Chapter 55 : Friends
Chapter 55: Friends
After Pyeongyang had fallen to Yuwen Yong, Gao Wei repaired the stable after losing the cow.
“I will go down myself. I will retake Pyeongyang!”
That meant he had belatedly led his troops down to Pyeongyang.
One might have thought he should have sent the army as soon as Pyeongyang was attacked, but Gao Wei was a man whose way of thinking differed somewhat from ordinary people.
And, astonishingly, the emperor’s personal presence boosted morale simply by being there, whoever he might be — even if it was Gao Wei.
When the supreme commander watched everything, even a small success could lead directly to promotion, and even a petty mistake could lead directly to death.
“Yuwen Yong, he came to check on the front as well, didn’t he? The most effective counter to an emperor’s personal inspection is to match it with one of our own! Forward, soldiers! Recapture Pyeongyang!”
“The emperor is watching!”
“They broke the gate!”
“Enter, enter! Break everything!”
Buoyed by the emperor’s buff, Northern Qi nearly retook Pyeongyang; if they had pushed straight through the broken gate, reclaiming Pyeongyang would have succeeded, but that was only the commoners’ way of thinking.
At that moment Gao Wei’s creativity burst forth again.
“Everyone, stop the attack!”
“Now, sir?”
“Yes! Stop right now! I want to show Feng Xiaolian the fall of Pyeongyang!”
In other words, he halted the attack just before the fall to boast to his wife.
In fact, Gao Wei not only boasted to his wife but often boasted about his wife.
He had once had her lie naked in the main hall so others could admire her figure too, and then discussed state affairs with ministers right there.
Faced with this absurd order to stop just before retaking Pyeongyang, Northern Qi’s ministers were bewildered.
“Is this not like the story of Song Xiang’s benevolence?”
“No, no, this is the anecdote of Murong Hui!”
Murong Hui had been the Later Yan monarch who once fought King Gwanggaeto, and he was famed in Chinese history for his excesses of love.
He loved Empress Fu so much that he built her a huge Dragon Lantern Garden and caused rice and soil prices across the realm to become equal because of it.
While retreating strategically against the Khitan, when Empress Fu said, “I want to see you fight; are you only this much of a man?,” he, as if to prove his manhood, suddenly rode three thousand li to strike at Goguryeo’s Mokjeo Fortress and suffered a crushing defeat.
His original plan had probably been to subdue Khitan under Goguryeo’s control and then attack Goguryeo, but failing to subdue Khitan, he had impetuously attacked Goguryeo out of pique at his wife and been smashed.
Beyond that, stories of necrophilic antics with Empress Fu’s corpse after her death made him notorious.
But the anecdote Northern Qi’s ministers recalled concerned an episode during the Goguryeo–Later Yan war at Liaodong Fortress.
When Murong Hui’s general Feng Ba had driven his troops to the brink of capturing Liaodong, Murong Hui ordered a halt to the assault so that Empress Fu could enter the city with him from the rear.
However, reinforcements from King Gwanggaeto arrived before she did, and Later Yan was routed, utterly losing its hegemony in Liaodong.
Feng Ba, bitterly resentful, later allied with the Goguryeo-line noble Gao Yun (Murong Yun) and raised a rebellion, killed Murong Hui, installed Gao Yun as emperor, closed the Later Yan, and opened the Northern Yan.
If one replaced Fu with Feng and Murong Hui with Gao Wei, the tale was not so different from what was happening in real time in Northern Qi.
Every rising state had its own reasons, but the reasons for falling were often much the same, so Northern Qi’s ministers could hardly help feeling a sinister — and rather plausible — premonition that “the state might collapse soon.”
Yet they could not, of course, dare defy the emperor’s orders.
“Cease the attack!”
“Soldiers, fall back!”
The assault on the gate was stopped.
When inputs were the same, outputs followed suit.
“The enemy repaired the gate!”
“Our forces are being pushed back!”
