613.
On the battlements of Kaneishi Castle,
the wind was so cold it seeped into the spine.
The Lord of Tsushima shoved both hands deep into his sleeves
and looked down toward the coast.
Lights were visible.
There were many.
But those lights did not move.
The Goryeo army had not withdrawn.
They were weaving a camp in the middle of the village.
That sight felt wrong.
Wrong turned into fear.
Why did they come.
What do they want.
When will they leave.
Half a day had already passed since Goryeo settled beneath the walls,
yet there were no demands.
No letter.
No negotiation.
No threats.
Only silence.
That silence was the most frightening thing.
The lord had expected this.
Once the village fight ended,
Goryeo would return to their ships,
or pitch a seaside camp.
Or at least send a surrender demand.
The armies he had faced—
from the mainland and from Joseon—
always took "appropriate losses" and withdrew.
But Goryeo was different.
They went deep into the village,
and occupied it as if shutting a door from the inside.
This was not retaliation.
This was conquest.
The lord had never seen a force
that fought like that.
Behind him, two chamber samurai whispered in small voices.
"They don't look like they intend to leave."
"They didn't even empty the village. They've planted themselves. If this continues…"
When the lord turned his head,
the two fell silent at once.
But it was already too late.
Fear was clear in their eyes.
The lord recalled the daytime fighting.
He had believed that if Japanese soldiers raged through alleys,
Goryeo would be trapped by narrow lanes and fail to advance.
"Street fighting favors us."
That was Tsushima's old belief.
But Goryeo was different.
They cut forward with precision,
house by house, alley by alley.
And every time they passed a house,
they seized it immediately
and fixed the route for the units behind.
It was not "fighting."
It was changing the floor.
The lord had never seen a method like that.
"They're waging a long war."
Someone muttered low.
The lord looked down again.
The lights still did not move.
That meant barriers had been raised,
and troops were already lying down inside them.
And small lights were beginning to float, one by one,
to the west, to the east, and behind the castle as well.
"It's an encirclement, my lord."
A chamber samurai said it with a trembling voice.
As the words fell,
silence inside the castle deepened further.
The lord felt a small pain rising in his chest.
Fear.
A fear he had misunderstood.
"Joseon retreats."
"Goryeo is weak."
That belief shattered completely today.
The worst problem was the rear mountain.
Troops hidden behind it.
Emergency rations meant to be smuggled out.
A short mountain path used as an escape route.
Lights were now visible
at every one of those chokepoints.
"How did the encirclement close this quickly."
The lord's breath caught.
At this rate,
he could not easily abandon the castle,
and he could not easily pull his hidden elites forward to fight.
Surrender was not easy either.
Those elites had been prepared
to strike the enemy's back
once the enemy climbed.
Now even that force
had lost its road.
Isolation.
That word stabbed into the lord's head.
So he ordered wine and women sent down.
Outwardly, it was to soothe the fatigue of battle.
In truth, it was bribery.
More precisely,
it was a choice made by fear.
"I've heard their general likes wine."
"If the general himself came down, even better, but…"
The lord waved a hand.
"Nonsense."
"If I go down now, do you think I return alive."
The chamber samurai did not answer.
After a moment, someone spoke low.
"With wine… we could lace it."
The lord did not grow angry.
Because the thought felt natural.
Time passed,
and a servant returned from below with a report.
"My lord. The Goryeo general did not drink the wine."
The lord's eyes shook.
"What did he do."
"He threw it all away."
"He took the women and said he would use them for labor."
The lord lost his words.
He poured out the wine.
He did not flee.
He did not accept bribery.
He did not demand negotiation.
He did not climb to the castle.
What was the intent of that silence.
What were they waiting for.
If someone would only speak, would it not end.
The lord pressed a hand to the cold stone
and thought.
Then, for the first time, he understood.
"They are isolating us
and waiting for us to collapse on our own."
Goryeo was attacking the lord's heart
along with his walls.
That night, the Lord of Tsushima could not sleep.
