- Stratagem – Movement
At dawn, Lee Hee sought out Grand General Jin Mu-gwang.
The general’s expression remained calm as ever.
There was nothing about him that suggested a commander of the battlefield.
It was that very dissonance that made subordinates hesitate before him.
The dimness of the command tent suited both the shadowed interior and Jin Mu-gwang’s somber face.
“What have you decided?”
The abrupt question left Lee Hee momentarily at a loss.
On the field he was a tiger, yet before the Grand General he often felt otherwise.
“I… I have decided nothing, sir.”
“You held a long council of war and still no decision?”
“Do you ask for my opinion?”
“Who else stands here? Speak plainly.”
The general’s gaze held trust.
What had he been waiting for?
The correct answer?
A clever solution?
Or the moment when the will to fight would burn so fiercely that hesitation vanished?
“My opinion, then. This place has become a dead ground. The enemy will not enter. If we wish to draw them here, we must leave. Then they will come. At the least, they will pass through.”
Jin Mu-gwang nodded.
“Then where becomes the battlefield? Is there another suitable ground?”
There was none.
If the enemy’s swift cavalry slipped past the Han forces blocking their flank, the war would be over.
The barbarians who had ravaged the continent desired only to return home.
To do so, they would accept any sacrifice.
They did not wish to fight.
They wished to pass.
“Here.”
“Here?”
“Yes. We leave this place—and make it the battlefield.”
Jin Mu-gwang let out a short laugh.
“A clever turn of phrase. You are not playing with words?”
“We turn the terrain into peril. Lay traps and snares as we withdraw. Make this passage impassable. If no army stands here, they will attempt to cross. That is when we strike.”
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“And if they turn back?”
“We must prevent them from turning.”
“How?”
“We burn their supplies.”
“Who will do it?”
“I will.”
Silence stretched long.
Lee Hee believed he had said all that his simple head could produce.
Two officers behind the general nodded faintly.
A civil official placed brush, ink, and paper before them.
“It is a sound thought,” Jin Mu-gwang said at last.
“In truth, the pressure upon me has grown severe. While you were afield, an imperial command arrived. His Majesty demanded to know why the enemy yet lives. The time granted to me has reached its limit. Now it is not the enemy who is pressed—it is us.”
He paused.
“The true terror is not the enemy. It is ourselves. The enemy within. No—rather the one who commands us. I do not fear the barbarians. I fear the court. If ordered to fight, I will fight. But when the court forms public opinion and strikes from behind, neither martial skill nor strategy avails.
If I wait longer, another general will be sent. That man will attack at once. There will be terrible losses. Perhaps annihilation. The barbarians will escape unharmed. I do not fear the foe beyond the lines. I fear the foe behind them. Therefore we must draw the battle forth. His Majesty’s patience wanes.”
Lee Hee knew little of court politics.
Yet in that moment he felt the sorrow of the warrior.
To fear not the enemy, but one’s own command…
“But listen, Hee,” Jin Mu-gwang continued softly.
“I love these soldiers. I wish them to return home alive. As I wish for myself. I will not thrust them into certain death. What you propose is our final card. If we waited a month—no, half a month—we might destroy the enemy outright. Yet now it seems I must either write one final memorial—or lose my head upon the fields of Halan.
Rise. Muster the entire army. Turn this place into a dead ground. Then withdraw. The new position will be Mulan. There we reform and prepare to receive the enemy. Do you understand?”
“I obey!”
Lee Hee knelt in salute, then rose and summoned the officers of the host.
The council resumed under his direction while the Grand General listened in silence from the rear.
The plan to transform the gorge into a killing ground was executed without hesitation.
To conceal their intent, nearly all of the White Dragon Cavalry spread wide, riding out to scout and ambush.
Ropes were strung to entangle horses’ legs.
Pitfalls were dug and lined with sharpened stakes, then covered thinly with soil.
Some ground was fashioned to resemble traps where none existed.
Other ground appeared harmless and concealed death.
Trees were bent and rigged to snap back for sudden assaults.
Lee Hee rode the forward lines himself, wary of another commander like Mong Roe appearing.
Yet Mong Roe, chastened and humiliated, remained within his stockade.
He busied himself suppressing rumor, unwilling to have it known he had been driven back by a mere boy.
So-woon continued his patrols across the plain.
He rode slowly, letting the horse choose its pace, gazing toward the far horizon.
The vast land received and expanded his breath.
Since receiving part of the Compendium, his life itself had become cultivation.
He had studied his family’s sword art in childhood.
He had tasted real combat.
In Lee Hee’s eyes, the boy now stood upon a threshold.
No one steps easily onto the path of mastery.
It demands relentless practice, deep breath, strengthened inner power.
Such things are not achieved overnight.
Yet the boy’s simple and sincere heart, combined with the crucible of war, gave him a chance.
There was no leisure for formality.
Death stood ever near.
He carried his three-section spear joined at his side, advancing steadily.
White Dragon riders spread across the basin, hunting down enemy scouts relentlessly.
Fearing a larger sortie, Lee Hee stationed two companies at the center.
If this day passed without disaster, they would withdraw beyond the pass.
The plan to burn the enemy granaries was abandoned.
Their location was uncertain.
To penetrate the stockade was perilous.
And the nomads carried much of their provisions with them.
There had not been a single day without skirmish—
until that day.
It was strangely quiet.
Mong Roe’s defeat weighed heavily.
The overwhelming presence of the White Dragon Cavalry blanketing the basin may also have pressed the enemy into caution.
That night, the Han forces quietly abandoned the narrow pass of Halan and withdrew to Mulan, leaving only small scouting detachments behind.
As they retreated, they left countless traps in their wake.
The long, narrow corridor between mountain ridges was turning into a deathly severed ground.