The King Returns to Hanyang
In the year of Jeonghae—a year that would have been called 1467 had one counted from the far-off lands of the West—it was the dawn of an early winter's morning, just before the day of first frost.
A wind pushing down from the northern lands drove sleet before it as it scoured the great stone walls that ringed Hanyang, capital of Joseon.
So bitter was the cold that even the Han River, coiling around the city's southern flank, had frozen over completely.
All human presence around the capital had drained away.
On this freezing morning, a young commander sat atop a black horse tinged with red, gazing out at the distant walls of Hanyang.
He looked to be on the cusp of thirty. He wore black lamellar armor and a helmet beneath a cloak of black sable, and his striking features carried a bearing both imposing and dignified. His eyes were unfathomably deep for his years, and in them lingered an unnameable sorrow.
From far off came the clip-clop of hooves, hammering against the frozen air.
A broad-shouldered man in armor was spurring his horse toward them at a brisk pace.
While the young commander kept his eyes fixed on the walls, the rider hailed him from afar.
"Your Highness!"
"Ho-in, is it."
The young commander's voice was low, yet it carried unmistakable authority.
The commander called Ho-in bowed his head.
"How goes it?"
"Lord Song Yu-bin's detachment has succeeded in opening Donuimun Gate. All are waiting for Your Highness."
"I see."
The young commander looked up at the sky.
Ho-in waited without a word.
After a moment, the young commander nodded.
"We ride."
"Yes, sire!"
The two spurred their horses forward at once.
Soon they came upon an open field where a host of what must have been three thousand cavalry stood drawn up in formation, waiting.
The riders who recognized the two men raised their spears with one hand and beat their chests with the other, each shouting in turn.
"Khan!"
"Surbaatur Khan!"
They wore leather armor, their hair and beards plaited and braided so that only a few strands remained loose.
These were Jurchen cavalry—the very people the men of Joseon called barbarians, or the "wild tribes of the wilderness."
Their discipline was ironclad.
Never once had the raiders who occasionally troubled Joseon's northern frontier, along the Amnok and Tumen Rivers, ever organized themselves into an army this disciplined and driven it to the very gates of the capital.
When the young commander raised his hand, the clamor fell silent at once.
A shaggy, burly man who appeared to command the riders stepped forward and offered a formal salute.
"Lord Temusi... nay—Surbaatur Khan."
He grinned broadly.
"Iharachi!"
The young commander inclined his head with a smile on his lips.
"The men's spirits run high."
"Every last one of 'em would gladly die for the Khan, as they always have!"
Iharachi beamed, showing his teeth.
"Commander Jeong Ho-chan and Lord Yi Si-ae await the Khan's orders. One word from you and we'll trample the whole place flat, straightaway!"
The young commander nodded at Iharachi's boasts, then rode out before the assembled soldiers.
Every man stood with lips sealed, waiting only for their commander to speak.
The commander gazed at them steadily for a long moment, and at last he opened his mouth.
"My soldiers!"
His voice rang out, startlingly clear and resonant.
"It has been years since you first took the battlefield at my side. Today, this one battle will settle everything. Countless trials brought us to this place—but we are here at last. You know full well, then, that the Mandate of Heaven lies with us!"
The cavalry listened to their commander in solemn silence.
"Your labors shall be justly rewarded. Every deed of yours has already been set down in record, and each man will be repaid according to its measure, great or small. Now—let us bring this war to its end!"
"For the Khan!"
The riders beat their chests and roared their assent as one.
The young commander returned their salute, then rode off with Ho-in at his side.
Where they headed, a red banner snapped in the wind.
Emblazoned across it in bold characters were four words: Jecheonhaengdo—"enforcing righteousness on Heaven's behalf."
Two men waited by the banner to receive them.
One was shaggy and long-limbed, a fur pelt thrown over his studded leather armor. The other was slight and slender, clad not in armor but in the flowing robes of a scholar, a traditional horsehair hat upon his head.
Recognizing the young commander, both bowed at the waist.
"You've come, Your Highness! Everythin' be ready."
"Lord Yi Si-ae."
Yi Si-ae pointed toward the city walls.
His speech was thick with the drawl of Hamgil Province.
"Fer your sake, Highness, I picked three thousand o' the toughest regulars in all Hamgildo an' brought 'em straight here."
"No trouble on the road?"
"A few blowhards tried t'act up, but... them fools couldn't block your army no'how. Just like Commander Jeong said, we got ambushes posted all round the four great gates."
"Well done. Not so much as a single ant must slip through."
