The Joseon army’s main camp was situated about 5 li (approximately 2 km) from Liaodong fortress.
Mounted on his horse, Choi Yoon-deok looked at the distant Liaodong fortress with an expression filled with various emotions.
“Finally, we’ve come this far…”
Muttering quietly to himself, Choi Yoon-deok turned his body to survey his surroundings.
His eyes took in hundreds of thousands of soldiers preparing for battle, flying scouts continuously reporting battlefield conditions from the sky, and cavalry units constantly scouting the surroundings as they galloped back and forth.
“Huu!”
Choi Yoon-deok took a deep breath and straightened his posture.
This year he was 72 years old. It had already been two years since Sejong and Hyang personally held his age celebration feast.
In the history before Hyang’s intervention, he should have already been dead, but Choi Yoon-deok was one of those whose fate changed with Hyang’s intervention.
“Huu!”
Taking another deep breath and straightening his posture, Choi Yoon-deok exuded the same commanding presence from when he had commanded the northern regions.
Standing straight thus, Choi Yoon-deok turned his horse.
Where he faced, all the main generals of the Joseon Land and Naval Forces, including Lee Jing-ok, were gathered.
“Is it time to remove the character ‘defense’?”
Muttering quietly, Choi Yoon-deok raised his voice toward the generals.
“I tell you all generals! Finally, Liaodong! What kind of place is this Liaodong? It was the territory of the ancient Three Hans, and where Balhae, the Northern Dynasty during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, was located! This Liaodong is the place we’ve dreamed of reclaiming since the fall of the Northern Dynasty! And now! Finally!”
Pausing briefly, Choi Yoon-deok raised his clenched right fist and shouted loudly.
“We have returned! Finally returned!”
“Uwaaa!”
The generals responded to Choi Yoon-deok’s declaration with cheers. As the generals’ cheers subsided, Choi Yoon-deok issued orders.
“Now let’s plant Joseon’s new symbol, the Imperial Taeguk Flag, at the highest point of that Liaodong fortress!”
“We will definitely plant it!”
“Then prepare for battle!”
“Yes, sir!”
The generals who performed military salutes at Choi Yoon-deok’s orders hurried to their commanded units.
After the front-line commanding generals departed, Choi Yoon-deok returned to the main camp’s command tent with his staff officers.
***
Entering the command tent, Choi Yoon-deok opened a box placed to one side. Taking out a finely wrapped silk cloth from the box, Choi Yoon-deok unwrapped it.
“Mount this flag high on a pole!”
A young general who received the yellow flag from inside the cloth immediately left the tent, and Choi Yoon-deok followed.
Shortly after, a yellow Taeguk flag rose and fluttered in the wind in the center between the Left Command Flag and various other military flags.
The yellow background color of the flag symbolized the imperial gold color, and in the center was the triple Taeguk that the Korean people had used since ancient times. And the Eight Trigrams surrounding the triple Taeguk symbolized heaven, earth, and all things.
Combined, all this meant that Joseon was an imperial nation and the center of everything in the world.
The only difference from the Left Command Flag was that the background cloth was yellow instead of black.
***
Both the Imperial Taeguk Flag and Left Command Flag were newly made.
“Since both the royal flag and Left Command Flag were received from Ming, we must change them at this opportunity!”
“Indeed. It’s certain there will be conflict with Ming in the future, and it wouldn’t look good to advance under flags given by Ming.”
“It would become a laughingstock to the world.”
At Hyang’s suggestion, Sejong and the ministers all agreed, and thus new royal and Left Command flags were created.
Accordingly, the triple Taeguk pattern was also changed to a familiar one. The royal flag was also made with a yellow background instead of red, and the Luo River Diagram on the Left Command Flag disappeared.
This too was due to Hyang’s strong insistence.
“Why should we enshrine the ancestor of the Central Plains!”
Thus on the day the new royal and Left Command flags were born, Sejong looked at Hyang while admiring the new flags.
“Will I be able to see these flags fluttering before I go?”
To Sejong’s question, Hyang answered firmly.
“We will definitely make it so!”
At Hyang’s answer, Sejong smiled and patted Hyang’s shoulder.
“I trust in you alone.”
And not long after, Hyang realized.
“My homework has increased! Ah!”
***
As the massive Imperial Taeguk Flag fluttered at the main camp, Imperial Taeguk Flags began fluttering at Joseon army’s major camps.
“What kind of flag is that?”
As soldiers curious about the newly raised flags murmured, commanders stepped forward to explain their meaning.
“Through victory in this battle, our Joseon will become an empire! No superior nation will exist above us anymore!”
At the commanders’ declaration, soldiers looked at their comrades nearby and murmured.
Among such soldiers, Gapdol asked his companion beside him:
“Become an empire? What’s that mean?”
“What else could it mean? From now on our Joseon becomes the country of the Son of Heaven.”
“Eh? You mean His Majesty becomes the Son of Heaven?”
“That’s right!”
“Then we don’t have to pay those damn tributes anymore? No more tribute women either?”
At Gapdol’s words, the soldier beside him showed an expression of disbelief.
“How long has it been since we stopped paying tribute and you’re still going on about it? Same with tribute women? Are there still villages making a fuss about receiving tribute?”
As the soldier said, after the negotiation between Hyang and Emperor Xuande, the issues of tribute and tribute women had disappeared.
However, Gapdol, who had mentioned tribute, asked back with a bright expression:
“Anyway, means we don’t have to pay, right?”
“Right! Just win and we don’t have to pay!”
