446.
Beneath Yingtian's walls, horns and drums burst out dozens of times a day.
The course of the war had already tilted.
Those still inside the city no longer moved toward survival, but toward an ending.
The enemy's courage was sorrowful.
Pity, regret, and weight lay together upon it.
Park Seong-jin watched the burning banners beyond the wall for a long time, then spoke quietly.
"…It weighs on me to drive all those people into death.
The war has already found its direction.
Now is the time to set the frame of the new empire.
It is hard to find a reason to pile up more deaths.
I would like us to persuade them."
His words were even, but a firm compassion sat within them.
Faced with that honesty, Yun Dam chose his words and drew a breath.
These days, the strategist who stood most often at Jin Youliang's side was Yun Dam.
While Yi In-jung remained in Yangzhou, he represented the intent of the Goryeo army.
After Park Seong-jin refused office and wealth, most messages and decisions passed through Yun Dam.
Park Seong-jin continued.
"Watching so many die is not easy.
Even for an empire to take root, fewer deaths help.
A foundation settles better when fewer are buried under it."
Yun Dam did not find the sentiment strange.
Park Seong-jin always spoke what was plain, with a plain face.
Only, the weight changed because the one saying it was a warrior of Hwagyŏng.
He stood far from the world's quarrels, and yet he still tried to honor this world.
Yun Dam asked, after a measured pause,
"What would you have us do?"
Park Seong-jin hesitated, then answered.
"I cannot tell if it will be received as words at all, but…
If they are loyal to that degree, what if we bring Zhu Yuanzhang and try to persuade them?
Rather than cutting them all down, there is also a path that loosens hearts and lets people live."
Yun Dam's gaze wavered for a moment.
"I understand your intent fully.
But Zhu Yuanzhang's condition is… not far from being broken.
Few treat a captured defeated king with kindness, and…"
As Yun Dam weighed his phrasing, Park Seong-jin nodded calmly.
"That seems likely.
Still, if we leave it as it is, the aftermath may grow larger."
Yun Dam's chest tightened briefly.
He felt that Park Seong-jin had already guessed what had been done to Zhu Yuanzhang after capture—
the humiliations, the handling of a fallen rival.
Park Seong-jin knew, and remained calm.
That calm looked like a deep decision.
Park Seong-jin spoke again.
"If they see their leader, their hearts may loosen.
They may also flare up.
But that flare cannot last long."
Yun Dam chose his words once more, then nodded.
"…Yes.
I will report first to King Jin and prepare the measures."
A short silence passed.
Park Seong-jin looked as though he were weighing something, then spoke carefully.
"Elder Yun Dam."
"Speak."
"I wanted to ask whether there is more you wish to convey."
When Yun Dam tilted his head, Park Seong-jin smiled awkwardly.
"I heard King Jin wishes to see me."
"…Yes. He does.
But he also says—something like—that one must not disturb a man of cultivation."
Yun Dam nodded, but one corner of his heart sank.
"He meant to protect your study time.
He said you needed time alone…"
Park Seong-jin lowered his head.
"I am always grateful.
Truly."
The politeness and thoughtfulness of the words made Yun Dam's feelings more complicated.
He let a sliver of his own heart show.
"I often have to make judgments on behalf of Goryeo.
There are times when it is hard to hold on to certainty.
The brief words you sometimes offer carry more strength than any report."
Park Seong-jin shook his head.
"I still need to steady myself.
My strength, my body, my mind—there is imbalance.
More precisely, I do not yet know the changed me.
It is not grand study; daily life has become difficult.
I break chopsticks by gripping too hard.
Things like that happen again and again."
"Ah… balance in living,"
Yun Dam murmured.
Park Seong-jin said softly,
"After I entered Hwagyŏng, there was a day when a dusk-colored light passed through me.
The world I saw that day is still unfamiliar.
Everything becomes too clear, and the heart grows heavy.
Sometimes the sorrow grows deeper.
When we look back on a human life, it is too sorrowful."
A chill ran along Yun Dam's spine.
It was the first time Park Seong-jin had shown his confusion openly.
Park Seong-jin continued.
"That is why I keep distance.
Policy and strategy should be carried by elders like you.
I should take what is done by strength.
For the rest, polishing myself is more useful to the world."
Yun Dam bowed his head slowly.
"I will follow your will.
Then…"
He asked, at last.
"Please step out with King Jin just once.
And accompany us on the road to persuade Zhu Yuanzhang.
We must bring him and make them surrender.
Only then will the harm be small."
Park Seong-jin smiled quietly.
"Yes.
That, I will do.
Before more people fall."
After a long council in Jin Youliang's main command, Yun Dam reported with care.
"My King, bring the defeated Zhu Yuanzhang and have him persuade the soldiers of Yingtian.
Then the flow of the battle will quicken."
Jin Youliang's eyes opened wide.
