"Answer fire with fire,wash blood with blood."
Yarutai (耶魯台), supreme commander of the siege forces at Liaoyang, did not dismount from his horse.At the center of the encampment raised upon the snow, before a black tent, he received the letter as he was.The courier knelt and offered it with both hands.The red seal was still warm.Along the edges remained traces of scorching.Yarutai did not break the seal at once.
He pressed the paper with his fingertips.The texture alone told him enough.This was not a letter written for compromise.
A letter of refusal.These wretches are defiant—and they always insist on making it sound learned.
After a moment, he unfolded it slowly.Snowflakes settled and melted atop the characters.No one dared breathe too deeply, for fear the ink might run.Yarutai's eyes traced the first line.Then the second.Then the third.His expression did not change.
Mandate of Heaven, benevolence, ancient lands—words he had heard countless times before.But his gaze stopped at the final line.
Answer fire with fire.Wash blood with blood.
That sentence stirred the old instincts of war once more.This was not a war of blades alone.They had drawn the sword from its sheath with words first.He barely restrained the urge to cut them down at once.
Yarutai did not read the sentence aloud.Only the muscle beneath his brow twitched—ever so slightly.The surrounding commanders noticed it.That was why no one spoke.
He folded the letter.The motion was excessively neat.The hands of a man who had folded his rage over and over again.
Slowly, he raised his head.Before him stretched the white steppe, and beyond it, the walls of Liaoyang.
"So they say they will answer with fire,"he said quietly—lower than the wind itself."And wash with blood."
No one replied.Everyone knew that anyone who answered carelessly here would not return alive.
Yarutai did not throw the letter into the fire.Nor did he tear it apart.It had to be shown to Naghachu when the main force arrived.He tucked it inside the leather armor at his waist.
"I will remember this."
A commander asked cautiously,"Shall we issue the order to attack—"
Yarutai raised his hand.At that single gesture, the sounds of the steppe ceased.The horses' cries, the grinding of metal, the hands moving the drums—all stopped.
"Not yet."
He turned his horse slowly,from north to south."The fortress will soon become a sea of fire."The words slipped out like a prophecy.Then he added,"To those who do not know Heaven, I will teach them what Heaven is."
That night, the drums of the Northern Yuan did not sound.They had marched far and rested.But the soldiers of Liaoyang could not sleep.The steppe was silent, and within that silence, war was already in motion.
The enemy camp visible beneath the ramparts lay quiet.When the courier returned, Naghachu's encampment seemed to lose its voice for a moment.As if the image of the burning red letter still lingered in their sight.
Then, flames of fire-arrows tore through the sky and rose over the walls.
===---*
The sky was still dim.As the west wind sharpened, the banners atop the walls whipped like manes.Seong-jin stood at the edge of the battlements.The wind cut into flesh, and from afar came the low scrape of leather and iron.The shadow of a war not yet seen.
The ground spoke first.Before the flames, the smell arrived—horse sweat, resin, oil and iron, and the scent of flesh.
"They're coming."
Oh Jin-cheol muttered low.Hwang Hyeon-pil extended his hand beneath the rampart, signaling.
Then it happened.From afar, the drums sounded.Once.Twice.Three times.The signal to fire.
And the sky ignited.At first it looked like red stars.But it was thousands of fire arrows.They poured down at once, tearing through the darkness.As if the heavens themselves were shattering and falling, the flames split the dawn air.
"Fire arrows!""Shields!" "Shields!" "Shields!" "Shields!" "Shields!"Someone shouted, and the soldiers echoed it.
The men on the ramparts raised their shields as one.
Arrows fell like rain.They struck the walls and burst into flame, and the palisades caught fire.Burning bundles of straw breathed out fire as if alive.The crossbowmen's shields were not small—yet flesh was struck.There were simply too many arrows.Burning clothes seared skin.Soldiers rolled and screamed.
It felt as though the entire fortress could be burned down by arrows alone, without any siege engines.
Seong-jin swallowed.Brushing sparks from the back of his hand, he looked up at the sky.Then, amid the flames, he saw something flash.Enemy banners.Black horses were charging.Iron armor flooded the ground beneath the walls like waves.
"Prepare to fire!"
Hwang Hyeon-pil's voice thundered from behind the shields.Seong-jin set the string of his heavy crossbow.His muscles trembled—not from fear, but from the overwhelming force pressing in.
The words of the letter burned into his mind.
Answer fire with fire.Wash blood with blood.
He closed his eyes, then opened them.And softly, to himself, he murmured,
"With fire… answer."
The string was released.Pipipiping—The arrows of response rose to meet them.Red sky and flame devoured one another, colliding head-on.
Thus, the first day at Liaoyang began—with fire.