Chapter 60
Chapter 60
Iron Emperor — Chapter 60
Chapter 17 — The Beginning of the Legend of Pirate King Gerard
"......."
"Why do you not answer?"
"......."
"Is this defiance?"
Go Jin-cheon's flat voice carried its usual weight of intimidation. Yet for some reason, Gerard remained silent, holding his place without a word.
To be precise, it was less silence and more despondency. The moment he would finally be driven out to sea was looming right before his eyes.
"No, Your Majesty! How could I possibly dare such a thing as defiance!"
"......Defiance it is."
"......."
When he answered in a curt, wooden voice so unlike his usual manner, Jin-cheon promptly rendered his verdict.
Could anyone blame Gerard for feeling like he was losing his mind? No matter how badly he'd been shattered and wrecked, he possessed both the skill and the renown to be treated with respect in any kingdom he chose to enter. But because he had chosen the wrong lord, he was now being made to do something he had never done in his life—piracy. It was only natural that he could not bring himself to like it.
"Gerard."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Do you believe that what you are doing is simple piracy?"
"Pardon?"
Gerard, who had expected Jin-cheon to berate him, could not help but raise his head at the calm tone. The Go Jin-cheon he beheld sat upon the Throne of Yeolje with his arms crossed and his chest squared—a posture that might have looked arrogant at a glance, yet it suited the man perfectly. When an unexpectedly gentle voice emerged from such a man's lips, Gerard had no choice but to think twice.
'What in the world is his angle...?'
Jin-cheon, who normally despised anything complicated, had always conducted himself with the utmost simplicity in word and deed. The problem, however, was that he occasionally produced outcomes no one could have foreseen.
"It is not unreasonable for you to think that way. But consider the more than ten thousand people."
"......."
"Everything in this place is self-sufficient. Unlike when they were slash-and-burn farmers, their safety is now assured and their food is plentiful. But what protects all of this is strength. Who out there would acknowledge our Gauri as a nation?"
As Jin-cheon himself acknowledged the reality of their situation, Gerard sank into thought. Even by Gerard's own reckoning, if a city this massive had been built here, he himself would have mobilized an army immediately.
A population exceeding ten thousand was an enormous asset. They held value as slaves, and in the current climate, with signs of war on the horizon, they held ample value as arrow fodder.
"I have said it time and again: we established the nation centered on this location because foreign invasion is difficult here, and securing drinking water and cultivating food is easy. In the midst of all that, this is hardly the time to be clanging away talking about developing iron mines, Gerard!"
"Yes."
Jin-cheon's voice rose.
"To others, what you do may be plunder. But is it not the transport of supplies meant to kill someone! Now is not the time to concern ourselves with their position or their thoughts. War makes all things permissible!"
"Yes!"
Before he knew it, Gerard was beginning to be swept up in Jin-cheon's words. Perhaps because of that, strength was starting to fill Gerard's voice as he answered.
"Are you willing to watch more than ten thousand people die resisting with rocks and wooden clubs when war eventually swallows us up!"
"No!"
"You are my subject!"
"Yes!"
Their voices rang back and forth through the Imperial Hall, loud and rough, as if only the two of them stood within it.
"Will you follow my will!"
"Yes!"
"A nation's general must not prioritize honor—he must prioritize the lives of the people!"
"Yes!"
"Go! And ride the oceans!"
At Jin-cheon's final words, Gerard's eyes blazed. He sprang from his chair, strode before the Throne of Yeolje, dropped to one knee, and cried out.
"Before Your Majesty, the Yeolje, Supreme One of All Heavens who embraces all people and all things—I, Daesaja Gerard, swear with all my heart and sincerity to place Your command above all else."
"Mm."
"May it be accomplished according to the will of Your Majesty, the Yeolje, Supreme One of All Heavens who embraces all people and all things!"
As Gerard's cry echoed forth, the two guard commanders who stood flanking Jin-cheon were overcome with emotion, and their voices too rang out loudly in the wake of Gerard's shout.
With the Imperial Hall still reverberating from his cry, Gerard strode out with vigorous steps. And Jin-cheon, watching his departing back, allowed himself a smile.
"They did say if you puff him up a bit, he'll go on his own......"
"......."
"Say what you will, but piracy is still piracy."
"......."
"And you two played along nicely without even being told."