While Feng Xiaolian was still on her way to the battlefield, Yang Shiyan, the Northern Zhou general defending Pyeongyang, succeeded in plugging the hole in the gate and securing the interior.
“Strike the rear of the Northern Qi army!”
“There’s Gao Wei over there! Bring me his head!”
“A single weak woman named Feng Xiaolian is more help to Northern Zhou than two hundred thousand troops!”
Just then, the forces of Yang Jian and Yuwen Yong, who came from the center as reinforcements, charged down on the Northern Qi army.
Gao Wei asked his two treacherous ministers what to do.
“Gao Anagong, Mok Jepa, what should we do?”
“Go to Jinyang and prepare for later!”
Gao Anagong advised flight.
“No, they must be tired from their long march; if we strike them now they will not hold!”
Mok Jepa boldly counseled standing our ground and meeting them head-on.
Gao Wei heeded Mok Jepa’s advice, fought, and was defeated.
Mok Jepa immediately advocated fleeing and turned his stance 180 degrees, and Gao Wei fled to Jinyang, Northern Zhou’s second capital, and issued a tremendous order.
“I entrust the defense of Jinyang to my cousin Gao Yanzong.”
“Gao Yanzong, sir?”
The ministers looked at Gao Wei as if they had misheard him; who was Gao Yanzong?
Five years earlier he had been the 'goblin general' — Gao Zhan’s half brother — whom Gao Wei had poisoned to death.
Gao Zhan had been a royal who wore a goblin mask because his handsome face made him seem unmanly; he was a brilliant commander.
If there was a Gao Gukryulgwang on the Northern Zhou front, there was Gao Zhan on the Southern front: handsome, skilled in war, popular, and even of royal blood.
Gukryulgwang had not been handsome nor royal, but because he fought well and was popular, Gao Wei had killed him.
Gao Wei could not have spared the handsome, royal Gao Zhan; he had sent poisoned wine so Gao Zhan would commit suicide.
Gao Yanzong was that Gao Zhan’s half brother, and they were not like Yuan Shu and Yuan Shao, constantly at each other’s throats.
Gao Zhan had been magnanimous and had treated his half brother well, so their relationship had been closer than many full siblings.
“After killing his brother, he entrusts his protection to the brother?”
The ministers thought Gao Wei had gone mad for a moment, only to remember that he truly was mad, and what came next was even more insane.
“And I will go to the T’u-chüeh!”
Flight to another country.
It was a strategy similar to the one a certain Joseon ruler had remembered a thousand years later, and Gao Yanzong recoiled in disgust.
“Exile might be possible, but to flee to another country — that is not the behavior of a ruler!”
Persuaded less by Gao Yanzong than distracted by other pressing matters, Gao Wei ultimately went to Up, the Northern Qi capital, instead of to the T’u-chüeh.
“Did Mok Jepa surrender?”
“That is correct, Your Majesty!”
It was because of Treacherous Minister No. 2, Mok Jepa.
Recently Gao Wei had been sulking at Mok Jepa for changing his counsel and causing a defeat, so he had treated him coldly.
Frightened in advance, Mok Jepa changed course again and promptly surrendered to Yuwen Yong.
“I reported your son’s crime!”
Enraged by that, Gao Wei rushed to Up and ordered Mok Jepa’s mother to commit suicide.
Afterward he personally slaughtered that family or dragged them off to forced labor camps.
Perhaps this was the most zealously administered bureaucracy Gao Wei ever conducted in his life.
Yet even a great fallen state like Northern Qi still retained at least one national talent.
Gao Yanzong was precisely such a savior.
“Kill Yuwen Yong!”
“Make them pay for daring to invade Northern Qi!”
Defending Jinyang, Gao Yanzong drove Yuwen Yong’s forces to the brink of death.
Seeing this, the generals thought Gao Yanzong was more fit to be emperor than the mad Gao Wei.
Gao Yanzong was also of royal blood, so this was hardly surprising.
