Chapter 201 — Reading the Heavenly Current on Oryang Mountain 2
"There is a second matter."
"Wait, that was not the end?"
"Goryeo must become more deeply bound to Jin."
"We are already cooperating."
"That level is insufficient. It must go further."
"Grr…"
"One method would be to bind them like one country with two systems."
"Two systems?"
"Goryeo, Liaodong, the steppe… They can be kept separate like that, while moving as one."
"Oh, what kind of talk is that?"
"In the end, they must become one.
There will never be a better time than now."
"They will fight because each side wants to play king."
"That is why it must be now.
Right now, they can be bound with words."
"They must fill what the other lacks.
That side helps with agriculture, and this side contributes military horses."
"Oh, do we cooperate just to do that?"
"For now, it is at that level.
But later, they must become one.
To make that possible, they must be bound from now."
"..."
"Go to the palace.
Tell them Goryeo must cooperate more deeply than it does now.
If they are truly brother countries, they must share more than words. They must share strength as well.
More troops must be sent, and the framework must be drawn together."
"I told you I quit."
Oryang had shown the flow of the heavenly current and explained it in detail.
He had shown how Goryeo could last a thousand years, and how that peace could be secured.
And Oryang had clearly drawn the path Yeongu should take.
In history, the role of an individual is very small.
No, one wonders whether such a thing as a role exists at all.
Perhaps history is the suffering of people swept up in the waves of a vast sea.
Yet Oryang had objectified his persuasion through the words heavenly current, rather than presenting it as his own thought.
"This is not something I am saying. I merely speak according to what is written in Heaven. Whether one follows it or not is an existential choice made by the individual. I am not ordering you to do this or that. Who am I to do such a thing? I only told you that since things are like this, it would be good to act in this way."
Yeongu stuck out his lips.
He disliked nagging.
No matter how good the words were, if they went against the wave that flowed like his own inertia, they irritated him.
And now, words like heavenly current and history were being used to bind a person's free choice.
Yeongu grumbled quickly, almost like a complaint to himself.
"Oh, I do not know. I do not care what happens. You do not know how stubborn those bastards are. They have to listen before anything can be done. It will not work. Let them sit there like that and go ruin themselves. I helped them because of words like kin and brothers, and look what came of it."
It was almost a mutter to himself.
Oryang looked at Dorogan.
Dorogan had nothing to do with the discussion at hand, yet Oryang gave him unnecessary significance.
"What do you think, Dorogan? They say a peace of five hundred years, even a kingdom of a thousand years, incomparable to the peace of the past hundred years, could continue…"
"What could someone like me know?"
"You are the same kind of person, one with spiritual wisdom. Did you feel nothing from what I said?"
"I felt something like a strong current. I also understood that I had been swept into that current and carried all the way here."
Since Yeongu refused, Oryang spoke to Dorogan, who had no connection to the matter.
"Would you say more?"
"If Jin were to pacify the world, join with Goryeo, and create another empire that lasts a thousand years, and if that were a good world for all the people, then I think it would be truly beautiful to devote even the labor of a dog or horse to it."
"Yes, yes, that is right."
At Dorogan's words, Oryang clapped his hands in delight.
When he had interpreted the heavenly current as if reading the four pillars of fate, he had seemed like a solemn divine official.
Now he had become a child again.
Yeongu sank into thought.
If the world had already been arranged in that way, and if it had to be so, then what were the conditions of being human?
Was there any need to live while struggling so hard?
If one struggled and things ended up the same, and if one refused and things still ended up the same, then what did effort mean?
But why was Oryang speaking to Dorogan?
What possibility had he discovered in him?
Should Yeongu have freed him and sent him away long ago?
Yeongu agreed with the claim that Jin's brutality would bring about the same kind of resistance, that it was strong enough to found an empire but would eventually fall.
Such an end suited such bastards.
That was why he had left.
If he stayed beside wicked men, he too would become wicked.
No matter how loudly he shouted that it was not so, it would be useless.
Most countries and their people are the same.
The people of a hated country are cursed all the same, however noble their character may be.
His thoughts multiplied.
Yeongu rose, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked through the yard.
He went this way and that, circled around, and then looked down into the distance.
From outside, the inside could not be seen, but from inside, the view outside could be seen.
In particular, the lower landscape spread far into the distance.
Looking far away did not make his thoughts continue.
He merely stared into time as it stood still.
The claim that human beings possess spiritual wisdom is false.
However much he thought, nothing came to mind.
In a state of not knowing properly, a person simply chooses one thing.
Strictly speaking, he could not even be certain whether it had been his choice.
Since he had done what he had always done, perhaps it would be more accurate to call it inertia.
Yeongu walked back, breathing hard.
"So if I go back to the Jurchen…"
"Go and do well. Persuade them, and help them with the war and the founding of the empire."
"Then will that be enough?"
"That is why I went through the difficulty of interpreting this heavenly current. Doing this must have shortened my life by several years."
"Oh, come on. Who asked you to do that?"
Oryang explained calmly.
"Every being, to put it another way, is a kind of question. You are the same, living with the problem of your whole life. When my junior brother comes and asks what he should do, what am I to do? I must say that because matters are like this, he should do this."
"And if I do not?"
"Many people will suffer a little more."
Yeongu changed the question.
"Do you not think of my suffering?"
Oryang nodded as if acknowledging the point.
But the answer that came out was something entirely different.
"That is why I am telling you. If you do not do it, you will probably suffer more. Mm, so I think the hardship you went through before at Seonchunryeong was also part of that pattern. You should have pushed forward with strength in the positive direction, but because you did not, hardship came. You said you suffered at the hands of useless bastards, yes? That happened because you went against the flow of the heavenly current."
"No, how was I supposed to know anything about heavenly current or whatever back then?"
"You were supposed to join forces with the Jurchen, but you fought them as if one side had to die. So the invisible hand said, 'This fellow needs to be taught a lesson,' and gave you hardship."
Yeongu looked up at the sky.
An invisible hand.
If such a being truly existed, he wanted to return all this hardship exactly as it had come.
But then he thought quietly.
Oryang had no reason to lie.
Whether Yeongu did this or that, it brought Oryang no gain or loss.
He cared because Yeongu was his junior brother.
If his words were right, Yeongu had to go back and fight the war again.
Was that why Master had told him to visit Oryang?
Had he wanted Yeongu's heart to turn through the words he heard here?
But how could he persuade those hardheaded men?
We think people can be changed and persuaded.
But that is almost impossible.
People simply live as they have lived.
In the past, Yeongu would have confidently said he could do anything.
After several failures and hardships, he had lost confidence in people.
Yeongu asked again.
"Do I really have to go?"
Oryang smiled brightly.
"You may stay for a little while. But you must not delay too long. One great decisive battle will hasten the fall of the empire."
"The empire is Liao, yes?"
"Yes."
It was not so difficult for Oryang to persuade him.
By showing the heavenly current and telling him his role, Oryang made Yeongu ask like an obedient child.
"I truly do not want to go. Once I dislike something, I do not want to look back at it."
"Everyone is like that. They will still be waiting for you, Commander Jungnang."
"You said Goryeo must do something too."
"There will be someone to help with that."
"The Goryeo court was swarming with rebellious subjects and traitors…"
"You said it earlier. It is because of a hundred years of peace."
"Then should I stir up a sense of crisis?"
"They will try, by any means, to step aside from this flow. They will say, 'Why should we be the ones to step forward?'"