As Jin-cheon rose from the Throne of Yeolje murmuring to himself, the two guard commanders who had stood behind him froze in an instant. With just those two lines, the fervor that had swept through their hearts was ruthlessly cast aside. And at the same time, they gazed in the direction Gerard had departed and felt a strange sense of pity.
Once Gerard's first sortie was officially announced, stockpiling of all supplies began. The meat to be used as provisions for the fleet was smoked first, then dried into jerky. Alongside these various preparations, however, complaints began to surface from some quarters.
"Honestly...... Hey, cook. Isn't there any meat?"
"Giyul, well, the state requisitioned it first, so for now..."
"Good grief. Training can't be done properly if the food is lacking."
At Buyeo Gi-yul's grumbling, the cooks who had brought the meals to the training ground were beside themselves. Giyul's current position—overseeing and training the sword auxiliaries—was far higher than that of mere cooks.
"Just shut your trap and eat!"
"Oh! General!"
Eulji Buru, who had been inspecting from one side, must have overheard Giyul's grumbling, because he let out a thunderous yell. The soldiers who had been grumbling along with Giyul scrambled to their feet, and the new recruits who knew nothing of the situation leapt up as well, tense and on edge.
Giyul, however, stood with his chest thrust out as though he still had more to say despite Buru's arrival. Buru clicked his tongue at the defiant posture and approached. Giyul glanced at the soldiers and then spoke forthrightly, as if giving voice to what was in their hearts.
"It's already been a week, has it not? Shouldn't we be given meat at least once or twice a week? Only then can we train them hard and build the soldiers' bodies properly, can we not?"
"Insubordination, is it?"
Buru folded his arms as if the whole thing were beneath him, but Giyul shook his head furiously—absolutely not—and enunciated clearly.
"It is absolutely not. I am simply speaking as the one entrusted with the soldiers' training, and in my capacity with the office of Daehyeong bestowed upon me by His Majesty. In short, this is not insubordination—it is a legitimate request. Training is not merely swinging a sword about, is it?"
"......."
Buru, overwhelmed by Giyul's dazzling eloquence, momentarily lost his grip. In truth, there was nothing wrong with what Giyul said. But Buru, unwilling to let it end there, scowled and barked back even louder.
"What's all this, huh? You lot think you're tigers or somethin'? Always carryin' on about meat!"
"Then are we rabbits? To be fed nothing but grass!"
"Huh."
Buru let out a puff of air, watching Giyul shut down his pigheadedness with the exact reverse logic.
'Cheeky bastard, when the hell'd you get this big?'
Until just a few months ago, a single word from Buru had been enough to send Giyul wavering back and forth. Now that Giyul had taken full charge of training the sword auxiliaries and transformed like this, Buru felt anew that position truly did make the man. But help was at hand.
"Heh. These days, looks like even rabbits cook themselves a meal, wouldn't you say?"
"......."
It was Yeon Hwi-garam.
Confronted in an instant with a vastly more formidable logical adversary, Giyul froze where he stood. But Hwi-garam's words were not finished.
"In war, there are times you will eat nothing but grass roots, and times you must hunt and eat with your own hands to survive in the forest. This has worked out well. Wouldn't you agree, Taedaesaja Eulji?"
"Heh heh heh. That's right."
"......."
Along with Buru's bizarre smile, Giyul could physically feel the arrows of resentment flying from his subordinate soldiers straight into the back of his head. And so, on that day, a new Gauri army training regimen was born: Survival Training. It went without saying that every four-legged and belly-crawling creature in the forests around the city promptly had its numbers culled to extinction.
* * *
Clop-clop, clop-clop!
"Hm? A messenger is coming!"
"Really? Where......"
The soldier looking down from the watchtower spotted a rider approaching at speed with a flag on his back marking him as a dispatch rider. Judging by the flag's color, he was undoubtedly bringing news from Gye Ung-sam's party, who had entered Baron Gowin's domain.
The information, once verified, was swiftly conveyed into Yeon Hwi-garam's hands. Internal affairs great and small were handled by Dae Mu-deok, but external intelligence all passed through Hwi-garam's hands first.
A glint of interest flickered across Hwi-garam's eyes as he examined the missive. Slowly folding the letter he had read, Hwi-garam's steps toward the Yeolje Palace, where Go Jin-cheon resided, grew faster and faster.
"Taedaehyeong Yeon Hwi-garam requests permission to enter!"
At the booming voices of the guard commanders from outside the Yeolje Palace, Go Jin-cheon frowned slightly, then straightened himself in his seat and called out.
