185.
The Night in the Private Hall — The King, the Grand Princess, and Lee In-jung
The battle ended sooner than expected.
Yet that speed did not signify victory.
It was the catastrophe called civil war.
There was no time to rejoice.
No one knew where the next explosion would break out.
An unease like a fever spread through the bones.
They had no information on the enemy.
Friend and foe had met at too close a distance.
The same armor, the same language, the same chain of command.
By the time they realized it was the enemy, spearpoints were already passing through flesh.
It had been a chance encounter.
And that chance was sealed in blood.
The difference in forces was large.
Ki Cheol's troops were rebels who had prepared for this.
But they could not withstand the mass and experience of the Signal Guard, who responded swiftly from the center of the capital.
Ki Cheol's men suffered losses close to annihilation, and what remained fled in panic with the burning North Gate at their backs.
Even so, allied losses were not small.
Had they not met them by chance, those men would have entered the palace without resistance.
The thought alone made the blood run cold.
Park Seongjin collapsed beneath the broken gate tower, dragging in breath.
Beyond the flames, the tip of Lee In-jung's sword was stained red.
Each time blood fell from the blade and sank into the earth, the night deepened.
"Tonight will be long," Lee In-jung said in a low voice.
"Come. We move."
The Signal Guard's banner fluttered slowly above the dying fire.
The smell of blood riding the wind seeped deeper into the capital.
That scent did not announce the end of battle.
It announced the beginning of politics.
The Private Hall (便殿)
Though it was night, dozens of lamps burned in the private hall.
Their light did not push back the darkness.
It made the shadows thicker.
The king sat in black robes with a red shoulder cord laid across him.
His face was still, but his eyes did not rest.
Beside him sat the Grand Princess Noguk.
Half her face lay in shadow, yet her gaze did not waver by even a hair.
Cold, firm, calculated—
the eyes of one who had survived the long combats of an imperial court.
Lee In-jung entered and knelt.
"Your Majesty."
Without lifting his head, the king asked,
"The North Gate?"
"The collision was accidental."
Lee In-jung's voice was steady.
"A remnant force of Ki Cheol's men was encountered by chance and routed.
They fled after abandoning part of the weapons they had gathered.
We are clearing the site now."
The king raised his head slowly.
Lamplight caught in his pupils.
"Ki Cheol's force… has broken?"
"Yes. Near total destruction."
A brief silence.
In that short stillness, the king's fingers moved slowly over the tassels of the cord at his shoulder.
Then he spoke, low.
"Then we erase that name."
The air in the hall sank another layer.
"The root of the Ki clan," the Grand Princess said quietly.
Her voice was soft, but warning lived within it.
"Your Majesty, you move too quickly.
The Ki clan is not merely a minister's house.
They are bound by blood to the Yuan imperial family.
And he is the Empress's elder brother."
The king's gaze turned to her.
"How much more blood must this country spill in the name of that imperial house?"
His voice was low, but the conclusion was already inside it.
Lee In-jung pressed his forehead to the floor.
His voice came stripped of emotion.
"Your Majesty, after the battle at the North Gate, the hearts of the people have already shifted.
The words 'the king's troops defended the capital' are spreading quickly inside and outside the city."
The king's eyes narrowed.
"Now is the opening.
We must remove Ki Cheol's household and recover all weapons and provisions from the Ssangseong Regional Headquarters.
We reclaim Ssangseong itself as well.
If we let this pass, we will never gain such justification again."
The flame in the hall trembled without sound.
As if it had read the movement of minds and answered.
The king said nothing for a time.
Then, at last, he spoke.
"Good.
Make the Signal Guard the main force and seize the Ssangseong Regional Headquarters.
Recover every weapon and every measure of grain.
Leave not a single remnant of Ki Cheol's faction alive."
His gaze hardened.
The Grand Princess Noguk's expression stiffened.
The decision had already been made, yet the matter was vast.
For the first time, a thin tremor entered her voice.
"Your Majesty… are you saying you will strike the Empress Ki's elder brother?"
The king formed a cold smile, slowly.
His words were absolute.
"No.
I am taking back my country."
Silence filled the hall.
The lamps wavered, and their light brushed the Grand Princess's face.
Her lips trembled faintly, but she did not speak.
One more word could wound the king's dignity.
Lee In-jung bowed his head deeply.
"I receive your command."
The king rose and walked to the window.
Over the sky toward the North Gate, a faint red glow still remained.
---*
Grand Princess Noguk — Bonds in Fire (緣)
Under lamplight, she remained composed to the end.
Even as Ki Cheol's name rose and fell, even as reports came one after another that the North Gate had been dyed with blood, not even her fingertips moved.
The more the tension in the air rose, the quieter her bearing became.
Grand Princess Noguk was a granddaughter of Yuan's Emperor Shun.
Born the daughter of the Prince of Wei, P'ara Ch'eopmog'a, she carried imperial blood.