"You would have me bring a defeated king here."
Jin Youliang wished to treat the rival king with a measure of dignity.
He could not shake the thought that he himself might have stood in such a place.
It was a kind of shared fate.
Then Park Seong-jin, who had not shown himself through much of the council, stepped forward.
"…My King.
The current of the age has already moved its seat.
It is hard to find a reason for more lives to wither.
A human breath is precious.
Please consider this as sparing lives.
If Zhu Yuanzhang urges his men to surrender, how can they refuse?
Once Yingtian is taken, it ends.
That vast history which rose against oppression will arrive at a conclusion—
the founding of another, better country."
Jin Youliang looked at the two men without speaking.
After a moment, he released a deep breath.
"Fine.
Bring him.
I will settle this war today."
That day, Zhu Yuanzhang would step out onto the field again—
to save soldiers who had chosen death,
and to shape what remained of his own heart.
Before Yingtian, Zhu Yuanzhang's last persuasion.
Yingtian still stood.
Yet the smell of a dead 나라 had seeped into every seam of its walls.
It was a strange thing.
How could a defeat at Poyang Lake affect Yingtian, so far away?
It was natural that people would be affected, but even the stone walls, the gates, the tall buildings looked unwell.
Everything seemed dim, as if it might collapse.
Even the smell felt uncanny, like the rotten glory of an old age.
This place—once called Jinling, a city pressed down by the shadows of dynasties since the Song—
had become the last breath of the Ming.
The broad open ground before the gate lay quiet.
On black soil soaked with blood, Jin Youliang's banners and the Goryeo banners stood planted side by side.
Park Seong-jin stood one step ahead, feeling the qi flowing out from the city.
The resolve of death stood upright there.
Even knowing ruin, a final momentum pressed down, stubbornly holding.
The last body-heat of a weak 나라—mixed with wailing and rage—rose from the ground.
Even the wind seemed threaded with crying.
Behind them, chains clinked.
Zhu Yuanzhang was being brought out, dragging iron.
His arms were bound, but his neck was lifted.
The early madness and fierce ambition had thinned, and only his eyes remained—
like a wild beast exhausted after long weeping.
He stepped forward, one step at a time.
Jin Youliang watched from behind in silence.
Yun Dam murmured low.
"Please… save them all."
Park Seong-jin said nothing.
After a glance at Zhu Yuanzhang being led out, he lifted his eyes to the wall.
The remaining soldiers above were bloodshot enough to be seen even at distance.
One hand gripped a rotted spear.
The other clutched a flag.
The momentum of those who had chosen the end did not waver.
"Your Majesty!
We will defend Yingtian to the end!
We will fight to the end!"
The shout spread through the air and returned like an echo off the hills.
Zhu Yuanzhang, standing before the gate, closed his eyes once and opened them.
He spoke softly, but clearly.
"Enough."
Faces on the wall hardened.
Zhu Yuanzhang walked forward slowly.
The chains scraped the ground and made a long sound.
"I lost.
We lost.
It is because my virtue was lacking."
When those words fell into the air, several on the wall sank where they stood.
Zhu Yuanzhang shouted louder.
"I lost!
This country has lost!"
Silence settled.
That silence covered all of Yingtian.
Breathing hard with a trembling chest, Zhu Yuanzhang looked up at the sky.
"You have been given nothing by me.
We were poor, we suffered, we were wronged."
And yet you would stake your lives for me—
that feeling clung to the end of his sentence and trembled.
His eyes reddened with wet.
"I was not that great a man."
Between the soldiers on the wall, sobbing leaked out.
Zhu Yuanzhang lowered his head and spoke his final words.
"Put down your blades now.
Live.
You have fought enough for the 나라.
Death can build nothing more."
At that moment, Park Seong-jin felt the hearts inside the city loosen and scatter.
The force of resolve melted.
A trembling that laid down hostility spread outward.
Acceptance—bitter, resigned—flowed through.
He closed his eyes quietly.
An old veteran who had stood the longest on the wall lowered his spear with a shaking hand.
Clack.
That single sound broke the city's breath.
"Open… the gate,"
someone said through sobs.
A moment later, the gate began to open, slowly.
Kii— kii—
With that sound, Yingtian's last resistance vanished.
Zhu Yuanzhang dropped to his knees.
"Please… spare them all."
He was no longer an emperor.
Not even a defeated king in title.
He stood as one person.
Zhu Yuanzhang who cherished his men stood there.
Not a tyrant, but the human being—pure, as he had been at the first uprising—
standing as if this were truly the last.
Jin Youliang walked forward through the silence.
"I ask you."
It was a short sentence.
Behind him, Yun Dam and Park Seong-jin nodded at the same time.
That day, Yingtian opened without spilling another drop of blood.
This was the last merit left by Zhu Yuanzhang—
the defeated man's final service.