Chapter 247 — Persuasion II
A mere prisoner speaking would not be enough to bring anyone.
Even so, the junior officer reported to his direct superior and handed over the letter.
When the fellow returned a little later, Yeongu asked,
"Did you give it to him?"
"Mm."
"To whom?"
"Who else? I gave it to the general."
At the word general, Yeongu felt relieved.
"Hm, hm. Good. You listen well... You actually did as you were told. So what did the general say?"
In Liao, the title generalwas closer to a lower-ranking field commander.
It was not used the same way as in Goryeo, where a general might mean the highest commander of an army.
In modern terms, it was closer to a field-grade officer, while gyoand sogyowere closer to junior officers beneath him.
But Yeongu first understood the word in the Goryeo sense.
He thought it meant someone high enough to command one of the Two Armies and Six Guards.
"What would he say? He said nothing. Who would care about something that has nothing to do with him?"
Yeongu asked,
"Did he not read it?"
"Mm. He tossed it aside."
Yeongu narrowed his eyes.
"Is he illiterate?"
Illiteracy was common in the army.
Even men who had passed through a formal course struggled with letters, and many who could read still failed to grasp the meaning properly.
If lack of humanistic learning was what people called ignorance in Goryeo, among these men ignorance meant being unable to read.
The officer shrugged.
"Not exactly illiterate... but he probably is not good at it."
"What kind of general cannot even read?"
"I am not saying he cannot read. I am saying he cannot read well. When he writes reports, he always keeps a civil clerk beside him to write them down for him."
Yeongu laughed in disbelief.
"Fine work. What kind of general commands soldiers like that?"
"He does not command that many. Besides, in a directorate like this, there is not much official work anyway."
Directorate: an office of military supervision or inspection. It handles grain supplies, military discipline, surveillance, and the transmission of orders. A chief commander has a marching directorate, while a regional commander has a regional army directorate.
Yeongu tilted his head.
The word directoratestruck him as something closer to a small administrative office.
"Directorate? Did you not say he was a general?"
"He is a general. A junior general."
"What is a junior general now?"
This time the officer looked at Yeongu as if he found him strange.
"Hey, you are a Goryeo jungnangjang. You do not even know that?"
Only then did Yeongu realize he had misjudged the matter.
In the Liao army, a junior generalwas different from the sort of general he had imagined.
A post like the Goryeo commander who stood at the head of an army was closer in Liao to a dotongor sangon.
Below that came generals, then junior generals, then gyoand sogyo.
Yeongu clicked his tongue inwardly.
When a word crossed from one country to another, it changed like this.
Even when the same Chinese characters were used, the weight of the title inside a military camp was completely different.
Because the man had said general, Yeongu had told him to bring a superior.
But the superior in question was little more than a lower-ranking commander who could not even properly read a document.
No matter how much that man acted like a superior, he was not in a position to bear the weight of this matter.