Chapter 60 : Dugu Huang
Chapter 60: Dugu Huang
As the name Baesan (拜山)—“Prostrating Mountains”—suggests, it was a terrain where two mountains stood as though bowing to each other, with a wide plain in between. It was also an important corridor stretching from Yeonsan to Liaoxi.
“Baesan, huh. There aren’t any real defensive facilities to speak of.”
“Yes. It lies outside the Liaodong defensive line. However, this area is crucial to Goryeo.”
I said while pointing at the map.
“The tribes to the west of Baesan are friendlier to Northern Qi than to Goryeo, but the villages to the east of Baesan are clearly aligned with Goryeo. That’s why our army’s provisions also pass through here.”
“If we fail to repel the enemy at Baesan and they break through, then the supply lines to Northern Qi—as well as to the Malgal and the Khitan—will be severed. The loss would be tremendous.”
To be honest, I only knew there would be a battle at Baesan; I didn’t know why it had to be there.
The one who told me the reason was Eulji Mundeok.
As soon as I said “Baesan,” he went, “Ah, right below the Yeonsan mountain range. Indeed, it makes sense,” and recited all the reasons one after another.
“So in the end, we’ll have to fight in a place without even a proper fortress?”
“That’s correct. If we hole up in a fortress, they’ll just sweep through Liaoxi. After that, all the Khitan and Malgal under our command would defect.”
War isn’t about killing as many enemies as possible—it’s about achieving strategic objectives.
‘Winning through battle’ is merely one of many ways to achieve a strategic objective. If the objective can be reached without fighting, no sane army would choose to fight.
Currently, the Northern Zhou army’s strategic goals are to cut off strategic supplies headed for Gao Bonyeong’s Northern Qi reinforcements, and to establish dominance in Liaoxi.
In this situation, if we retreat into a fortress, the enemy would achieve all their strategic objectives without even fighting a single battle.
“Therefore, the best course of action is to repel the enemy at Baesan and prevent their advance in advance.”
Go Heul spoke after a brief moment of thought.
“Baesan is a rather wide battlefield, so to completely block the enemy from attempting flanking maneuvers, we’ll also need to respond with fast-moving elite troops. Rather than fortress troops, the regular army would be better suited. So in the end… it’ll be an engagement between elite troops on an open plain.”
Even after that, we held numerous strategic discussions, but in the end, my proposal was the most viable and was accepted.
Not because I was particularly smart, but because I knew the future, and had been preparing and building arguments since my days at the Taehak.
As our strategy gradually solidified—
Go Heul suddenly looked at me.
“Gara-dal Ondal. From what I hear… you’ve devised some kind of unusual cavalry tactic?”
“That’s right. Of course, for now, it only numbers around a hundred men…”
Go Heul said,
“All strategies begin with a hundred men. Once proven useful, they are applied to ten thousand. Make the preparations.”
“Preparations?”
“Surely, you’re not planning to keep it from me as well? They say to deceive the enemy you must even deceive your allies, but I’ve never heard of subordinates deceiving their superiors. Is this yet another one of your clever little tactics? Should I not watch?”
I scanned Go Heul from head to toe.
One large sword, one medium-sized blade, two daggers.
Goguryeo men usually carried five blades. He was one short.
I think I know why.
‘Did you attach a blade to your tongue?’
Thus, before Go Heul, the Jin dynasty-style cavalry tactic was demonstrated.
…These bastards.
Will they do well?
My worries were unfounded.
“Pheeew!”
“Pheeririririk!”
“Pheew—Pheew—!”
The training was as close to real combat as it could get.
By now, everyone had gotten used to the whistle signals and moved swiftly; the military discipline was strict. For a moment, I thought these soldiers weren’t even mine.
‘You guys… were you always this elite?’
Even after the drills ended, it was the same.
“Warriors of the Songhua River!”
“Ak! Ak! Ak!”
“Let us save Goryeo!”
“Ak! Ak! Ak!”
“Victory is always ooooours!”
“Ak! Ak! Ak!”
“Damn it, those Songhua bastards? We can’t lose! We’re singing a marching song too! Our song is Blue Pine Tree!”
“High mountains! Deep valleys! Desolate Liaodong!”
“We march on the snow-covered front!”
…I never told them to do that.
Indeed, there was a huge morale boost difference between what a minor officer sees and what a supreme commander sees.
“You’re full of spirit.”
“Thank you, General.”
Thanks to that, I felt a little proud. Go Heul motioned with his chin, as if to say, “Explain.”
“As you saw, we exchange signals using flags and whistles. And we use many threat shots.”
