Chapter 79. Black Death (2)
His adjutants once again advised Lee Ja-song to retreat, but even then, Lee Ja-song brushed aside their opinions. Then, just like that, he gathered all the remaining troops and marched toward Guisui.
After that, one week...….
It had come to the present situation.
If things had gone according to the plan from when the expedition was first commenced, by now they could have been leisurely surrounding and assaulting Guisui Fortress. But now, many things had changed.
According to the news sent by the messenger, the Datong General Headquarters had already been completely surrounded by twenty thousand enemy cavalry and was on the verge of falling. In short, it was a situation where they might lose the expeditionary army's main headquarters.
Even so, they could not withdraw from here. In a situation where the plague was raging severely inside the camp, there was no way to predict how many soldiers would be able to return to Datong alive.
If, in such a situation, Timur Khan were to open the gates of Guisui Fortress and strike the retreating allied forces from behind, and at the same time the cavalry besieging Datong were to swiftly block the front of the allied forces, then that could happen.
If that happened.....
There would be no need to see any further to know the result.
Still, continuing the siege like this without any gains was also a burden.
Dozens of people were dying every single day from the plague. And hundreds more were collapsing, just waiting for the day they would die. There was not even any proper battle to speak of... yet simply because of the plague, the plague, and again the plague, the soldiers were falling into a state of being unable to fight.
Naturally, the morale of the entire army had fallen to the ground, and there were even deserters appearing because of the plague.
As a result, Lee Ja-song had no other path left.
"Guisui! We only need to capture Guisui!"
If he could just bring down that place, that fortress, he would save his own life, and in the end, even prepare a foothold for his comeback!
Thud! Thud!
Even as he was shouting, arrows rained down from Guisui Fortress, and more than ten soldiers were dying. Even so, Lee Ja-song's voice only grew louder. To him, his own life and success were tens of thousands of times more important than the trivial lives of the soldiers, so he absolutely could not lower his voice.
The madness of the plague was gnawing away not only at the soldiers' lives, but already at Lee Ja-song's entire body, and even his mind.
"Shoot! Keep shooting!"
At Lee Ja-song's endlessly continuing orders, the attack went on without pause, and the soldiers were gradually growing exhausted.
Even now, from Guisui Mountain Fortress, there was no special response other than shooting arrows at those who tried to approach and at the whirlwind gunners.
Was this what it felt like to try to build a dike by throwing stones into the vast Yellow River? Lee Ja-song and the soldiers were getting exhausted by their own efforts.
'That bastard already knew about this whole situation....'
Lee Ja-song thought that perhaps all of this had been planned by Timur Khan. Somehow, the way things were unfolding felt exactly like that. From the start, could it be that the reason they had not gone to rescue Liangcheng or Manhan Mountain even after sending out twenty thousand cavalry was because they already knew about the outbreak of the plague?
"Damn it!"
He spat out a curse to himself. It was not as if doing so would make any clever plan appear, but if he did not at least do that, he felt like he would go insane.
Just what in the world was he supposed to do? He was the one doing the besieging... and yet he was the one in danger!
It felt as if he were surrounded in triple layers by invisible enemies.
"This damn it...."
Now, even in Lee Ja-song's curses, there was hardly any vigor left.
Because of that, perhaps? Even though the entire army was attacking, all the soldiers looked utterly listless.
If a miracle did not happen, they would head straight toward annihilation.
And in that state, just as Lee Ja-song was about to give the order to attack once again—
"Governor-General. The mercenaries are now entering the camp."
A soldier approached, knelt before Lee Ja-song, and informed him of Dong Bong-su's arrival.
In Lee Ja-song's anxious eyes, a long-unseen light flickered.
"Ear Ghost has come?"
"Yes, sir."
Ear Ghost had come. Yes, if it were that man, if it were that man...….
"Bring him to the command post. I will meet him personally."
With those words, Lee Ja-song spurred his horse and headed toward the command post.
***
Dong Bong-su had already arrived at the command post. He had walked here without rest for the past several days. Fortunately, it seemed he was still in the incubation period, but no one could know when the disease would break out.
If it were to break out in him...….
No one could predict what would happen here. Only that, to everyone here except Dong Bong-su, it would be a disaster....
That much was certain.
Shrrrk.
The flap hanging at the entrance of the command post was lifted, and Lee Ja-song appeared. His face had grown even more gaunt over the past few days, and a deep shadow lay beneath his eyes. As usual, Adjutant Dang was following behind him.
