That won’t be a particularly good choice either. (3)
“U-Uaaaargh!”
“Get out of the way! Move!”
At the bewildering sight, unlike anything they had ever seen in their lives, the soldiers of the Red Banner Army let out screams unbefitting their fearsome reputation.
These were men who had never so much as batted an eye at cavalry formations surging towards them like clouds or at biting winter winds that threatened to slice the flesh from their bones. But enormous trees crashing down upon their heads were a danger so unbelievably different from anything they had ever faced that they had no idea how to react.
The soldiers of the Red Banner Army threw themselves aside with all their strength. The massive trees tilted and fell, slamming into the ground with a force that shook the earth.
Crash!
Craaaaaash!
Having barely dodged the trees falling one after another, the soldiers of the Red Banner Army stared blankly at the trees still swaying before them.
“W-What is this…?”
“Ugh… Uuugh. Help me…!”
The soldiers who had narrowly escaped the falling trees sprang to their feet in alarm at the screams coming from around them.
The falling trunks were, of course, exceedingly dangerous, but they fell too slowly to crush the well-trained soldiers of the Red Banner Army.
But when it came to the dense branches growing higher up the trees, rather than the trunks, it was a different story. Those who had hastily flung themselves clear of the trunks but failed to evade all the sprawling branches lay groaning on the ground.
Their injuries might not cost them their lives, but would surely keep them from immediately returning to battle. The flustered soldiers of the Red Banner Army rushed over in a crowd, dragging their groaning comrades out from beneath the trees.
“You there! Grab that side and lift!”
“I-It’s too heavy.”
“Damn it! Can’t you do it properly?”
Utter chaos. What other words could possibly describe this scene?
Yet as So Yeonshin watched the scene unfold, he felt relief rather than bewilderment.
‘Was this… what he meant when he said it was a shame we hadn’t come on horseback?’
It was only because they hadn’t been on horseback that they had been able to throw themselves aside immediately and save their lives. Had everyone who came here been on horseback, how much greater would the losses have been? The mere thought sent a shudder through him.
“Th-This…….”
“See, that’s what I mean when I say you have no imagination.”
So Yeonshin turned to Chung Myung with a dazed expression.
Even behind the mask, his grin was unmistakable. Chung Myung snickered at So Yeonshin and shrugged.
“But, well… there’s no need to beat yourself up over it. It just so happens that I’m quite the expert at this sort of thing.”
“…”
So Yeonshin’s face flushed red.
An expert? What nonsense was this greenhorn spouting in front of a man who had spent his entire life facing the enemies on the battlefield?
“You… you son of a bitch!”
So Yeonshin roared at the top of his lungs.
“What are you doing?! Seize that insolent wretch at once!”
“G-General. Wait!”
“Silence! How can we call ourselves the Red Banner Army if we cannot even punish a single wretch prancing about right before our eyes! Move!”
“Yes, Sir!”
Even as he gave the order, So Yeonshin knew.
This might not be the right response. Now that he knew they could attack in ways he could not imagine, withdrawing his troops was the best course.
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles. People often mistook this to mean that knowing the enemy well would ensure victory, but wasn’t its true meaning that one must never rashly enter a fight without understanding one’s opponent?
But So Yeonshin had no other choice.
‘Withdraw? Over a petty trick like this?’
He could not. It might have been different had they never charged in, but turning back an army already advancing carried far too great a burden.
The notion that one should retreat and regroup after a single failure was, in the end, nothing more than the prattle of armchair scholars who knew nothing of the hearts of those who took to the battlefield.
Even an unavoidable retreat before a vast army would lower their own troops’ morale, so what would happen if they retreated because they could not handle fewer than ten men? It was no exaggeration to say that taking the Imperial Capital would become impossible from that moment on.
“Fight even if it costs you your lives! Kill every last one of them!”
“Yes, Sir!”
An unspoken understanding. Perhaps those were hardly fitting words for such a situation, but his subordinates, who had spent their lives at his side, clearly understood his decision.
Those who had briefly stood dazed by the bewildering situation recovered their former bearing in an instant and charged forward. Battle-hardened veterans were not simply men who fought better or possessed greater strength.
They were men who had fought on so many battlefields that they could swiftly regain their composure no matter what happened. And now the elite soldiers of the Red Banner Army were demonstrating through their actions exactly what it meant to be battle-hardened veterans.
“Raaaaaaah!“
Gripping their long spears in one hand, the soldiers leaped over the fallen trees and charged at Chung Myung.
Chung Myung watched them silently, then let out a faint chuckle.
“That’s why even the finest army is hopeless with an idiot in command.”
Tap.
Still in a seated position, Chung Myung kicked off and sprang backward.
“Stop right there, you bastard!”
The soldiers faltered for a moment at the immense distance Chung Myung covered in a single leap, but soon roared in fury and picked up speed.
“You really shouldn’t do that.”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue and snapped his fingers again.
Craaaaaaaack!
Then, with the same dull splitting sound as before, the trees on either side of the charging soldiers began toppling towards them at once.
“What?”
So Yeonshin’s eyes widened until they seemed about to split.
“W-What is this?!”
“Again?”
The soldiers stared in horror at the trees toppling towards them. The sight of more than a dozen enormous trees falling simultaneously, their massive forms looming overhead, was so overwhelming that even seeing it a second time did nothing to make it any less terrifying.