“Very much like hunting.”
“Exactly.”
I nodded.
To those who hadn’t returned to the past, hunting meant shooting an arrow and having the prey drop dead instantly.
But in reality, that’s not how it works.
When struck by an arrow, the prey’s survival instincts kick in, and it runs with a speed that’s practically supernatural.
Within minutes, it can cover several hundred steps, and it’s easy to lose a hard-earned catch.
To counter this, hunters devised various methods.
One was to shoot thick arrowheads.
However, that severely shortens the range, and there are still many cases where even after being struck, the prey escapes.
Using hunting dogs is another method, but well-trained dogs are so expensive they’re considered a symbol of wealth.
It’s no coincidence that Genghis Khan called his trained subordinates Four Dogs and Four Horses. It wasn’t meant as an insult—“dog” in this context meant excellence. A good hunting dog was worth the price of a horse.
So, in addition, hunters would shoot arrows in the direction the prey was likely to flee. These were threat shots.
Skilled hunters would drive the prey into a trap using threat shots, then finish it off in one go when it had nowhere left to run.
It’s a combination of the earliest human hunting method—persistence hunting, where they chase the prey until it collapses from exhaustion—and throwing weapon hunting, which came slightly later.
Thanks to its simplicity, it remains one of the most commonly used hunting methods.
The Jurchens, descendants of the hunting-gathering Malgal, who established the Jin dynasty, applied this to the battlefield...
And this became the core of the mixed medium-light cavalry tactic currently being trained.
Goguryeo, too, had been skilled in hunting.
They had just never thought to apply hunting techniques directly to war.
The reason came out of Go Heul’s mouth.
“But wouldn’t this consume a lot of arrows? With prey, just a few arrows suffice to threaten it, but against dozens of cavalry, you’d have to shoot hundreds of arrows, no?”
According to the Khan, even after the advent of firearms and cannons, it still took time before the concept of threat fire became a full-fledged tactic.
Just like arrows, gunpowder wasn’t handed down by our ancestors.
Even in the 21st century, where threat fire was an established concept, only rich countries fired them liberally. African warlords and Middle Eastern terrorists avoided threat fire as much as possible.
“Incredible. You’re not going to spout nonsense like, ‘Just shoot pyeonjeon’—right?”
“Of course not.”
Pyeonjeon wasn’t a skill one could shoot on horseback.
If that were possible, then everyone in the world would have to be Yi Seong-gye… If that were the case, we wouldn’t be talking about defending against Northern Zhou—we’d be talking about world conquest.
“Then what?”
“We just need to make a lot of arrows.”
Gogul stared at me like I was an idiot.
Won Gyun once answered the question, ‘How will you deal with the enemy?’ with, ‘With arrows and spears.’
I figured the expression of the one asking must’ve looked a lot like Gogul’s now.
“If that was meant to be funny, you’ve failed. You’re not very talented.”
“No, please hear me out.”
I quickly replied.
“I don’t think Goryeo lacks the capacity to hold out to this degree. There’s no shortage of grain. And, we have a way to turn that grain into arrows. Refugees.”
“Refugees?”
“Yes. Though they may have settled, many of the former Northern Qi people are still struggling to survive. If we offer them even a quarter of the wage, won’t they come running to work?”
Gogul let out a thoughtful hum.
“You’ve thought it all through. Then, let me ask you another. What is that long, iron flail-like weapon the cavalry are swinging?”
“That weapon is called byeon’gon.”
“A broken arrow is pyeonjeon, and a broken flail is pyeongon, eh?”
Hmm… truthfully, pyeongon 鞭棍 meant ‘a flail swung like a whip’, but since he got the gist, I didn’t bother correcting him.
Gogul grinned.
“Did you know? The T’u-chüeh I fought were also cavalry-based. Fifty thousand strong.”
“How did you win back then?”
“They didn’t know how to breach a fortress.”
The greatest weapon of nomads was their immense cavalry numbers, and the best counter to that was always a fortress.
Especially Goguryeo fortresses—they were strong.
The main fortresses of the Western Land were earthen, built at a 60-degree angle, and had poor durability.
But they were easy to build, hence plentiful and long. The Western Land’s human wave tactic wasn’t limited to people.
Goguryeo’s fortresses, however, were elite and few.
Tall and straight stone fortresses.
They were already hard enough to breach, and the T’u-chüeh lacked siege warfare experience.
Because there were no fortresses on the steppe.
Moreover, Goguryeo had already become East Asia’s top nomadic-warfare expert through their history with the Murong and the Khitan.