The castle was quiet,
but the quiet pierced his chest like a blade.
---*
Winter dawn was cold
even before the sun rose.
Only a handful of lights remained inside the castle.
The lord threw on armor in haste
and entered the tangcheong, the main hall.
Commanders, overseers, chamber samurai, and retainers
packed the room shoulder to shoulder.
Every face carried a layered mix
of impatience, agitation, anger, and fear.
When the lord sat, one commander stepped forward at once.
"If the siege continues, we'll reach collapse within days!"
His voice shook,
and the tremor carried the anxiety of shifting blame.
Another commander snapped back immediately.
"More than the siege, the crucial point is their decision to gather forces inside the castle without once taking a battle!"
"What did you say?!"
In an instant, shouting tangled.
The lord set his jaw hard and spoke.
"The Goryeo force is large."
"Their method of war exceeds the range of anything we have faced."
Those words shook the commanders' unrest even deeper.
The second chamber samurai came forward and reported.
"Food inside the castle is ten to fifteen days."
"The village stores have already been seized by Goryeo."
"Rout survivors have joined the castle, so our headcount has increased."
A heavy silence fell.
The lord asked.
"Then how much time do we hold in our hands."
"Ten days. At most fifteen."
Color drained from the commanders' faces.
A commander said low.
"Hunger will arrive first."
The lord sharpened his voice.
"Close that mouth."
"The moment you speak defeat, that word bites the army first."
Yesterday's fighting was already stamped across everyone's face.
The cannon's roar had shaken their chests.
Goryeo's precise advance had pressed down their vision.
As silence lengthened, a commander spoke again.
"The rear path still functions as a passage."
"If we gather troops and break through now—"
Another commander shouted at once.
"The scouts who went down that path did not return!"
"That fact alone tells you the nature of that path!"
A third voice flared.
"Let's raid at night."
"In the dark, they use darkness too!"
A rebuttal came immediately.
"They already absorbed two approaches at night."
"They move first, and they close first."
And finally, a scraping word slipped out.
"Surrender…"
The air in the hall froze.
The lord turned his head slowly
and stared at the man who said it.
"Whom do you propose we bow to."
His voice was low,
killing pressed flat inside it.
The commander did not avert his eyes.
"Our numbers shrink and our food burns fast."
"The people are unsettled."
"The road narrows."
"The air inside the castle dries."
"If that flow continues, the ending converges into one."
At the end of his words,
the shadow of annihilation stood plain.
The lord clenched his teeth.
The truth that Goryeo had arrived
with this level of preparation and persistence
destroyed his calculations.
Their silence.
Their camp construction.
Their encirclement.
Their expressionless strength.
As the meeting approached its end,
darkness deepened further,
and the cold wind brushed the paper windows.
The lord hid his trembling hand and said,
"…Tomorrow. We meet again."
It was a declaration
that pushed decision backward.
The castle sat inside a frame of isolation.
Food was short.
Commanders piled responsibility onto one another.
Even when dawn brightened,
the air in the hall did not lighten.
---*
Wind blew cold all night,
making tent cords and shield leather rasp.
When the first light hung over the eastern sea,
Park Seong-jin stood on a hill behind the village
and looked down around the castle.
"Advance deployment."
"All units move to assigned positions."
The commanders answered at once.
"Loyalty!"
Engineers scattered under the walls
into woods and gullies with axes, hoes, and shovels.
Their first mission was to wrap the entire castle
in a single line of palisade.
They planted thick logs into fences,
dug shallow pits in front,
drove stakes,
and closed the roads.
A commander muttered,
"From dawn, all the way to that…"
Park answered short.
"We plug every hole outside the gate."
"We decide when they get to move."
Cold soil flew.
Trees were cut.
Within a day, Kaneishi became
an island inside an island.
After full sunrise, around midday,
a scout unit rushed back.
"General! We spotted dozens of enemy troops between the southern ridges!"
Park asked.
"An ambush."
"Yes."