When Gao Wei heard the news, he uttered another line that would be recorded in Chinese history.
“I would rather hand Jinyang to Northern Zhou than give it to Gao Yanzong!”
Thus a political struggle erupted amid war.
Gao Wei mobilized his political power to pressure Gao Yanzong and began procedures to reclaim military authority during wartime.
Mutual distrust on the battlefield was lethal.
Only days after driving Yuwen Yong to the brink and winning a great victory, Jinyang — defended by Gao Yanzong — fell absurdly.
Yuwen Yong sneered and declared,
“The one who alone blocked the Yellow River was Guk Ryulgwang, the one who caused our defeat at Mangsan was Gao Zhan Go Suk, and the one who drove me to the brink of death was Gao Yanzong; all of them were defeated not by me but by Gao Wei.
There are more famous Northern Qi ministers whom Gao Wei defeated than there are whom I defeated, so the number-one merit of this battle unquestionably belongs to Northern Qi’s leader Gao Wei!”
With Pyeongyang and Jinyang breached, only the capital Up remained, and Gao Wei encouraged enlistment with a speech.
“Enlist and I will give you wealth!”
“Where will you get the funds? Sell the palace treasures?”
“Why touch that! Rob the ministers’ granaries! Is it not your duty to serve the emperor?”
The speech was worse than worthless and earned only scorn, causing the ministers to lose the will to fight.
Even the palace diviners insolently agreed that “the emperor must be changed,” and surprisingly Gao Wei listened to those soothsayers instead of executing them.
“Abdication! I will abdicate! I am now the Retired Emperor! Do not bring me the messy affairs of the world!”
Like his father Gao Zhan before him, he handed the throne to his seven-year-old son in Up and retired to play and drink.
Infuriated ministers rose in rebellion, but although Gao Wei lacked talent for war, he had a knack for purges; he crushed the coup at once and then resumed partying.
Meanwhile Yuwen Yong advanced relentlessly.
In December 576, within merely two months of the war’s start, Northern Zhou captured Pyeongyang and Jinyang and reached the capital Up.
“Retired Emperor, the enemy is at the gates; how shall we proceed?”
“Why is there such a lack of talent in this great nation?”
No one pointed out that he had killed all the capable men, because those who might have said so had already been preemptively eliminated.
“How far have the enemies come?”
“They have arrived at the outskirts.”
“Very well. Then let us flee.”
Thus Gao Wei issued the astounding answer of “If the enemy comes, we shall flee,” and, leading his last treacherous minister Gao Anagong, fled; Up soon collapsed.
Seeing the empty throne, Yuwen Yong laughed until his mouth split.
“Finally, I have destroyed Northern Qi!”
It had been only five years since Gao Wei had killed Guk Ryulgwang in the west and Gao Zhan in the south.
By spring 577, ten months after arriving there, Yuwen Yong reported,
“Northern Qi has fallen, and Baekje has held on.”
Silla continued to press Baekje after its great victory, but Baekje barely held the Silla army at Ilyasanseong (modern Iksan).
Iksan was only about fifty kilometers from Baekje’s capital Sabi, so had Baekje failed, it might have been annihilated at that very moment.
“Northern Qi has not entirely perished; I hear restoration armies have risen here and there.”
“Huh, I cannot see what the point of rebel bands for that ruined kingdom would be; is there any meaning?”
“None, probably.”
Yuwen Yong’s remaining tasks were to capture the fleeing Gao Wei and to mop up the Northern Qi remnants who chose to resist rather than surrender.
It would not take long.
At the same time, the quality of refugee aristocrats heading to Goguryeo had increased.
“I am a noble of Up! I brought five hundred households!”
“I brought one thousand! Take me in!”
Most nobles who fled Northern Qi for Goguryeo were filled with anger.
“Look outside! Gao Wei’s mother has flown away! 高緯飛母”
“I know his posthumous title — it is Yang; that man is Emperor Yang! That man is Emperor Ji Yang!”