"Don't you fret none. 'Cept..."
Yi Si-ae hesitated.
"What is it?"
"Back home in Hamgildo, we watched Suyang's mob strut an' bluster fer years, an' it near wore a hole in my heart. I figured today I might finally pay back even one-thousandth o' that grudge—but bein' kept out o' the city itself, it sticks in my craw somethin' fierce."
"Old man."
Yi Si-ae's tongue ran unrestrained. The scholar behind him stepped forward.
"That task belongs to His Highness alone."
"I know full well whose place it be."
Yi Si-ae smacked his lips.
The young commander spoke again.
"I understand how you feel. You'd like the honor of riding into Hanyang yourself. But it is precisely because I trust you and your men above all others that I've entrusted you with holding the four gates."
Yi Si-ae looked up at the young commander without a word.
"It has been days since our army crossed the Amnok, and word of the Battle of Anju will have reached them already. Some will smell the change in the wind and try to bolt. If not the elite regulars you command personally, Lord Yi Si-ae, who could hope to cast a net of heaven and earth over them all?"
At these words, Yi Si-ae's heart seemed finally to ease; he broke into a wide grin and bowed.
"You speak true, Highness. Not one o' Suyang's lackeys gets out o' Hanyang alive—I mean, free. Then I'll be off."
"I'm counting on you."
Yi Si-ae saluted and hurried away.
The young commander looked once more upon the capital.
The scholar drew up beside him.
"Ten years, and you have returned at last."
"Yes, Jeong Ho-chan... ten years. A full decade."
The commander's voice trembled faintly, as though emotion were welling up in him.
He lowered his head, then went on.
"Long enough for mountains and rivers to change hands—and yet Hanyang looks exactly as it did."
He turned to Jeong Ho-chan and Ho-in, standing at his side, and continued.
"Were it not for the two of you, how could I stand here today? How could I ever have raised my hand against my uncle Suyang again?"
The young commander regarded them with eyes full of feeling.
He was none other than Lee Hong-wi—the sixth king of Joseon, the ill-fated monarch driven from his throne by the Gyeyu Coup, the usurpation his own uncle, Grand Prince Suyang, had staged to seize the crown.
Ho-in spoke, his voice shaking.
"Say no more, Your Highness. When a rightful sovereign reclaims a throne stolen by traitorous hands, how could Heaven itself stand idle?"
He paused, then wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
"...Forgive me. My father, too, will at last be able to rest in peace."
"Yes. How could I ever forget? When we take Yeongwol, I shall have your father's tomb rebuilt with all the rites due a feudal lord, and honor his spirit as it deserves."
"I am unworthy of such grace."
Hong-wi regarded Ho-in warmly for a moment, then turned to Jeong Ho-chan.
The man wore a faint, placid smile.
"You must move now, Your Highness."
"Mm."
Hong-wi nodded, raised his riding crop, and pointed toward the slopes of Bugaksan, dim and gray in the distance.
At its foot stood Gyeongbokgung, the principal palace of Joseon.
"My uncle will be waiting down there."
"You don't think he'd have fled?"
"I hardly think so."
When Ho-in tilted his head in question, Hong-wi shook his own.
"No—he almost certainly has not. A man capable of that would never have dared what he dared in the year of Gyeyu. He would not have betrayed his own dead brother to steal his nephew's throne, nor slaughtered his own kin."
A bitter smile crossed Hong-wi's face as he spoke.
"What do you intend to do with him?"
"Mm."
Hong-wi bowed his head briefly, then raised it, his eyes hard.
"Ever since Suyang stole my place, the souls of the countless dead—right up to the day I came to stand here—still wander somewhere in that sky above. In a sense, my uncle and I, the two of us, both carry the weight of those thousands of souls. Today the reckoning finally arrives. I shall settle it with these two hands—that is my answer. Or did you mean to ask me something else?"
Hong-wi's reply was quiet, yet it carried the peculiar force of a man who, after long anguish, had long since made up his mind.
Jeong Ho-chan hid a satisfied smile and bowed deeply at the waist.
"Indeed it is so, Your Highness. Forgive my presumption."
"You have guided me to this day—what is there to forgive?"
Hong-wi gazed at the capital and murmured, low and almost sung.
"O Hanyang, my beloved city—Hanyang, the city I dreamed of even in sleep. I have come home at last! Now—the beginning!"
"Yes, sire."
The blast of a horn tore through the cold morning air.
As the first light of dawn broke over the horizon, the sight of the cavalry moving in ordered ranks was a spectacle to behold.