"They planned to stab the rear while waiting for a siege,
but they're exhausted and scattered."
Park's eyes narrowed.
"They didn't expect this development either."
The scout swallowed.
"Orders!"
Park adjusted his scabbard.
"All units move."
"We clear the hidden groups first."
In the winter woods, fallen leaves lay thick,
making footprints and shadows stand out.
The shape of ambush remained,
and impatience and fatigue leaked through its gaps.
A Japanese soldier lifted his head and muttered,
"The castle's been slow to move… so is the siege coming or not…"
Before the words finished,
arrows burst in from both sides.
Then the Warrior Unit cut into the woods.
"Fall back!"
"Aaagh!"
What the scouts found was not a small hiding party.
Forces meant to strike Goryeo's rear
were scattered across the entire valley under the ridge.
The valley floor was carpeted with leaves.
Thin fog hung low.
A few winter birds vanished deeper into the trees.
The scouts reported again.
"General! About three hundred."
"They've taken the whole valley."
Park closed his eyes and drew a deep breath.
"They intended to stab our back when we siege."
"We enter first."
Two hundred elites and the Warrior Unit
slipped down into the forest.
It was a braided formation,
built to answer any contact.
Soldiers placed their feet at a slant
and kept their breathing shallow.
From below, a scabbard creaked.
Whir—
three arrows skimmed tree trunks
and shaved a leading helmet.
"They sensed us first!"
The entire forest shook.
The first ambush line rushed the entry route.
The first collision was entanglement.
Blades cut through branches.
Shields covered gaps left by falling men.
Leaves slipped underfoot.
The fight happened at face distance.
Park drew and went forward.
An enemy sprang with a short scream.
A dagger drove straight for Park's chest.
Park pushed in with his body,
delivered the impact with his shoulder.
Ugh—
The enemy arm twisted in the gap,
and Park's blade drove into the ribs.
The battle split into two flows.
Enemies pressed from above on the ridge.
Goryeo held and lifted from the valley floor.
Mass and speed from above
rode as a threat.
"Above!"
On the ridge, a dozen enemies rolled stones.
Round boulders tore through leaves,
hit trees,
and shook the flank.
Park's voice landed at once.
"Spears forward."
"We take the base under the ridge."
Twenty spearmen formed a half-circle
and blocked the narrow farm track under the ridge.
If enemies jumped down,
they met spearpoints first.
In that flow,
enemy momentum broke.
Samurai with round shields and long blades
used an outcrop to swing into the flank.
"Right! Flank!"
The Warrior Unit split in two
and stopped them.
In the tight woods, the Warrior Unit matched rhythm.
A three-man step formation
cut the sideways charge.
After about half a quarter-hour,
Park made his conclusion.
"Take the left hillside path."
"If that opens, the valley opens."
Fifty warriors ran up that path like wind.
The enemy defense there was thin.
They had weighted the frontal clash.
The moment Goryeo seized the ridge,
their view turned from below-up to above-down.
"Sweep them!"
Throwing spears and arrows
concentrated down into the valley.
Enemies in thin armor fell in repeated blows.
The net tightened.
The remaining enemy mass
piled into one point and tried to break out.
"Take the general!"
"If the general falls—!"
A frenzy-charged rush.
Park stood before it.
He cut the first attacker's wrist with a light swing.
He slipped the second blade and thrust into the chest.
Those behind were pulled
into the mesh of elites and the Warrior Unit.
Breakout momentum snapped
and scattered.
The last enemies were surrounded at chokepoints,
captured or cut down.
The fight ran close to half an hour.
The valley went quiet.
Soldiers carried wounded on stretchers,
recovered arrows,
and flipped bodies under leaves to confirm.
Forest fighting left blood on their side too.
A commander exhaled and said,
"General, at this scale, the rear strike from the fortress is cut."
Park slowly scanned the forest after battle.
"The fortress has lost its breath."
He looked at a drop of blood on the leaves,
then flicked thick blood from his blade tip.