Betrayal
Syngman Rhee thought, 'He said he respected it, but he didn't say he would follow it.'
"We'll discuss it again after Seoul is recaptured. Good night, President Truman."
"Good night, President Rhee."
Click. He set down the receiver.
Syngman Rhee stared at the phone for a long moment. Then he lifted his teacup and took a sip. The cold tea slid down his throat.
"Francesca."
He called for his wife. Francesca, who had been waiting in the next room, entered quietly.
"Contact the Minister of Defense. Schedule a meeting for tomorrow morning."
"About what?"
Syngman Rhee didn't answer. He merely traced his finger over the 38th Parallel on the map once more. Francesca looked at her husband's face and asked no further questions. She knew that expression. It was the face of a man who had made his decision.
Outside the official residence, the horn of a ship blared faintly from Pusan Harbor. A transport vessel docking, laden with weapons and supplies from America. As Syngman Rhee listened to the sound, he thought, 'If MacArthur tries to stop, I'll push forward. If Truman hesitates, I'll create a fait accompli. The ROK forces will cross first. Then the Americans will have no choice but to follow.'
An old man's gamble. A gamble with the fate of a nation. Syngman Rhee didn't see it as a gamble. To him, it was the natural exercise of a right. Why would reclaiming his own territory be a gamble?
The light in the study went out. The night in Pusan deepened.
After Francesca left, Syngman Rhee remained alone in the study and unrolled the map. He slid his finger north of the 38th Parallel. Kaesong, Wonsan, Pyongyang, Hamhung, Chongjin. With each northward trace, his heart beat faster. Unification. The word pulsed hot in his chest.
Syngman Rhee was wary of MacArthur's change. The old MacArthur had been ambitious. Ambitious men were easy to handle. Stoke their desire for greater glory, and they moved in the direction you wanted. But this MacArthur was a cautious one. Cautious men knew when to stop. And those who stopped were enemies of unification.
Syngman Rhee organized in his mind the orders he would give to Defense Minister Shin Sung-mo. At last, the ROK 3rd Division and Capital Division were leaving the Nakdong River line to join the recapture of Seoul. Once Seoul fell, he would issue immediate orders for them to advance north. UN Command approval? A post-facto notification would suffice. If the ROK forces crossed the 38th Parallel and pushed north, the Americans would have no choice but to follow. And if they didn't? Then the ROK forces would go alone. Even if it meant death, they would go.
Syngman Rhee didn't fold the map. He left it spread on the desk. He would show it to Shin Sung-mo at tomorrow's meeting. The places his finger had touched. Pyongyang. He drew a small circle around it with a pencil. Then, without turning off the study light, he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Sleep wouldn't come. Behind Syngman Rhee's eyes, the dream of unification burned.
The underground bunker in Pyongyang reeked of thick cigarette smoke, sweat, and the stench of defeat. Water droplets forming on the damp concrete walls splashed to the floor before a sharp bellow tore through the stale air inside.
"Park Heon-young, you son of a bitch!"
Kim Il-sung was raging. His face flushed a dark crimson with uncontrolled fury, thick veins bulging on his neck like they might burst. His meaty fist slammed down on the operations conference table. A porcelain teacup at the edge tipped over, spilling hot tea across the military map. The inked defense lines smeared grotesquely under the brown flood.
"You said the South Korean people would all rise up!"
Kim Il-sung's bloodshot eyes glared across the table at the frozen man, as if to stab him dead. It was Park Heon-young, leader of the South Labor Party and deputy premier of the cabinet.
"You said once the People's Army took Seoul, two hundred thousand South Labor Party members would rise in unison and end the war before the Americans could even land! This is all your fault!"
Park Heon-young's facial muscles twitched at the dagger-like accusation. Even as the war situation collapsed, it felt like the blade of internal power struggles was at his throat. Wounded pride and political crisis surging, he half-rose from his chair and fired back.
"Comrade! How can you use such insulting language!"
Park Heon-young's voice rose without yielding. His thin lips quivered.
"Wasn't overestimating the South Korean situation a collective responsibility of the Party Central Committee? How can underestimating the scale of U.S. imperialist intervention be solely the South Labor Party's fault!"
"Collective responsibility? The front lines are melting away, and your mouth's still flapping!"
Kim Il-sung snarled, his hand reaching for the pistol holster at his waist. The ominous snap of the leather flap froze the air in the bunker. A staff general standing nearby paled and grabbed Kim Il-sung's arm with both hands, desperately calming him.