"Enter!"
Though Jin-cheon's voice was not especially loud, the guard commanders acknowledged it as if they had heard him perfectly, then opened the door. Jin-cheon, watching Yeon Hwi-garam enter as the doors swung open, spoke brusquely.
"What is it?"
"......."
Jin-cheon asked Yeon Hwi-garam his business the moment he stepped inside, but no answer came in return. Hwi-garam had stopped at the doorway and, as though forgetting what he meant to say, closed his mouth and slowly surveyed the Yeolje Palace.
"Ahem."
"......."
When Hwi-garam, who had been wordlessly scanning the Imperial Hall, fixed his gaze upon Jin-cheon, the man suddenly turned his head aside and began to feign distraction.
"I believe you might want to...... tidy up a little."
"Kya-haa! Hwi!"
"......."
On the floor, what appeared to be Eulji's toys were scattered about, and Jin-cheon had simply left them there. The handmaidens, for their part, clearly did not dare clean them up—some kind of warning must have been issued beforehand. Furthermore, the crawling radius of Eulji, who was scurrying everywhere, was impressively vast, as if proudly proclaiming the child's age of two, and the speed was considerable as well.
Plop.
"Waaaaaah!"
"Outside."
"Yeees."
Seeing Eulji trip over something while crawling and topple forward, Jin-cheon quietly issued the order. Only then did the handmaidens rush over, soothing the child as they hurried out. When the one remaining handmaiden moved to clean up, Jin-cheon waved her off with an expression of pure annoyance.
"Clean it later."
"Yeees."
Hwi-garam, who had been watching the handmaiden bow and withdraw at Jin-cheon's gesture, let out a sigh.
"In my estimation, of all the Yeolje Palaces of all the Yeoljes in history, this one is surely the most utterly trashed."
"Do you have a report, or don't you?"
"......."
Without so much as a flicker in his expression, Jin-cheon steered the conversation away from Hwi-garam's nagging. Wordlessly, Hwi-garam held out the dispatch the messenger had brought.
"Where is it from?"
"It was relayed by express courier from Baron Gowin's domain."
"Mm."
Relayed through the safe houses of the messenger network disguised as hunters' lodges, the missive had arrived a mere two days after being sent.
Jin-cheon slowly unfolded the letter.
"Hmm."
"As you will see, I believe we should move up the ship's departure preparations."
As Jin-cheon let out an odd breath while reading the letter, Hwi-garam quietly offered his opinion. The missive showed that Ung-sam was playing his role well: the projected routes for the movement of war supplies were neatly compiled.
"It can't be easy to gather intelligence like this from Baron Gowin's domain."
"There are many merchants living there, so the mercenaries who follow them around are quite numerous, I'm told."
"I see."
Jin-cheon nodded at Hwi-garam's words and continued reading the letter.
[Thus, from the Haian Kingdom ......(abridged)...... it appears. Furthermore, according to talk I have been hearing lately, the discord between the Kingdom of South Roselin and the Kingdom of North Roselin is deepening, and the embers of war are beginning to catch. I cannot yet ascertain more precise intelligence, but fortunately, I have caught Baron Gowin's eye and will be able to accompany him to the capital.
Once we arrive at the capital, I will ascertain the political situation more accurately. As our appearances here draw far too much attention, the insertion of additional personnel is required. I therefore recommend that the communications network be systematized.]
Having read the remainder, Jin-cheon tilted his head, then walked to one side, retrieved a map, and spread it open.
"Mm."
As Jin-cheon studied the map in silence, Hwi-garam seemed to catch on to something and drew a faint smile across his lips.
"Summon Risel."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Without lifting his eyes from the map, Jin-cheon gave the order, and Hwi-garam called a handmaiden to relay it.
A short while later, at the cry that Risel had arrived, Risel entered the Yeolje Palace.
"Your Majesty, Supreme One of All Heavens who embraces all people and all things, I, Risel, offer my reverence."
"Over here."
Jin-cheon beckoned Risel with a wave. At the sight, Risel shook his head. No matter how much time passed, his liege's habit of simplifying everything left him thinking there was simply no helping it.
"What matter requires me, Your Majesty?"
"Hmmmm."
Even as Risel approached with a bow, Jin-cheon's gaze remained fixed on the map.
"Explain Roselin here to me."
"Yes."
At Jin-cheon's command, Risel pointed to the map and began his explanation.