The posthumous title Yang was commonly given to those who ruined a country.
They were likely those who had resented Gao Wei, staged failed coups, and fled.
“Yuwen Yong, you son of a bitch!”
Some cursed Yuwen Yong; they were surely those who had fought until the end of the line and then, seeing no hope, fled in haste.
And even more of them cried out,
“Gao Wei, Yuwen Yong — they are both to be devoured!”
Both sides were cursed together.
That was usually how it went.
Internal disorder and external invasion — both sides were in chaos.
Seeing this, Go San asked,
“How is the food supply?”
“The military farmlands are thriving, so this much is more than enough.”
I showed him the chart I had drawn.
“Yields are 2.5 times greater compared to last year.”
2.5 times — what a beautiful expression.
It was proof that the concepts of “decimal points” and “Tianzhu numbers,” which I had introduced with diagrams, had taken root.
At any rate, farming was a great success.
The population had increased, farmland had expanded, and we had adopted advanced techniques in detail, so it was only natural.
“In terms of surplus crops alone, it is seven times more than last year.”
Once minimum subsistence was exceeded, everything beyond became surplus.
Suppose a man earned one million won and spent nine hundred thousand a month.
He could save one hundred thousand.
But if he earned two million?
He could save not just two hundred thousand, but one million one hundred thousand.
That was exactly what had happened to us.
“Moreover, Pyeongyang has also sent new relief grain and cereals, so there is no need for concern.”
Accepting refugees was simple.
After one year of doing it, we had grown accustomed, and nowadays most arrivals were aristocrats rather than farmers.
Absorb their knowledge and settle them properly, and it was enough.
Betrayal or spies?
What spy would bring his entire family along to surrender?
On the contrary, they were closer to hating both their own country and Northern Zhou.
As long as we showed a measure of goodwill, they could certainly be used as valuable resources.
And those who came here were not only Northern Qi people.
“On Dal! We are here!”
“Friends! You really came!”
Go Jaemu and Maeng Sap laughed as they looked at me.
“I told you we would come, didn’t I?”
“…Yes, you did say you would come.”
Maeng Sap’s expression was bright.
The western region of Gun’an Fortress was his hometown.
But Go Jaemu’s face was somewhat dark.
“…This place is terribly cold.”
Jaemu was from Hanseong.
In terms of the 21st century, that was Hwanghae Province, just above Gyeonggi-do.
Having lived in Goguryeo’s southernmost region and then coming all the way north, the cold must have felt dreadful.
Maeng Sap laughed.
“This place is nothing. Have you seen Buyeo Fortress at Noksan? That place is truly terrifyingly cold.”
Buyeo Fortress had once been the capital of Northern Buyeo and was also Goguryeo’s northernmost point.
But the ‘cold’ Go Jaemu felt was not limited to mere temperature.
“The gazes of the people around us are not kind….”
Go Jaemu let out a sigh.
At the Taehak, the Pyeongyang faction had been the majority, and the Domestic Fortress faction had been suppressed — but here, was it not the exact opposite?
What reassured Jaemu was Maeng Sap.
“Well, don’t worry. Half the people around here are those I know. And we have On Dal here too.”
Maeng Sap smiled and slapped Jaemu on the back.
Go Jaemu looked at Maeng Sap and gave a faint smile.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“You must have found Pyeongyang Fortress cold as well. Yet on the first day at the Taehak, I mocked you for it.”
At that, Maeng Sap blinked.
“What are you talking about? That place is warm.”
Go Jaemu let out a deep sigh.
“Eh, forget it. What am I even saying?”
“Forget that; we should tell On Dal this news instead.”
“Ah, right. I nearly forgot the most important thing.”
Maeng Sap and Go Jaemu turned their gazes toward me.
Then they spoke slowly.
“On Dal, congratulations. It is a son.”
“…?”
“The princess has given birth to a son, you fool!”
A… son?
It took me a moment to understand what those words meant.