Chapter 239 — Espionage Operation: Why Me?
Wanyan Xiyin gave another formal salute.
"And I have one request. This is a place where it will be difficult for us to enter directly. I ask the khan's permission."
The khan asked indirectly,
"What do you want?"
"I would like you to send Commander Yi to Changchun Road."
The eyes of everyone present turned to Yi Yeongu at once.
The khan also looked back at Yeongu.
"Commander Yi? It will be difficult even to communicate."
"That is true. But many peoples will gather at Changchun Road. He can blend in among the Balhae groups. And he is someone who can persuade them. Our words will not reach them easily.
They are men bound together by loyalty to Great Liao. They see us as enemies.
But the Balhae people are different. They are men who wish for the empire to be reborn as a true empire.
They are men who will regard themselves as loyal subjects until the moment they die."
Xiyin's voice lowered.
"The purpose is to present Yelü Chun as an alternative."
Yeongu's eyes narrowed.
For a while, he said nothing.
These bastards are telling me to act as a spy.
I told them to incite a rebellion, and now they tell me to do it myself.
Yeongu could not read Wanyan Xiyin's intention.
He stared steadily into the man's eyes.
Are they truly trying to use me?
Or are they trying to kill me?
The events at Seonchunryeong Fortress came back to him.
They had sent him outside the fortress to attack, then barred the gates.
They had leaked information to the enemy and told them to kill him.
What should one call the act of killing a man through another's hand?
Yeongu asked roughly,
"What kind of man is Yelü Zhangnu?"
Wanyan Xiyin answered at once.
"His courtesy name is said to be Temoyan. He is a descendant of the Jifang branch of the imperial clan, and the son of Yelü Chala."
Yeongu lifted a hand and cut him off.
"Not that. I asked what kind of man he is."
Xiyin caught his breath briefly and spoke again.
"He is known as a bright and nimble man. He entered government service during the reign of Daozong, and later held posts such as Right Censor-in-Chief, Director of the Inner Reception Office, Deputy Military Commissioner of the Northeastern Route, Associate Administrator of Military Affairs for Xianzhou Road, and positions connected to the Southern Privy Council."
Yeongu's eyes grew colder.
"I am not asking for the names of his offices. I asked what kind of man he is."
This time, Xiyin did not answer immediately.
Then he spoke in a lower voice.
"He is an imperial clansman and official who judges that Liao cannot endure under the Tianzuo Emperor. He has seen the battlefield, and he has seen the incompetence of the court. After repeated defeats, he believes they may lose this battle as well.
Xiao Fengxian is Commander of the Imperial Camp, and he himself is deputy commander, leading twenty thousand elite troops in the vanguard. He also knows that if they are defeated, the responsibility will fall on him."
Xiyin looked at Yeongu and continued.
"He is not merely a coward, nor merely an ambitious man. He is a man who knows that the country is tilting. He is capable of believing himself not a traitor, but a man setting Great Liao back in order. To such a man, Yelü Chun's name will appear as another possibility. Many regret that Liao might have been different if Yelü Chun had taken the throne."
Yeongu stared at Xiyin for a long while.
Only now did the meaning of his words show itself a little.
But could it really be seen so purely?
They were sending him to Changchun as a spy, where it would be no surprise if his head were taken at any moment.
Yelü Zhangnu was not simply one man to be shaken.
He was someone who could represent the hearts already splitting inside Liao.
If he moved, not merely one force would waver; the entire imperial expedition of the Tianzuo Emperor would be forced to look back.
Yet that road was filthy and dangerous.
It was different from cutting down an enemy with a blade.
It meant touching a man's fear, his cause, and his loyalty, making him doubt his own emperor with his own heart.
Most of all, Yeongu could not understand why they were asking him to do such a thing.
The same seemed true of the khan and the other leaders.
He understood that Jin's generals could not do this.
But why did it have to be me?
Perhaps this was the punishment he received for insisting that such a strategy was necessary.
There was no need to think for long.
Yeongu asked exactly what came to mind.
"I want to ask why it has to be me."
Wanyan Xiyin answered,
"There is no one else who can go."
"You point to me because there is no one else?"
"I apologize."
Yeongu lamented.
Even when something good falls only on me, it feels bad, and now I have been caught in this kind of thing.
What has this man thought of me all this time?
Yeongu asked again.
"Do you want me to go there and die?"
"No. How could I think such a thing?"
"If you send me there and whisper that I am a spy, I will be caught and killed."
Wanyan Xiyin sprang to his feet.
"I have absolutely no ill intent toward Commander Yi."
The more he denied it, the more suspicious he became.
"Would it not be better simply to ask me to die here in this room?"
As the atmosphere turned grim, the khan stepped in.
"Let us stop here. Commander Yi, how could we send you as a spy? Our Xiyin seems to have made an absurd request out of inexperience. Let us pretend it was never said."
The khan tried to return the situation to what it had been before the council, using an unusually courteous tone.
But this was Yeongu.
Yi Yeongu was a man with a venomous heart who never accepted a blow meekly once it had landed.
Yeongu tilted his head.
Xiyin tried to explain himself.
"I truly have no intention behind it. I thought you were the one person who could blend into the Balhae troops and stir the heart of the enemy camp."
"Hmm. I understand. Then I shall do just that."
The filthy intention was visible, but refusing for that reason would not do.
Was he the only one who disliked him?
Yeongu turned toward the khan.
"I will do as you wish."