156
Zhang Shicheng's Counterattack
News of Tokto's fall spread quickly along the front.
That single fact sent shockwaves deeper than a defeat.
In Zhang Shicheng's camp, where the news arrived late, anger and excitement must have surged together.
Regret rose like a tide over their hasty retreat from Liuhe Fortress.
What they had feared was never the Goryeo spears or the numerical strength of the Yuan forces.
It was the imperial order symbolized by the name Tokto.
The sense that this order could descend upon them at any time had kept them bound.
His fall was a signal.
A judgment that the empire's grip had loosened.
As expected, the Yuan coalition began to waver rapidly.
Western Region troops turned their horses away.
Northern cavalry looked first to their rear supply lines.
Command slowed. Orders lost immediacy.
Where legitimacy drained away, confusion rushed in.
Zhang Shicheng had watched that opening for a long time.
He did not try to shore up crumbling ground.
Rather than patching rot, he gathered his forces anew.
And then he returned.
The inside and outside had reversed.
The Yuan coalition had once attacked Zhang Shicheng from outside the walls;
now Zhang Shicheng struck from beyond them.
Without hesitation, he poured everything forward at Liuhe Fortress.
The positions before the north gate took the first blow.
After a night-long bombardment, shouts erupted from the dawn fog.
Drums thundered across the plain.
To that rhythm, Zhang Shicheng's vanguard advanced.
There was no hesitation in their eyes.
The judgment that this was the moment bound them together.
A cry split the line.
"Take back the lost fortress!"
At once, Yi In-jung's camp came under heavy pressure.
Differences in numbers and equipment, and even the advantage of the walls, failed to work as expected.
Confusion surfaced first among those who had lost their cause.
Yun Gyeongbok shouted until his voice tore.
"The left wing is giving way! Turn the huihui trebuchets!"
But the order never reached the far end of the line.
The center was already tangled.
Each commander moved by his own judgment.
Those judgments blocked retreat rather than saving one another.
Coalition banners fell one by one.
Misfired volleys crossed paths and tore at the formation.
Zhang Shicheng's army, by contrast, pressed forward as a single mass.
Their roar carried long-stored resentment and fury—
the sound only those who had endured defeat could make.
Watching, Park Seong-jin clenched his teeth.
"They know about Tokto's fall. That's why they're coming like this."
Yi In-jung nodded briefly.
"The one who held the empire together is gone."
He scanned the battlefield, marking where commands scattered and movements slipped out of sync.
Liuhe Fortress and Gaoseong were still key positions.
He drew his sword.
"All units, reorganize the withdrawal line."
"Close the gates. Leave a path open."
The orders were concise. Nothing more was added.
Before his words fully settled, flames rose from the northern battlements.
Smoke and fire tangled, staining the sky red.
Beyond the blaze, Zhang Shicheng's drums sounded again.
The rhythm did not break.
A War to Stay Alive
The night at Liuhe Fortress was long.
The line shook, but the Goryeo army did not break.
The reason was clear.
Those fighting in the name of the empire had lost their cause and scattered.
Those fighting to survive grew firmer.
The Goryeo army was the latter.
On the walls, arbalesters loosed bolts at steady intervals.
Below, spearmen pushed back enemies climbing the northern slope.
At times, the huihui trebuchets roared, smashing concentrated enemy groups.
The strikes were not showy, but they were precise and relentless.
The Goryeo troops were armed with heavy crossbows.
Braced against the walls, they fired without pause.
When the enemy tried to bring up trebuchets, long-range bolts shattered the crews before they could operate them.
Under the firelight, Yi In-jung's voice rang low and clear.
"They're coming again! Keep your spacing! Don't scatter your shots!"
His gaze was astonishingly calm.
Commanders followed that composure, and the soldiers—exhausted as they were—did not lose shape.
They were not being dragged by orders.
They were holding by judgments they themselves accepted.
That difference sustained the line.
In that interval, Yi In-jung summoned the old merchant Wang Pilsun.
As always, Wang spoke little.
Inside his worn bundle lay maps of ancient trade routes.
"If we leave by this path, can we reach Jiangnan?" Yi In-jung asked.
"We can," Wang nodded.
"The waterways connect. It's the dry season now, so the depth is shallow, but in a few days the water will rise."
Yi In-jung studied the map, then nodded.
"Then we hold until then."
"Yes. But…" Wang hesitated.
"They'll make the same calculation."
Yi In-jung did not look up.
"Which is why we must use that path first."
"You mean preparing a retreat?"
Under the firelight, blood and dust clung to Yi In-jung's face.
"This isn't flight," he said.
"It's preparation to survive."
His calculus was cold.
The tripartite balance he had long spoken of was never an ideal—it was a structure built on survival.
Jiangnan's wealth, the order of the north, and Goryeo's balance.
Only if all three stood would the world hold.
But with Tokto's fall, that balance had already cracked.
"If the Yuan in the north collapses, Jiangnan's wealth will shake," Yi In-jung said firmly.
"When Jiangnan wavers, the court in Beijing won't last long."
Yun Gyeongbok asked,
"Then we must keep fighting?"
"Yes."
"Even as the empire collapses?"
"Yes. That's how we survive."
"Even if it's another country's war, it becomes a war for our survival."
That night, Liuhe Fortress was again painted in fire.
But before dawn, Zhang Shicheng's assault was completely broken.
Bodies piled beneath the gates.
Lanterns of fleeing soldiers vanished one by one along the river.
The Goryeo army endured the night.
The soldiers on the walls were exhausted,
yet on their faces remained a quiet, hard-to-name steadiness.
They were faces that already knew what they were holding.