Chapter 327. Trying to Stop Him
Kim Yungyeong spread his arms and blocked the way.
"Do not go. People will see it as betrayal."
Youngwoo gave a cold laugh.
"That is not something men who sold their people and their history just to keep their own positions have the right to say."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean people who think it does not matter if they sell the country, so long as they themselves live well. That is betrayal. What I am doing is not betrayal. Why draw the line here? Our own people are bleeding in Liaoyang."
"Ah, if you keep this up, something truly terrible will happen to you."
Youngwoo stared at Kim Yungyeong with weary eyes.
There were still words left unsaid on Kim Yungyeong's face.
Seeing that silence, Youngwoo asked immediately,
"Say it. What happened?"
Kim Yungyeong bit his lip.
"They said that if Liaoyang were liberated, the Balhae people would only try to establish another kingdom."
"And then?"
"They said that if they did, we could simply destroy it again."
Youngwoo's body trembled.
How was that any different from Liao?
If you had power, you built what you pleased.
If you disliked something, you destroyed it.
People became nothing more than numbers and cities in such thinking.
What made it even harder to bear was hearing the word kin from the mouths of men who thought that way.
Youngwoo asked quietly,
"Who said that?"
Kim Yungyeong lowered his head.
"I do not want to become an informer."
"If I decide to find out, I can."
"Pretend you never heard it. They are afraid too. They believe that if the Balhae people gather again, they will proclaim another kingdom, make kings of themselves, and eventually collapse once more. There are memories of Jurchens being dragged into those struggles and shedding blood as well."
Only then did Youngwoo understand a little more of what Kim Yungyeong meant.
This was not simple opposition.
It was old distrust built up between Balhae and Jurchen.
They had lived together for generations.
They had fought together as well.
And precisely because of that, the wounds ran deep.
Some Jurchens feared the name of Balhae rising again.
Some Balhae people feared being swallowed into a Jurchen order.
Youngwoo clenched his teeth.
"So that fear is making people abandon others all over again."
Kim Yungyeong spoke quietly.
"That is why I am stopping you. If you go alone, Commander Yi, you will pour oil onto their fears. I understand that you want to save Liaoyang. But if your march is seen as Balhae independence, Jin will become suspicious, Goryeo will withdraw, and the Balhae soldiers will be trapped again."
Youngwoo said nothing for a long while.
His anger had not faded.
But there was reality in Kim Yungyeong's words.
And that reality made him angrier still.
Youngwoo dismounted, took Kim Yungyeong by the shoulder, and gently turned him aside.
"Thank you for everything until now. Truly."
Youngwoo gave him a formal military salute, then walked into the Balhae camp.
If he was going to thank Kim Yungyeong so sincerely, perhaps courtesy demanded that he listen to at least some of what the man had tried to tell him.
His horse looked from one side to the other, then followed Youngwoo into the camp.
The Balhae leadership was waiting.
"Let us leave now."
"Loyalty!"
"Loyalty!"
"Loyalty!"
"Loyalty!"
The Balhae troops set out for Liaoyang.
The two thousand cavalry Youngwoo had requested did not follow.
The Goryeo army did not come either.
Nor did the immortals.
The So Cheolryong brothers and Do Gyeongtaek, who could not go with him, came out to see them off.
Youngwoo flicked his long banner open and swept it high into the sky.
Red and blue spread broadly through the air.
Word spread through the camp that Commander Yi Youngwoo had resigned yet again.
The man who had set so many of these undertakings in motion had left the military camp with astonishing ease.
Once he had resigned his office, he was merely a private individual.
Who could truly fault him for leaving?
Yet those who had cooperated with him in so many matters could not hide their empty, bitter smiles.
He had called for their help.
He had brought them into all of this.
And now he had left first.
To them, it felt like a demand to make a choice of their own.
That was why those watching Yi Youngwoo and the Liaoyang Balhae troops depart felt so conflicted.
People often agonized between what was right and what was practical.
But perhaps it was not truly a question of choice.
Because most people already knew which one they would choose.
Youngwoo, however, simply walked toward what he believed to be right.
There was no road behind him.
Or rather, he did not worry about what lay behind.
He looked thoughtless.
The young Jin commanders were the first to waver.
They had fought beside him.
Watching him leave, voices began to rise among them asking whether Commander Yi had been right after all.
Zonghan, unable to move easily, looked into the distance with gloomy eyes.
If only he did not bear the title of commander-in-chief of the western campaign, he wanted to throw everything away and follow.
He missed those days when he and Youngwoo had treated the impossible as something easy to challenge.
Zongwang thought deeply about Youngwoo's intentions.
We still need him.
Did we give up too easily?
Should we not have respected his proposal, if only to keep him with us?