"Comrade! Calm down! Seoul hasn't fallen yet."
The general, his uniform soaked with sweat, jabbed urgently at the Han River line on the tea-stained map. His fingers trembled.
"We'll concentrate the remaining forces and defend along the Han River. If we block their crossing and fight in the streets, we can buy time to regroup. There aren't many Americans. We'll hold it at all costs!"
The corner of Kim Il-sung's mouth twisted grotesquely. He let out a hollow, bitter laugh laced with despair and rage, then seized the general by the collar.
"Remaining forces? Where the hell are these remaining forces!"
He roared at the staff officers around him, spewing blood and bile.
"The main force down at the Nakdong is surrounded by those American bastards—trapped like rats in a sack—and all that's left in Pyongyang are bloody civilians who don't even know which end of a gun shoots! Where are you supposed to scrape up troops to hold the Han? Block tanks with your bare hands?"
Kim Il-sung shoved the general away. The man sprawled on the floor, but no one dared help him up. Kim Il-sung screamed into the void.
"What about Mao? Stalin! When the hell are those bastards sending reinforcements!"
No one answered. Stalin in Moscow was withdrawing in silence, while Mao Zedong in Beijing tapped his calculator and watched from across the border. The reality of utter isolation gnawed at Kim Il-sung's sanity. He panted heavily and glared down at Park Heon-young again.
"Park Heon-young. You claimed to know the South Korean people so well."
His voice sank to an eerily calm chill.
"Go down there yourself. Gather every last scrap of those precious South Labor Party remnants you boast about and shove them into the Seoul defense line. If the Han breaks and Seoul falls to the Americans, your head rolls first."
Park Heon-young's face drained of color. It was practically a suicide mission. He opened his mouth to protest, but seeing Kim Il-sung's hand already gripping the pistol handle, he bit his lip.
September 27th, morning. Seoul's Mapo, along the Han River bank.
The 'defense order' issued from Pyongyang's bunker manifested as a hell of mud and blood. An absolute hold order with forces halved. The cost was horrific.
WHOOSH-BOOM!
A U.S. Corsair fighter dropped napalm that slammed into the north bank sandbar, spewing a massive pillar of flame. Crimson fire licked the trenches, and North Korean conscripts huddled inside burst out wreathed in flames.
"Aaaah! Save me, please!"
Sixteen, maybe. A boyish People's Army soldier rolled in the mud, screaming. The blaze incinerated his rough uniform in seconds and charred his skin black. The foul stench of burning flesh rode the river wind.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
A U.S. Marine landing armored vehicle sliced through the water, its turret machine gun blazing. .50-cal tracer rounds poured out, bisecting the burning boy's waist. Upper and lower halves separated, the bloody lumps sprawled across the sandbar. The screams cut off instantly.
Behind the defense line, a North Korean Political Security officer drew his TT pistol and bellowed.
"Don't retreat! Turn your back on the reactionaries, and you're summarily executed!"
At his feet lay piles of boy soldiers shot in the back while fleeing in terror—instant deaths. This was Pyongyang's so-called 'remaining forces': forcibly conscripted students, workers barely taught to fire a rifle at basic training. All they had were a few rusty Mosin-Nagants and grenades.
BOOM!
The main gun of an M4 Sherman tank following the LVT roared. A 75mm high-explosive round struck dead-on the sandbag position where the officer stood. The eardrum-shattering blast obliterated the bunker. The officer's body vaporized into unrecognizable chunks of meat, scattering into the air. A rain of dirt, concrete shards, and human entrails fell.
ROK Marines crawled up the muddy bank. The heavy crack of M1 Garands echoed as bayonet-equipped men leaped into trenches, engaging in brutal hand-to-hand combat. The Han River waves had already turned a murky blood-red.
Park Heon-young, ejected from Kim Il-sung's bunker like vermin, immediately summoned his close aides. Red welts from rage and humiliation still marked his cheeks.
"That pig Kim Il-sung is dead set on using our South Labor Party as cannon fodder."
Park Heon-young lit a cigarette with shaking hands. Going to Seoul was a death sentence. The Han defense line was crumbling.
"We're not going to Seoul."
He exhaled a long plume of smoke and declared it. His aides stared in shock.
"We're heading to the Hwanghae Province mountains. Establish a guerrilla base around Guwol Mountain and concentrate the surviving South Labor Party forces there. Whether the Americans push north or Kim Il-sung collapses, we survive to the end and maintain our independent armed strength. Only then will we have a voice."