The king had been sent to Goryeo at the age of twelve as a tolluge—a hostage—
and soon resided in Dadu.
For Goryeo's royal house, it was a path so common it had become a route.
*This was called ttulluge—a Yuan system that kept princes of subject lands in the capital Dadu, where they served in political counsel and related roles.
There she saw a young man.
A royal prince of Goryeo raised in Yŏnggyŏng—
the one who would later become King Gongmin.
He shot well, rode well, and possessed deep talent for song, poetry, and painting.
He was a youth absorbed in art—enough to paint the Heavenly Mountain Grand Hunt with his own hand.
He was the second son of King Chungsuk and the younger brother of King Chunghye.
He had been pushed aside by his nephew King Chungmok, and when Chungmok died, pushed aside again by King Chungjeong.
The fact that his mother was not of Yuan imperial blood but a woman of Goryeo narrowed his political footing.
He drew little attention.
He folded away dreams of rule and sank deeper into art.
The one who looked upon that figure with pity was Empress Ki.
A woman of Goryeo who had become Empress of Yuan, she sought to console the young prince by making Noguk his consort.
Princess Noguk was different.
She did not favor flamboyant silks, but pale and restrained fabrics.
Among the palace women, her laughter came often; her manner was bright and yet humble.
Through such a woman, Empress Ki hoped to soothe the young prince.
Thus the marriage was arranged.
He became king, and they came to Goryeo.
Yet as years passed, unease settled in Noguk's heart.
The debt she owed to Empress Ki still remained within her.
And against that debt, her own brothers were devouring the state of Goryeo.
She wanted to look away.
But the king she loved sat in deep anguish.
A decision was required.
Then she spoke.
"My beloved Bayan Temür, Great King of Goryeo.
I, Borjigin Botapsilin, have resolved to share one lifetime with you.
I have sworn to love your Goryeo as my own body, and to hold your fate as my life.
I have heard that at the last banquet, the Duke of Deokseong, Paenbuka, drunkenly did not call himself your subject, but called himself 'I.'
He believes in his sister's authority, and his gall has swollen beyond measure.
This is already a crime that must be punished.
When I think of the Empress Ki, who arranged our marriage, my heart is pained.
Yet private feeling cannot cloud the greater cause of the realm.
Though the Empress of Yuan was once a woman of Goryeo, she is no longer of Goryeo.
Nor does she hold this country precious as you do.
Her authority weighs upon Goryeo without restraint.
It must be corrected."
When her words ended, the space seemed to stop.
King Gongmin looked at the Grand Princess Noguk directly for the first time.
He had not expected such speech.
At her choice, Lee In-jung fell to his knees without realizing it, and bloodwater slipped from his armor and spread across the floor.
Park Seongjin, who had followed, lowered himself in silence as well.
That a princess of a foreign empire consented to the punishment of the buwŏnbae was itself a shock.
In her posture there was neither agitation nor passion.
Those present lost their words.
She loved the king, and she was Goryeo's queen.
It was as though she were proclaiming, without raising her voice—
I am the queen of Goryeo.
The Grand Princess spoke again.
"Though I came from Yuan, I am already the queen of Goryeo and your wife.
Consider: the realm of Yuan has already begun to tilt.
Paenbuka's insolence toward the king is the act of revealing his own fear.
He seeks to harden his strength in Goryeo before Yuan tilts further.
Rumors already spread that he means to borrow his sister's power to attempt deposition.
We can no longer leave this be.
To cut them down is to lessen the worries of the world.
Invite Ki Cheol, son of Ki Jao, and those who follow him to a palace banquet, and remove them in a single stroke.
They have grown accustomed to the king's generosity; they will gather without suspicion.
Hide fifty soldiers within the palace, and execute those who plotted high treason.
This bloody justice—
I, Princess Noguk, will shoulder it together with you."
During the decade and more she spent in Yŏnggyŏng, Noguk had watched the corruption and decay of Yuan.
Through the reports of generals—Lee In-jung among them—who had gone on campaigns in the south, she had also pierced through the true state of Yuan's military strength.
In the humiliation of Goryeo, where the king had not been allowed to be king, she and the king had nurtured a shared will for reform.
The object of their vigilance was not Yuan alone.
Among the buwŏnbae within Goryeo, there were also the five brothers of Empress Ki—Ki Sik, Ki Cheol, Ki Wŏn, Ki Ju, Ki Ryun.
After Ki Sunnyŏ became the second Empress of Emperor Shun, they wielded power across both Goryeo and Yuan and stood as the core of the pro-Yuan faction.
The first removed was the buwŏnbae Jo Il-shin.
Because he did not touch the Yuan imperial house directly, they judged the repercussions would be limited.
Then came reforms: confiscations of the pro-Yuan faction's private troops and lands.
From that moment, the pro-Yuan faction grew anxious, sought alternatives, and reported the king's anti-Yuan actions to Yuan.
That matters had come to this was inevitable.
It was a thing that would happen one day.
What is meant to rise will, in the end, show its face.