Chapter 313. Prelude to the Great Battle 1
Yi Yeongu and Wanyan Zonghan sat facing each other.
Yeongu spoke in a low voice.
"There comes a time in a person's life—perhaps only once, truly only once—when he must give everything he has.
Not merely until his strength runs out, but one step beyond even that."
Zonghan slowly nodded.
"I feel as though I have lived my entire life that way."
Yeongu looked directly at him.
"You must do more than that."
Zonghan fell silent for a moment and searched through his memories.
He had always stood at the front on the battlefield.
He had never avoided dangerous roads, nor pushed difficult orders onto others. Wherever he had been placed, he had given all the strength he possessed, and at times had borne burdens that demanded even more.
Yet Yeongu did not seem to be speaking merely of courage in battle.
He meant something beyond the strength of a hand holding a sword, beyond the resolve to command an army, beyond the determination to crush an enemy.
It sounded closer to casting aside even the final calculation kept hidden within oneself and throwing one's entire being into the fate of an age.
Zonghan asked,
"If even that is not enough, then what exactly are you asking of me?"
Yeongu answered quietly.
"Do not fight merely to win. Fight like a man who has no choice but to win.
Do not advance merely to earn merit. Advance as though the tomorrow of everyone behind you rests upon your shoulders.
This battle demands that much."
Zonghan sank into thought.
What was he truly trying to say?
This Yi Jungnangjang, never particularly gifted with words, was once again asking something of him today, yet Zonghan still could not quite grasp it.
He thought for a long while before speaking again.
Wanyan Zonghan was tall and lean.
There was hard strength stretched over a spare frame. His face was long, his cheekbones prominent, and his eyes sat deep beneath his brow. Even when he smiled, only the corners of his mouth moved slightly.
His beard was short and carefully kept, while his face and the backs of his hands bore the roughened color of a man seasoned by the northern wind.
His armor carried the unmistakable air of actual battle.
Iron plates and leather cords were fitted tightly together, and the places his hands touched most often had been worn smooth. In the saddle, his body scarcely swayed.
Every movement he made was short and restrained. The men around him often steadied their breathing before he ever drew his sword.
Among commanders famed for courage, Zonghan was the kind of supreme commander who coldly read the structure of war itself.
Whether the enemy numbered one hundred thousand or seven hundred thousand, sheer numbers did not intimidate him. He looked instead at what such an army required in order to move.
A narrow road stretched a great army into a long column.
Delayed provisions unsettled soldiers.
Tired horses slowed cavalry.
Tribal troops changed their loyalties according to the scent of victory and defeat.
Zonghan was a man who found those weaknesses and moved armies through them.
That was why men feared him.
He rarely shouted in anger, yet generals remained tense in his presence. His orders needed little explanation. Once they were given, everyone in the command tent found his place and moved.
If Wanyan Zongwang was a commander who won men's hearts, Wanyan Zonghan was a commander who mastered the movement of the battlefield.
He placed men within the direction of the war and made the army move along that direction.
At first, Zonghan had found Yeongu troublesome.
The young commander from Goryeo wanted armor redesigned, more arrows manufactured, better protection for horses, and even changes to the way experienced generals fought.
Every suggestion meant craftsmen, soldiers, and clerks had to move.
The command camp was frequently thrown into commotion, and veteran warriors who had spent their lives fighting hardened their faces whenever Yeongu opened his mouth.
But Zonghan judged men by results.
After Yeongu began interfering, the army truly changed.
Soldiers equipped with improved armor advanced through volleys of arrows.
Horses protected by barding survived the first impact of a charge.
Archers who once loosed independently began releasing their arrows to a single rhythm.
Those changes could be seen directly on the battlefield.
Zonghan saw them.
From that point onward, the way he looked at Yi Yeongu changed.
The young Goryeo commander's awkward words were at once advice, instruction, and request.
They became iron and leather, horses and provisions, training and tactics.
That was why Zonghan no longer let Yeongu's words pass unheard.
Whenever Yeongu spoke, Zonghan listened first.
Then he summoned commanders and craftsmen and had the idea tested.
If it proved useful, he immediately put it into the army.
Yeongu's words no longer ended inside a council tent.
By the following day, they took physical form in training grounds and arsenals.
Wanyan Zonghan was a commander who grasped the battlefield as a whole.
Within his command tent, the courage of generals, the exhaustion of soldiers, the condition of horses, the flow of supplies, and the intentions of tribal forces all came together before him.
He gathered all of them into a single direction and moved the army accordingly.
Wanyan Zonghan was a cold and unyielding supreme commander.
If Zongwang embraced men, Zonghan moved armies.
He led war through judgment and command.
He read the structure of battle with ruthless clarity.
Strict.
Demanding.
Frightening.
And cruel.
Such a man now asked carefully,
"Tell me. What do you wish me to do?"
Yeongu drew a long breath.
He looked once more over the sheets spread before them, the earthen model of the battlefield, and the positions of the armies.
"If we meet them head-on, we will suffer badly.
Until now, we have won by shaking the enemy first, widening the opening that appears, and then driving the heavy cavalry through it.
But this time there are simply too many of them.
Even if we shake the front ranks, the troops behind them will support them again. Push one side, and another will hold.
It is like a massive boulder rolling down a hill.
It may look slow, but if you stand in front of it, it will simply crush you."
Zonghan listened without speaking.
Both men already knew this.
They had drawn up plans, trained their soldiers, gathered intelligence, reconsidered every possibility, and still no clear answer had appeared.
Seven hundred thousand men.
Twenty thousand against seven hundred thousand.
"So we must abandon the idea of receiving them from the front.
We should not try to defeat their entire army.
We must shake the place where the emperor's great standard stands.
That enormous army ultimately moves while watching the emperor's banner.
If that banner wavers, the tribal forces will be the first to lose heart.
We do not need to destroy the entire Liao army.
We need to destroy their belief that the emperor is safe."
Yeongu pointed to the center of the earthen battlefield.
"There is only one thing I ask of you.
Commander, hold the central army firmly in place.
Make them believe the main Jin force is standing there and will continue to stand there.
While they focus on you, I will find the weakest point and go in.
I may not reach the emperor's banner itself.
But if I can disrupt the guards before it and shake their chain of command, that will be enough."
Zonghan asked quietly,
"Then what is the problem?"
"The problem is that the present situation refuses to change."
Yeongu stared down at the battlefield.
"I wish someone would shake it just once."
Frustrating.
Insufficient.
No matter how many times he turned it over in his mind, no path appeared.
He had said numbers were not everything.
Yet they were already being overwhelmed by them.