The sunlight streaming between the standing trees was blocked by the falling trunks, and the forest before them plunged into darkness in an instant. As though this place had turned into hell itself.
“Damn it! Get out of the waaaaaay!”
The charging soldiers desperately threw themselves aside. But unlike before, evading the trees as they tangled and twisted against one another was no easy feat.
Crash!
Craaaaaaash!
The falling trees crashed down on the Red Banner Army one after another. Faced with that horrific sight, So Yeonshin could do nothing but tremble.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue as he watched.
“That’s why you should have thought it through. If I could do it once, why couldn’t I do it twice?”
Of course, there were some points to consider in their defense.
From their perspective, they could only assume their opponents had made thorough preparations to lure them into a trap here. Naturally, they must have thought the massive trees that had fallen moments earlier had also been prepared in advance.
Yet that trap had failed to inflict heavy losses, so believing they stood a chance if they overwhelmed their opponents in a single rush was hardly an unsound judgment.
They had simply failed to anticipate that the disciples of Hwasan here were skilled enough to cut down massive trees effortlessly with a single sword stroke even as they ran at the soldiers’ pace.
In other words, this was less a question of competence than a limitation born of never having dealt with martial artists.
But there was no need to explain any of that now.
“You actually managed to defend the northern frontier with brains like that. Maybe all that talk about the north being the most dangerous front was just a load of rumors?”
Well, all he really had to do was provoke them a little…
“You dog of a bastard, how dare you!”
See? Just like that.
Chung Myung kept snickering.
Even the disciples of Hwasan watching from within the forest stared at So Yeonshin in disbelief.
“No… Hold on, Sasuk, he’s a commander of the Red Banner Army, that supposedly formidable fighting force.”
“He is.”
“Then why is it so easy to get under his skin?”
“Because it’s Chung Myung doing it.”
“…Sure, that bastard has a tongue like a broom that scrapes your nerves raw every time he opens his mouth. But he’s hardly going that far right now. It feels like the man gets worked up all on his own before Chung Myung has even said much.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes.”
Baek Cheon continued in a somewhat uneasy tone.
“When he says he’s spent his whole life fighting in the north, doesn’t that, well… mean all the enemies he’s faced have spoken a different language from ours in the Central Plains?”
“….What?”
“Well, wouldn’t that mean he’s never really been provoked before? After all, he’s probably never had anyone hurl insults at him in a language he could understand.”
Jo Geol stared blankly at Baek Cheon.
“How does that make any……”
No, perhaps it did make sense? Hold on, how could that possibly make…
Jo Geol clutched at his hair in frustration. He didn’t know anymore. Nor did he particularly want to know. What mattered was that, regardless of the reason, the man was behaving as though he might charge at Chung Myung at any moment.
“But surely he can’t be that stupid.”
Falling for the same trick twice was understandable. But falling for it three times would put someone beyond even the concept of being stupid. If the man commanding the Red Banner Army was truly that foolish, wouldn’t they have to reconsider the fate of this entire nation?
Baek Cheon, however, seemed to think differently.
“Judging by his temper, he doesn’t seem like the sort who can hold himself back.”
“Oh, come on, surely not.”
“Huh? Look.”
Indeed, So Yeonshin was no fool, just as Jo Geol had thought. Had he been reckless enough to send his soldiers charging in after falling for the same trick twice, he could never have secured a position as important as Hwangbo Ung’s adjutant.
However, Baek Cheon’s assessment wasn’t entirely wrong either.
Blinded by rage, So Yeonshin had found the perfect solution to satisfy both his sense of duty as a commander and his fury as a man.
“I’ll sever that head of yours and shove it straight into a manure bucket!”
Drawing his spear, So Yeonshin charged at Chung Myung alone. At the sight, every last one of Hwasan’s disciples applauded him.
“Wow.”
“…A real man.”
“To think there was someone else like that besides you, Sasuk.”
“Why am I being dragged into this again?”
Whatever the disciples of Hwasan might think, So Yeonshin had not the slightest hesitation about his choice.
The problem he currently faced was that the men blocking their path were far more formidable martial artists than he had anticipated, and if he scattered his forces in an attempt to capture them, his already limited number of soldiers would be lured into that forest.
If that damned bastard before him had any brains, he would naturally be aiming for just that.
So all he had to do was turn the tables.
‘Let’s see how long you bastards can stay hidden in there.’
He could not understand why, but even at a glance, it was clear that the young brat standing at the front was the one calling the shots. And that meant that if he went after this bastard, the others hiding in the forest would have no choice but to come rushing out as well.
Once that happened, he would no longer have to worry about those damned trees, so all he needed to do was summon his soldiers at once and sweep away the enemies who had shown themselves.
So Yeonshin was more than confident. He, too, had become a military officer at a young age and spent his entire life training in martial arts. He could easily cleave a greenhorn like this in two with a single blow.
“Raaaaaaah!”
So Yeonshin brought his spear crashing down as though to split Chung Myung in two in a single stroke.
There was nothing particularly wrong with his plan. In fact, his judgment was eminently sound.
If there was just one thing he had misjudged…
Claaaaang!
The spear So Yeonshin brought down was effortlessly blocked by the crude sword Chung Myung had raised.
“Well, now.”
The corners of Chung Myung’s mouth twitched again.
“Looks like you’ve underestimated me a little too much?”
“…”
It was simply that he had taken Chung Myung far too lightly.
________
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