“Then we gotta win!”
Gapdol was burning with fighting spirit for an odd reason.
Such reactions were occurring throughout the Joseon army camps. While it was a distant story for young soldiers in their teens and twenties who formed the main force, to soldiers over 30 scattered here and there, ‘tribute,’ ‘tribute women,’ and ‘superior country’ were symbols of suffering.
“To never experience such damn things again, we must win!”
“That’s right!”
The veteran soldiers were burning with even more fighting spirit than the young soldiers.
***
Meanwhile, inside Liaodong fortress, the Liaodong army commanders were desperately maintaining their soldiers’ fighting spirit.
“The walls of this Liaodong fortress are just as strong as those Joseon bastards’!”
“Trust in the walls!”
“Reinforcements will come soon! If we just hold out, victory is ours!”
The commanders shouted to their soldiers that reinforcements would come. This was partly to maintain the soldiers’ morale, but it was also self-hypnosis.
Currently, the forces defending Liaodong fortress numbered 100,000. Most of these were Ming soldiers who had retreated from the Sinuiju battle and Ming troops who had rushed from nearby garrisons. The rest were Jurchen who had already been sinicized.
***
During the retreat process, most of the Jurchen origin soldiers and a considerable number of Han soldiers had deserted. Because of this, the morale of the soldiers who returned to Liaodong fortress was rock bottom.
Seeing this, Zhu Qizhen showed a dejected expression.
“Defeat? You say defeat? Where is Zhao Bingde?”
“The general has fallen in battle.”
At the answer of the most senior general among those who had barely returned, Zhu Qizhen collapsed into his chair.
“Fallen in battle?”
“Yes.”
“Hah…”
Seeing Zhu Qizhen completely losing his spirit, Wang Chong stepped forward.
“Let us report to Beijing.”
“To Beijing?”
“Yes. Is it not that when lips are gone, teeth grow cold? If Liaodong is lost, Beijing too becomes endangered. Let us request help.”
“…”
Zhu Qizhen fell into thought without immediately answering. This made the generals anxious.
“Your Highness. Joseon forces are coming here now. We have no time.”
“Not only are we short on troops, but morale is also poor. We need reinforcements.”
Finally, unable to resist the generals’ pressure, Zhu Qizhen ended up writing and sending a letter requesting help to Beijing.
***
That night, Zhu Qizhen called Wang Chong separately and quietly asked.
“Was this too part of His Majesty’s plan?”
“What? How could… That’s an unfounded suspicion!”
Wang Chong strongly denied it, but Zhu Qizhen shook his head.
“No. Looking back, everything fits together. Previously, His Majesty asked me who Ming’s main enemy was. When I answered Northern Yuan, he said that wasn’t it. He probably had been thinking of striking Joseon since then. But there was no justification. So he sent me here. The bait of ‘If you gain Joseon, I’ll allow you to claim the title of Emperor’ was probably for the same reason. He must have been certain I would act, and I acted exactly as expected.”
“Your Highness is His Majesty’s legitimate son. How could he use you as bait?”
“Do you not know His Majesty’s nature?”
At Zhu Qizhen’s question, Wang Chong closed his mouth. Zhu Qizhen filled and emptied a wine cup placed to one side and continued.
“The most important thing to His Majesty is the country. Even the most loyal old minister would be discarded without mercy if they failed to properly make the country prosperous. Would it be any different for his own child with such a person?”
“But think of the military funds and craftsmen he sent! His Majesty truly…”
Zhu Qizhen cut off Wang Chong’s words with an expression full of cynicism.
“He truly wanted to strike Joseon, I suppose. If I had lived leisurely in Liaodong using those funds, he would certainly have pressured from another direction to make me strike Joseon. His Majesty is quite capable of such things.”
“Your Highness…”
Though Wang Chong tried to continue speaking with an earnest expression, Zhu Qizhen stood up and turned away.
“Though the situation may be worse than His Majesty expected, it has gone as he wished. When my memorial arrives, he will move troops immediately. Then I have only one task. To defend this place until they arrive. His Majesty need not worry about that part. Though I may be His Majesty’s sacrificial stone (사석(捨石, shě shí = sacrificial stone)), my pride won’t allow me to end as a dead stone (사석(死石, sǐ shí = dead stone)). You may leave now.”
At Zhu Qizhen’s dismissal, Wang Chong made a polite bow and left the room.
Left alone in the room, Zhu Qizhen muttered while looking at the moon in the night sky.
“Was it just a spring dream[1]?”
And on the day Joseon army’s advance force appeared before Liaodong fortress, a reply came from Beijing.
-Will send 800,000. Hold Liaodong fortress until troops arrive.
***
With the appearance of the Imperial Taeguk Flag, preparations for the beginning of full-scale battle were complete.
“Victory or defeat lies in our hands! We are the true main force!”
The commanders leading Joseon’s artillery units shouted to their subordinates with faces full of pride.
At the commanders’ shouts, the artillerymen nodded with faces full of pride.
The commander raised his baton, pointed at Liaodong fortress’s red walls, and continued speaking.
“It’s a battle of pride whether those red brick walls are stronger, or our shells are more powerful! Are you confident?”
“We are confident!”
“Then prepare to fire!”
“Yes, sir!”
Shortly after, flags indicating preparation was complete fluttered at each Joseon artillery position.
The battery commanders swallowed dry saliva while watching the flying scouts in the sky.
Finally, confirming the flashing signal from the flying scouts, the battery commanders shouted to the flag bearers holding signal flags.
“Fire!”