Chapter 353. Kim Busik's Proposal
Kim Busik turned toward Aguda.
His voice remained low, yet it brought the command tent to silence once again.
"I believe the most urgent task is to resume the negotiations that were already underway."
The expressions around the gathering changed slightly.
Not everyone understood what lay behind those words.
But the mere suggestion that discussions had already been taking place between Goryeo and Jin made the air inside the tent grow heavier.
Wugimai had been continuing those negotiations with Goryeo.
There were matters being discussed that many in this tent did not know about, matters that could not yet be spoken of openly here.
Before those negotiations had been fully concluded, the Goryeo army had already been dispatched because the situation at Hubodagang had become too urgent to wait.
But the fact that soldiers had moved first did not mean the negotiations were finished.
There were still matters that had to be committed to paper and settled in the names of the king and the Great Khan.
Kim Busik turned back toward Youngwoo.
"At the same time, Commander Yi is also correct. If we do not move now, we may later have to fight separately for every single city.
"If we delay too long because we are not yet fully prepared, the task ahead will only become more difficult.
"We cannot postpone securing the Eastern Capital, Liaoyang Prefecture, the Central Capital, Dading Prefecture, and the Supreme Capital, Linhuang Prefecture, one after another."
He placed a hand on the map.
"But not everything can be completed tonight or tomorrow morning.
"The soldiers must rest.
"The horses must be fed.
"And men must be assigned to govern each newly acquired city.
"So we need to set a deadline.
"At the very least, the matters of the Eastern, Central, and Supreme Capitals should be settled by this time next year."
One year.
At those words, some ease returned to the faces around the tent.
He was not telling them to put down their cups and mount their horses again immediately.
But neither was he suggesting an indefinite delay.
Rest and reorganize—but move according to a fixed timetable.
Even the commanders crushed beneath the exhaustion of battle looked as though they could accept that much.
Aguda's expression, however, hardened.
Only moments earlier, buoyed by victory, he had been speaking of the capitals of Liao.
Now he found himself thinking about what would come after those cities were taken.
Opening the gates was not the end.
There would be offices and granaries.
Subjects and taxes.
Those who submitted and those who resisted.
Former Liao officials and new Jin military commands.
The weight of governance had settled upon the same road down which he had so boldly proposed to advance.
What exactly were these ongoing negotiations?
Many inside the command tent kept that question to themselves.
How far would Goryeo assist?
How much would Jin recognize?
What place would be given to the Balhae forces and the cities of Liaodong?
Those answers had not yet been revealed.
At that moment, Youngwoo rose from his seat.
The effects of the wine still lingered, but his voice was unexpectedly clear.
"The urgent matter right now is Liaoyang. If you give me just two thousand soldiers, I will go ahead and secure it first."
Everyone in the command tent turned toward him at once.
Several commanders looked dumbfounded.
They had just been discussing the difficulty of governing cities and the order required of an empire.
And Youngwoo had gone straight back to troops and marching.
In the middle of a discussion about how to govern a city, he was still talking about riding there and taking it.
But it was not mere impatience.
Youngwoo had a clear reason for wanting to move quickly on Liaoyang.
The Balhae troops who had fought beside them at Hubodagang still had no place of their own.
They had turned their backs on Liao and joined Jin.
Yet their homeland, Liaoyang, was still a Liao city.
Even after the battle, they had nowhere to return.
That fact made Youngwoo impatient.
He was the one who had told them to join the struggle to destroy Liao.
He was the one who had persuaded them not to rise in rebellion and establish yet another short-lived king, but instead to enter the greater war and earn merit there.
They had believed him.
They had bled at Hubodagang.
They had charged with him toward the Liao center.
The Jin army had its camps.
The Goryeo army had its camps.
The Jurchen Meng'an and Mouke had their tribes and banners.
But the submitted Balhae soldiers stood on an empty plain.
They had abandoned Liao.
They had not yet secured a place within Jin.
And they could not even return to their own homeland of Liaoyang.
Youngwoo could not simply ignore that.
Gathering spoils and ledgers mattered.
Sorting prisoners mattered.
Preparing for the next war mattered.
But the Balhae soldiers standing before him needed ground beneath their feet now.
Only by securing Liaoyang could they cease to be merely a submitted force and become one of the pillars of Liaodong.
Go Youngchang and Go Hoewon would finally have a city and a name to which they could lead their people home.
Youngwoo spoke again.
"Liaoyang is the center of Liaodong. Many Balhae people live there, and the families and relatives of these submitted soldiers are there as well.
"If we leave it as it is, these men will remain standing in the wilderness.
"If Liao sends someone back, their hearts may begin to waver.
"So Liaoyang, at least, must be secured first.
"We do not need a great army.
"For the people of Liaoyang, the banner of the Balhae army and the guarantee of Goryeo should reach them before the force of Jin does."
Go Hoewon's eyes hardened.
Go Youngchang held his breath as he watched Youngwoo.
Until moments ago, the people in the tent had looked at Liaoyang as a city on a map.
Youngwoo was speaking of it as a place to which people had to return.
Kim Busik's gaze deepened slightly.
Youngwoo's words were rough, and at times he leapt clumsily over the proper order of things.
But the core of his argument was clear.
Other matters could wait.
Liaoyang could not.
It had to be attacked and secured now.
Wanyan Zonghan asked,
"Why two thousand? That will not be nearly enough."
"Because I thought that if we added two thousand Balhae soldiers to those two thousand, and then another twenty immortals, we could do it."
"The immortals as well?"
No one could order the immortals around.
They held no government offices.
They took commands from no military camp.
They had descended from the mountains to help on the battlefield, and once their work was done, they were people who would return to the mountains.
Yet Youngwoo spoke as though they were men who would naturally agree to his request.
Aguda and the Jurchen leadership instinctively turned toward where the immortals were seated.
Baek Ingyeom and Han Jiun sat quietly.
The other immortals were seated in a row around them.
Blood and dust still stained them, yet their faces were calm.
Even with cups of wine before them, they seemed as unmoving as rocks in the mountains.
A small concern arose in the minds of those gathered.
Would they return to the mountains after this?
They were not men who could be kept on campaign for long.
Nor could military law compel them to remain.
Wherever such men stayed, however, people's hearts gradually became gentler.
The strong learned to look after the weak.
Merchants became ashamed of deception.
The young showed respect to the old.
Children learned courtesy from the words and conduct of their elders.
Neighbors began to consider one another's circumstances before their own.
It was not an order built by law and beating.
It was a way of life in which people themselves learned shame and restraint.