When Hong-wi and his personal guard reached Donuimun, the gate already stood wide open, and a tall commander stood in its entrance with a spear braced against the ground.
"Enter quickly, Your Highness."
The man, recognizing Hong-wi, offered a salute, and Hong-wi returned it.
"Song Yu-bin."
A beard fully a foot long whipped in the wind; there was something in the man's bearing that brooked no approach.
While he held that gate, it seemed even several hundred men could not easily force their way through.
"How stands it?"
"Well, Your Highness. The road to Gwanghwamun lies wide open now. All that remains is to loose the soldiers upon the palace, the chief offices of the Six Boards, and the mansions of the traitors."
For a man in the midst of seizing a nation's capital, Song Yu-bin's voice was calm, without a trace of excitement.
"Excellent. Then there is nothing left to wait for."
The cavalry pouring through Donuimun began to move like the wind.
Only then did the city's defenders grasp that an invasion was upon them, and alarms began to wail—but it was far too late.
Scattered resistance flared here and there, but the outcome had long since been decided.
Hong-wi and his party swept unimpeded down Yukjo Street, where the highest ministers had once conducted the affairs of state, and pressed on toward Gwanghwamun.
Officials who had been keeping night watch were dragged out before the cavalry in wretched states and forced to their knees. There was scarcely anything resembling true resistance.
Seeing this, Jeon Ho-in clicked his tongue.
"I know the people's hearts turned from Suyang's faction long ago, but... for a nation's capital to be this slack! No wonder, back at the Gyeyu Coup—"
He had been about to say no wonder it crumbled so easily before the rabble Suyang led, but stopped himself.
When Ho-in glanced nervously about, Hong-wi laughed lightly.
"That is simply how it is. Useful loyal ministers are always few within the walls, while petty schemers hungry for power swarm thick as locusts underfoot. And such vermin always keep their ears sharp—so now they'll be hiding inside their own houses, rolling their eyes and waiting to see which way the wind blows."
"Just so."
"Once the nation is reclaimed, disciplining the officialdom will be the first order of—"
Hong-wi raised his crop and pointed ahead.
"There stands Gwanghwamun. That much, at least, will be held by the elite of the palace guard."
Gwanghwamun was shut fast.
Hong-wi glared at the gate.
A suffocating stillness settled over them.
Ho-in watched Hong-wi intently.
When Hong-wi gave a short nod, Ho-in spurred his horse swiftly forward.
With the sharp twang of a bowstring, an arrow buried itself in the ground before him.
Ho-in looked down at it, then fixed his glare upon the tightly sealed gate.
"You in there! Listen well!"
Ho-in's voice rang out, clear as a bell.
For a moment, there came no answer at all.
"Not one man among you with the guts to speak!"
"You there! Do you even know where you stand, making such a racket!"
That voice was trembling beyond all pretense.
Ho-in snorted.
Look at them—the city's already falling and these cowards are shaking in their boots.
Ho-in glanced back at Hong-wi's party, then drew a deep breath into his belly and let his voice swell.
"The great chieftain of the Jianzhou and Hyesi Jurchens, Surbaatur Khan! Co-regent of the Jianzhou Guard of Great Ming! The terror of the Northern Yuan! The rightful sovereign of Joseon has come. He arrives now to punish the false king—open the gates, and open them at once!"
Silence followed. Then the same voice answered from within—still trembling, a sound wrung from a man forcibly squeezing courage from his bones.
"W-we don't know who this fellow is!"
"Unbelievable... worthless whelps, the lot of you!"
Ho-in rolled his eyes heavenward in exasperation and shouted again.
"Are your ears stuffed with wax? He has come to sweep away the traitorous band of high treason who strangled the affairs of state, and to reclaim his lawful throne—the true king! What keeps you from opening this gate?"
"We don't know who this fellow is, so be gone at once! If you do not—"
Now the other side, having evidently recovered some measure of nerve, had raised its voice.
Just as Ho-in, his temper finally boiling over, drew breath to hurl a curse, Hong-wi spurred his own horse forward through them both.
Startled, Ho-in had no time to hold him back before Hong-wi raised his voice toward Gwanghwamun.
"You within—heed me!"
A high and noble voice, majestic yet clear, rolled across the square.
"Do you truly not know who I am? Then so be it. I shall tell you the story of my life."
No one made a sound—not a single soul, nor even so much as a rat. Hong-wi's voice alone rang out over Gwanghwamun and across the whole length of Yukjo Street.