The founding of the empire and the conquest of Liao had to proceed together.
Perhaps they had chosen too easily.
After defeating seven hundred thousand, they had begun to believe that they could manage perfectly well without Youngwoo's help.
Daego and Aribo followed after him for a while before finally stopping.
Had the Great Khan approved the two thousand cavalry, they had intended to volunteer.
They regretted that the request had been denied.
He is not leaving because he dislikes us.
He is leaving because the decision of those in power does not agree with him.
Then why does it feel as though he is leaving because of me?
Why does it bother me that I did not do my best?
If I had supported him in last night's council, perhaps he would not have left.
As dawn broke, the disappointed commanders returned to their own camps.
The Great Khan hurried toward the tents of the immortals.
They had perhaps rendered the greatest service of all in the previous battle.
Before the dawn light had fully spread, Aguda reached their camp.
The victorious army still lay half submerged in sleep and wine.
Only the occasional snort of a horse shaking its head could be heard in the distance.
Aguda walked slowly, leaving only a few attendants behind him.
The immortals' tents stood at the edge of the army, below a low hill open to the wind.
They were not luxurious silk pavilions.
Nor were they tall command tents like those of generals.
They were simple shelters made from coarse cloth, straw mats, and old hides patched together.
Several muddy straw-sandal prints remained near the entrance.
At the site of the old fire, a thin layer of gray ash had gone cold.
The embers were dead.
White frost had settled over the ashes during the night.
Aguda stopped in front of the entrance.
A feeling slowly rose within him.
They were already gone.
The place where they had stayed had been left in perfect order.
The door cords were neatly tied.
Straw mats and bowls had been returned to their places.
Footprints faded along the dirt path outside the tent.
These were the traces of people who had cleaned the place where they stayed and then departed.
Aguda raised a hand and pulled aside the entrance flap.
Inside, it was silent.
The straw mats had been folded neatly and placed to one side.
Wooden bowls had been washed and turned upside down.
A small incense burner remained in the center, with several dry pine needles laid carefully beside it.
Only marks from cords remained where swords had once hung.
A little clear water remained at the bottom of the jar that had held drinking water.
Aguda stepped inside.
The cold of dawn had settled where human warmth had once been.
He slowly looked toward the place where Baek Ingyeom had sat, and the place where Han Jiun had laughed while accepting cups of wine.
There had unquestionably been people here only last night.
There had been old men laughing with white beards fluttering.
There had been immortals looking upon the young commanders as though they were children.
The places where they had sat were tidy.
Only faint circles remained where cups had rested.
One attendant spoke carefully.
"Great Khan, it appears the immortals left during the night."
Aguda did not answer.
The sight inside the tent already said everything.
Empty straw mats.
Cold ashes.
Cleaned bowls.
Neatly tied door cords.
They had cleaned the place where they stayed and departed quietly.
Not even a word of farewell.
Aguda had come to ask them to remain even if Commander Yi left.
They were already gone.
He stood in the center of the empty tent for a long while without moving.
There were not many people in the world who could give those men orders.
No official rank could summon them.
No reward could keep them.
They appeared when they were needed, cut through battlefields, straightened the hearts of men, and then quietly disappeared again.
Regret crossed the Great Khan's face.
He had wanted to keep them near for a long time.
At this difficult moment when Jin was becoming a true state, he felt that many things would change if men like them remained beside him.
Their presence had been a great force in establishing military discipline, calming newly submitted peoples, and restraining the hot blood of young commanders.
Where they stayed, people seemed to speak a little more gently.
Their hearts seemed to grow a little straighter.
One man had left.
And all the immortals had gone with him.
What did I do wrong?
Aguda stood looking at the empty tent for a long time.
He wanted the immortals beside him.
But he had neither cause nor means to make them stay.
They were not men who desired offices.
They were not men who remained for rewards.
When there was somewhere they were needed, they went.
When their reason for staying ended, they quietly departed.
Aguda looked down at the pine needles beside the incense burner.
He did not reach out to touch them.
He simply stared at them for a long time.
They were only a few small, dry needles, yet the scent of the mountains seemed to remain within them.
He quietly lowered his head.
When he stepped outside, the dawn had grown brighter.
The army camp was beginning to move again.
There came the sounds of horses being fed, wagon wheels being repaired, and low orders as prisoners were assembled.
The war would continue.
Yet the immortals' empty camp seemed to stand one step apart from all that noise.
Before turning away, Aguda looked back at it once more.
He had only refused Commander Yi's request.
And yet all of them had left.
Now that the great Liao army had been destroyed, perhaps Jin no longer needed their help.
Surely they could manage on their own from here.
It was regrettable.
But he could not agree to something unreasonable merely because they wanted it.
He could not grant every request simply because they asked.