanzhang.
He began as a monk and mastered both civil and martial arts.
His discipline is strict, and the people follow him.
That sharpness cuts both ways.
To stand with him brings advantage—but his gaze may one day press upon us as well."
A brief silence settled over the council.
Park Seong-jin spoke at last.
"I have heard that Zhu Yuanzhang gathers the common people and forbids plunder even on the battlefield.
If so, is he not a man who knows how to build a state, even while fighting?"
An old general let out a short laugh.
"Young man.
The world does not turn on ideals alone.
Today one speaks for the people; tomorrow one may be forced to cut their throats.
Those who dream of kingship always offer their subjects as sacrifice."
What did that mean?
It sounded as though he were saying the truth lay elsewhere.
Park Seong-jin lowered his head, yet his thoughts had already moved on.
In the end, the one who orders the battlefield commands the flow.
Yi In-jung continued.
"Our purpose is not to choose one among the three.
It is to watch all three, and secure our place at the moment the balance tilts.
Call it Goryeo's share.
We must be a little shrewd."
His voice remained calm.
"When Chen Youliang marches north, we sever his rear.
When Zhang Shicheng loses Pingjiang, we seize the ports.
When Zhu Yuanzhang takes the world, we connect the roads.
That is our strategy."
A civil official asked carefully,
"And how do we bear the Yuan court's scrutiny?
If we act independently, they may call it disrespect."
Yi In-jung smiled quietly.
"The Yuan is far away.
And we have secured freedom of action in matters of tactics.
This is no longer the time when we merely obeyed Toghto's commands."
Silence passed.
He turned to Park Seong-jin.
"Seong-jin.
Have the Hwajugun advance along the southern riverlines and observe the borders of the three states.
Do not draw the sword first.
Avoid battle."
Park Seong-jin rose and bowed.
"I will carry out the order."
Outside the tent, the rain was easing.
Through the opening, the southern sky was faintly tinged with red.
Beyond it, three kings watched one another.
Into the narrow space between them, the banner of Goryeo began to slip, cautiously.
Many things had changed.
War was now a familiar face.
After being thrown into great battles again and again, the body now responded before thought.
Park Seong-jin pitched camp on a hill overlooking the muddy flow of the Yangtze.
Though his unit had arrived as an advance force, they obeyed the order not to move rashly.
The direction and purpose of battle had not yet been revealed.
They had marched in the name of aiding the Yuan, yet in practice operated independently.
Unlike before, Yuan forces were collapsing on all fronts.
Without a figure like Toghto to gather the armies, provincial troops emerged unprepared and fell apart.
To treat all three Jiangnan states as enemies required deep consideration.
To aid one meant inevitably to oppose another.
Hasty intervention risked disordering the state's interests.
Avoid battle wherever possible.
That was the will of Yi In-jung, Supreme Commander and Field Marshal.
The more the situation was weighed, the clearer it became that this unresolved balance favored Goryeo.
Park Seong-jin understood that judgment precisely.
He had already passed through one war; his body remembered the grain of battle.
"Hey, General!"
As Park Seong-jin gazed across the river, he turned at the sound of a familiar voice.
It was Oh Jin-cheol.
Still wearing dust-stained armor, he approached with an easy grin.
They were old comrades.
They had marched together from their first campaign, shared life and death through successive deployments.
They had parted briefly on the road to Hwaju, but when war opened again, they met once more.
Now Oh Jin-cheol was a daejeong, and Park Seong-jin a jungnangjang.
A daejeong commanded twenty-five men.
"You've been promoted," Park said.
"Thanks to you, Jungnangjang."
"I've done nothing."
"That's the problem.
I should've gone thin and long, but now that I've been promoted, my thread of life feels shorter.
Worried my head might roll first."
"You're doing well enough as it is."
"People who say that—I remember them all.
People like you.
Looking back, we were all too hasty.
I never understood why everyone rushed so much, or why they ignored what they were told.
They rushed—and then they were gone.
I can't afford to be like that…"
At the plain truth of it, Park Seong-jin laughed softly.
When one first commands a unit, one's view widens.
At the same time, small things become visible first.
Discernment comes only with time.
Fail to cross that threshold, and it becomes one's limit.
Given the same soldiers, one commander sees courage and effort first.
Another points out shortcomings.
Park Seong-jin now understood that difference clearly.
He stood where knowledge was passed on.
On the battlefield, he was no longer merely the one who learned.
"It takes time."
"When battle opens, it feels like it'll all be swept away before that."
"Repeat the training.
Run battle like training, and training like battle."
"Ah, that again.
You mean drill it into us?
That's what we're good at."
"The flow is the same.
Before the terror of battle, the body often freezes.
I passed through that stage myself.
People speak of courage, but if the body stiffens, it's useless.
You shoot arrows into empty air without seeing anything.
You do nothing.
Training is how you overcome that."
He paused, then continued.
"A trained soldier moves by the rhythm of training.
Even when the chest feels ready to burst, the motions continue to the end.
That is how one survives."
Oh Jin-cheol, newly made daejeong, turned the words over in his mind.
They were obvious words; only execution remained.
Many reasons flickered past, yet the direction of the advice did not waver.
Once, Park Seong-jin had stood beside him and learned.
Now he was sharing a path he had already walked.
Time had passed, and the grain of their relationship had changed.
Park fell silent and looked again across the river.
The water was still turbid, and distant shouts rode the wind.
"Back then, on my first campaign, you said this to me:
'Make the body remember.
Fear comes from the head, but the body knows the way to live.'
I followed that.
That day I thought my breath would stop, but thanks to it, I endured."
Oh Jin-cheol looked at him in silence for a long while.
The boy who once looked to him for recognition was now a jungnangjang.
At last, he chuckled quietly.
"So I said something like that.
I don't even remember…
Was I really that fine a man?"
Park laughed as well.
"You were.
A man who cared for his men.
That was the beginning of my training.
I did as you said—and I survived."
"Seems you really did practice hard."
They stood side by side in silence.
The wind brushed the metal of their scarred armor.
Without words, they understood the time they shared.
What had been said and taught then now sustained their lives.
All of our present is an accumulation of lives already lived.