Chapter 307: Training, and More Training — Part 1
Meanwhile, Lee Youngwoo devoted himself entirely to preparing the army.
His task was to ensure that every horse, every suit of armor, every bowstring, and every arrowhead was fit to endure an actual battlefield.
Every morning before dawn, Youngwoo began with the armory.
He inspected the bend of each spear shaft, checked how firmly the spearheads were set, and examined the draw weight of the bows and the dryness of their strings. He spread out the armor, searching for missing iron plates, then tugged at every leather cord that showed signs of decay.
Some equipment looked impressive at first glance, yet the moment he applied pressure with his fingers, the weak points revealed themselves.
He set those pieces aside and laid them out before the craftsmen.
"First, they must survive."
That was the standard by which Youngwoo judged everything.
He demanded function before appearance. The iron plates did not need to be identical in size, but the overlap between them had to remain even. An arrow striking at an angle must not be able to slip through a gap. The chest and flanks must remain covered when a rider twisted in the saddle.
The back and shoulders needed enough freedom for movement. The abdomen and thighs required space to fold naturally when the soldier mounted a horse.
The first suits of armor were crude.
Iron plates had been placed over cloth and bound together with leather cords, but the rows were uneven, the shoulders were stiff, and the lower section often struck against the saddle. When cavalrymen wore them at a gallop, the plates caught against one another and restricted movement. On some suits, the cords snapped and the iron pieces scattered to the ground.
Youngwoo dismantled one of the suits on the spot.
He changed the position of the holes through which the cords passed, shortened the plates below the waist by an inch, and replaced the shoulder plates with smaller pieces.
He called forward different soldiers and made them repeat the same movements over and over: raising an arm to draw a bow, thrusting with a spear, lifting a shield.
Armor had to protect the wearer while moving with him.
They had to find the proper balance between the two.
After several days, the armor began to take shape.
Thin iron plates overlapped like scales over layers of cloth and thick leather. The cords were secured tightly from the inside. Whenever the wearer moved, the silver plates brushed against one another with a soft metallic ripple.
Up close, the workmanship remained rough. Yet when the soldiers stood in formation beneath the sunlight, the surface of the armor gleamed like waves.
Its beauty did not come from a craftsman's vanity. It came from the firm balance of an object that performed its purpose well.
Once the soldiers' armor had been improved, Youngwoo immediately turned his attention to protecting the horses.
The horses had to survive as well.
No matter how well protected the rider was, if his horse fell beneath a volley of arrows, he would be thrown to the ground.
Separate horse armor was made to cover the neck, chest, flanks, and hindquarters. Too much weight would prevent the horse from running for long, so iron plates were placed densely over the chest and the back of the neck, while leather and quilted cloth were used along the sides.
They even measured how far the horse's chest expanded while breathing and adjusted the straps accordingly.
The training ground soon became a testing field.
Armored horses walked, ran, stopped, and changed direction. They checked whether the plates covered the horse's eyes when it shook its head, whether the straps beneath the saddle cut into its skin, and whether too much heat gathered along its back after a long run.
Youngwoo watched even the breath from the horses' nostrils and the movement of their ears.
When the equipment did not fit, the horse showed discomfort before anyone else noticed.
Learning to recognize that discomfort was another way of keeping the soldiers alive.
They also added shields to withstand volleys of arrows.
A cavalry shield that was too large made it difficult to wield a spear. One that was too small failed to protect the face and neck.
Youngwoo narrowed the shield and lengthened it. The outside was covered in leather, the inside was built from several thin layers of wood, and the rim was reinforced with iron.
When a rider hooked it over his left arm and lowered his body, it protected his face, chest, and even the front of the horse's neck in a single line.
Youngwoo made the soldiers relearn how to use their shields from the beginning.
He taught them to watch the direction of incoming arrows, to read the wind, and to keep their spacing by observing the backs of the men and horses ahead of them.
When each shield protected only its own bearer, the formation broke apart.
Only when the shields overlapped could the rain of arrows flow past them.
Youngwoo forced them to learn it through repeated movement.
"One man does not stop the arrows. Ten men stop them together. The edge of your shield is the life of the man beside you."
At first, the soldiers complained.
The armor was heavy. The horse armor took too much effort to fasten. The shields made movement cumbersome.
Then the instructors with bows loosed volleys at them from close range, and the soldiers' expressions changed.
Arrows bounced from the iron plates, slid across the leather, and struck the reinforced rims of the shields before veering aside.
The horses flinched at first, but repeated training gradually accustomed them to the noise.
Youngwoo ordered records to be kept after every test.
They noted which armor straps wore out quickly, which horses showed discomfort beneath their protection, and which soldiers raised their shields too high and blocked their own vision.
Training was a place to prove courage, but it was also a place to uncover weaknesses and correct them.
Youngwoo did not discard failed equipment without first identifying the cause.
The material of the cords, the thickness of the plates, the spacing of the holes, the curve of the shoulders, the shape of the horse, even the length of a soldier's arms—all of it could be improved.
Several days later, another inspection was held.
The cavalrymen stood in rows.
The soldiers wore silver armor, while the horses breathed low beneath protection covering their necks and chests. Shields hung from left arms, and spearpoints caught the sunlight.
The armor gave a soft metallic ripple whenever they moved, like the sound of gently flowing water.
What it carried within it was not decoration, but survival.
Youngwoo walked slowly before the formation.
He tugged on one man's straps, pressed down on another man's shoulder plates, and tightened the girth beneath a horse.
Whenever his hand reached them, the soldiers straightened their backs.
He was building an army that could survive and break through.
An army that could advance through a storm of arrows, rise again after falling, and maintain its formation even after the first collision.
That was Youngwoo's way.
He trusted inspection more than loud words, and preparation more than momentum.
Piece by piece, he assembled the conditions needed to survive the battlefield.
One iron plate, one leather cord, one horse, and one soldier's breath at a time, he prepared for war.