The eyes of Dong Bong-su and Lee Ja-song collided through Dong Bong-su's long hair. But Lee Ja-song still could not tell at all what he was thinking. It was not because he could not see his eyes.
It was just... just that he could not know.
Isn't that how it is? When you look into a deep well, you see nothing but empty darkness and feel nothing at all. It felt like he was looking into such a well, a well that seemed to be thousands of zhang deep all the way to the bottom.
"You should also have heard and know well about the situation here. I will ask directly. What should I do?"
It was not "What should I do?" or "What would be good to do?" It was a question demanding a definitive answer: what must be done.
Dong Bong-su stared at Lee Ja-song for a moment.
That somehow suffocating aura. In the end, Lee Ja-song had no choice but to slightly turn his head away. He still could not tell the cause.
Then, Dong Bong-su's flat voice drilled into his ears.
"Give me control of the catapults."
Perhaps for the rest of his life, it would be hard to meet someone like this again....
Could there really be another person in the world for whom such a tone suited so well? Before even thinking about what Dong Bong-su had said, that thought passed through Lee Ja-song's mind.
"Catapults? You mean the whirlwind cannons?"
The whirlwind cannon was a siege weapon that had been used in the Central Plains for the past several hundred years. It was a weapon that had developed greatly from the primitive form used in the Spring and Autumn period. By driving a pillar called a Sky-Piercing Pillar into the ground to align the whole structure and then placing the main components on top so they could rotate, it was designed as a long-range weapon. As one could tell from the fact that it could rotate, the advantage of this weapon was that it could quickly change its firing direction. Its structure and assembly were very simple, so one could just carry the parts and easily assemble and use it whenever needed. Because of that, during large-scale expeditions, a separate corps of whirlwind gunners specializing in operating it would be mobilized. Of course, in this Guisui Expedition as well, nearly five thousand whirlwind gunners had come along.
What Dong Bong-su was asking now was to let him freely operate those whirlwind cannons.
"That's right. And immediately, withdraw the camp's fortifications back to the Yellow River behind us."
Even just the matter of the whirlwind cannons was quite an excessive demand, but Dong Bong-su's words did not end there.
"Withdraw the camp to the southern Yellow River? Are you telling me to prepare for a retreat right now?"
"No. Just pull the camp back, and kill or thoroughly wash all the animals inside the camp. The soldiers are no exception. All those who you are certain are already infected must be killed, and those who are not infected must immediately wash their bodies clean in the Yellow River."
"...….."
Lee Ja-song could not understand at all why he was saying such things, but somehow he felt trust.
Moreover, now, the only lifeline Lee Ja-song could grasp was Ear Ghost, Dong Bong-su. If there had been another rope, it might have been considered, but now he was in no position to pick and choose.
He pretended to think for a moment, then answered that he would do all of that.
Dong Bong-su's words continued right away.
"Lastly, do not bury or burn the corpses of the soldiers who died of the plague. Move them all to the vicinity where the catapults are placed."
This time as well, Lee Ja-song said he understood.
'As expected....'
This man was different. Judging from how he said all of this smoothly, as if he had been waiting, the moment he met him, he must have had something planned in advance!
What Dong Bong-su was asking for was not that difficult. He was not asking for overall command, just control of the catapults, and to move the camp a little to the rear.
When the conversation ended, Dong Bong-su brushed past Lee Ja-song and walked toward the entrance of the command tent.
Shrrrk.
It was strange. Until recently, the sound of the flap being lifted had sounded gloomy, but now it sounded rather light.
Lee Ja-song pricked up his ears and, toward Dong Bong-su's back as he was about to go out, said:
"Are you confident?"
There was no need to specify the subject or the objective of that question.
Halt.
Dong Bong-su's steps stopped.
The strands of hair that had been pushed up as he moved fell down and lightly tapped against Dong Bong-su's cheeks and chin. If that sight looked like the whirlwind cannonballs uselessly pounding against the walls of Guisui Fortress, was that just Lee Ja-song's imagination?
"It will turn out the way you want."
It was not much different from the answer he had heard when he first met him in Datong.
[I am merely giving you the answer you want.]
Leaving those words behind, just like then, Dong Bong-su disappeared from before Lee Ja-song's eyes.
Shrrrra.
The flap that had been roughly slapping against Dong Bong-su's cheek was now just bumping into itself and making noisy sounds.
Lee Ja-song stayed still until the flap completely stopped, then leaned his waist back, smacked his lips, and said:
"Will it really turn out the way I want...?"
And do you know the true answer that I want...?
His hollow inner thoughts crashed against the flap and shattered, unable to go any further.
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