The Battle of Taiping太平(nomination, great peace)
The Taiping region along the northern bank of the Yangtze lay crushed beneath thick fog and clammy damp from before dawn.
Steam rising from the river tangled with the chill of the night, and the fog hung in heavy masses.
Shapes a few steps ahead blurred into nothing.
A sound, once made, was swallowed right beside the ear.
Banner colors, drum directions, even human breath lost their bearings.
Within that fog, two great armies faced each other.
Chen Youliang's forces, advancing eastward, and Zhu Yuanzhang's army blocking their path.
Their meeting was the fate of the battlefield.
Skirmishes large and small had flared across many fronts, but this was the first time such massive forces collided head-on.
That the place bore the name Taiping—"Great Peace"—left an eerie resonance.
The world gives its gentlest names to its most brutal places.
To the west stood Chen Youliang's army of one hundred eighty thousand.
Naval forces tempered at Wuchang and Hanyang, and cavalry hardened across countless fields, formed its core—troops who knew both river and land.
To the east stood Zhu Yuanzhang's two hundred thousand.
Infantry from Yingtian and Shangzhou surged like a sea to form their lines.
Spears and shields rose like waves, and behind them stretched an endless procession of men.
The two sides arrayed themselves across the river.
Dozens of warships floated upon the water.
Black ash drifted atop the current.
This was on a scale incomparable to the lingering fires of Jiju or Yangzhou.
This was not a battle for a single fortress, but a battle for the realm itself.
Fog also blanketed the southern fields of Taiping.
Chen Youliang's main force camped along the riverbank.
A day earlier, eight thousand Goryeo troops under Park Seong-jin had already arrived.
They remeasured the waterways, checked the flow and depth of the river.
Preparations for fire attack were complete.
The spark had not yet been lit, but the battlefield was already moving by the logic of fire.
That night, Chen Youliang summoned Park Seong-jin.
"They say you read the course of battle well."
Park Seong-jin looked up at the sky, then back to the ground.
Study had descended from text into sense.
Since his middle danjeon had opened, he could see the grain of the wind and feel the nature of water.
The path was visible; walking it was the task of men.
The shape of things coming into being appeared—caught, felt.
"Tonight the wind blows from the southeast.
The current presses northwest.
If fire is set now, Heaven will be on Your Majesty's side.
Light it from their side and drive it in."
Chen Youliang's eyes gleamed briefly.
The first flame of the Battle of Taiping was decided by Park Seong-jin's counsel.
Taiping, Day One
At dawn, Chen Youliang summoned Zhu Deming, the general who had come with him from Hanyang.
"The enemy will attempt to cross the river.
Kill them on the water."
The fire attack was already prepared.
The wind blew from the southeast.
Chen Youliang gazed over the river and said quietly,
"This wind is an opportunity Heaven has given me."
Wooden boats soaked in wax and oil were released into the river mouth.
Each carried dried reeds, charcoal powder, and pine resin.
The smell spread across the water first.
Human hearts are shaken by scent before sight.
The moment Zhu Yuanzhang's vanguard began to cross, the order fell.
"Ignite!"
In an instant, the river's surface flushed red.
Flames raced across the water, turning it into a River of Fire.
Burning boats lurched forward, spreading flames to enemy ships.
Zhu Yuanzhang's war vessels became blazing masses and exploded, soldiers leaping into the water.
Fire lived and moved even atop the river.
"The water is burning!"
"Fall back!"
"Abandon ship!"
The river became not a battle of water, but a battle of fire.
By evening, Zhu Yuanzhang's Jiangdu flotilla was thrown into chaos.
Half the supplies burned in a single stroke.
As materiel burned, so too did men's hearts.
Taiping, Day Two
At dawn the next day, with fog still clinging to the fields, Chen Youliang reorganized his lines.
He withdrew the navy and placed thirty thousand cavalry at the front.
"Yesterday, the water burned.
Today, the land burns."
Zhu Yuanzhang's infantry pressed in pursuit.
But five thousand Goryeo soldiers lay hidden in the brush along both sides of the route.
Their battlefield was not one of collision, but of ignition.
From a hilltop, Park Seong-jin read the wind.
The tremble of grass became the signal.
"The wind is right.
Loose."
Thousands of arrows poured down at once.
Fire spread, smoke swallowed the view.
Order collapsed.
Chen Youliang's cavalry charged in behind the flames.
"Now.
Sound the iron drums!"
The cavalry struck.
The enemy line buckled.
The opposing general, Zhang Shiliang, fell.
The collapse of one man became the collapse of all.
By midday, Zhu Yuanzhang's forces broke and fled north.
Across the fields of Taiping lay burned bows and shattered banners.
What fell before the banners was the faith placed in them.
Amid the roars, Chen Youliang saw the dream of an emperor.
Beneath that dream lay a burning river
and a burning plain.