It was like I didn’t know the enemy, but the enemy knew me.
“At first, they bombarded the fortress a bit, but when that didn’t work, they tried to flank. But they botched even that. They flanked west when they should’ve gone east, and went north when they should’ve gone south—ended up trapped between our fortresses and starved. It was a free victory.”
Gogul must’ve crushed them with a glare. Goguryeo’s traditional defense tactic: fortress + scorched earth strategy.
‘Of course, it’s easier said than done.’
Just because the panokseon beat the seki-bune didn’t mean the results were the same with Yi Sun-sin and Won Gyun.
Winning against the T’u-chüeh with just 10,000 weakened Goguryeo troops from a civil war… Honestly, that was just because Gogul’s stats were insane.
Gogul spoke.
“However, Western Land cavalry won’t be as easy as the T’u-chüeh. They know how to handle fortresses. That’s why you chose Mount Baesan, didn’t you?”
“Yes. The Northern Zhou army knows fortresses.”
Gogul nodded.
“Right. They won’t slam into the Liaodong defense line with cavalry, nor will they randomly flank and get wiped out, nor will they get their rear exposed from pillaging recklessly. We won’t get a free win like last time.”
Gogul minimized his own victories and magnified upcoming battles.
Not being drunk on past victories and not overestimating his experience—that was the mark of a true general.
“That’s why, if there’s something new, it can’t hurt. Come with me. Let’s discuss this tactic of yours. The core’s good, but there’s something that nags at me.”
“You’ll look at my Guai-zama Tactics?”
“Guai-zama? That’s what you call it? Anyway, there’s a part that needs a bit of tweaking in my opinion.”
At those words, I cheered inwardly.
“Yahoo!”
No, I just yelled it out loud. Gogul looked at me like, ‘What the hell’s with this guy?’ but I couldn’t help it.
Who was Gogul? Goguryeo’s greatest anti-cavalry specialist.
I trusted Eulji Mundeok, but he wasn’t quite at the stage of opening the Salsu Water Park just yet.
‘For now, Gogul’s stats are higher than Eulji’s.’
If such a Gogul was reviewing my strategy, how could I not scream?
And so, in the fall of 577—
“Slaughter all who aided the false emperor, and make them kneel before the true one!”
The medium cavalry unit led by Dugu Huang took a wide turn around the Yeonsan Mountains and entered Liaoxi.
But they couldn’t clash with Goguryeo immediately. First, they had to pass through Khitan and Malgal territory.
Northern Zhou’s stance toward Khitan and Malgal was simple.
“They helped Northern Qi. Kill them all and cleanse the land!”
Khitan and Malgal aiding Northern Qi? Kill every last one.
“We—we’re allies of Goryeo!”
“Goryeo also supplies Northern Qi! Don’t Goryeo carts pass through your villages?”
Anyone aiding Goryeo also got slaughtered.
“We are… of the T’u-chüeh…”
“T’u-chüeh… what do we do about them?”
“Would the T’u-chüeh even care about the folks at the end of the steppe? Just kill them.”
“W-we’re not with Northern Zhou or Qi! We’re neutral! Please spare us!”
“If you’re neutral, killing you has no consequences. Killing yields loot. Why wouldn’t we?”
Thus, Northern Zhou’s army killed everything they saw without hesitation. The detour around the Yeonsan Mountains had consumed much of their supplies, and advancing with Khitan and Malgal to their rear was unwise.
Moreover, for subjugation, this was better.
If a group had strong cohesion, killing a few would make them resist to the death. But if they were loosely bonded with weak allegiance, killing a few as an example made them more likely to submit.
Especially for people like the Khitan and Malgal—it was easier and faster to dominate them by smashing heads with troops and using deception than lofty rhetoric about virtue or Confucian ideals.
After all, they too had once been Xianbei roaming the steppes—they knew better than anyone.
Thus, Dugu Huang stomped through everything in his path with ruthless speed, and under this pressure, the northern Khitan and southern Malgal in Liaoxi didn’t last long.
Some of them fled to Goguryeo, bringing news and seeking refuge.
“The Northern Zhou army is in Liaoxi! They’re attacking our allied forces, the Malgal!”
“It’s true—the Northern Zhou army has come!”
“It’s war! Everyone, gather!”
With that, Go San—who’d been praying to the last moment, “Please, anything but war!”—wore a face like he’d bitten into dung. When fear becomes reality, normal people look just like that.
Upon hearing this news, we sent our fastest horse to Pyeongyang Fortress.
“The Royal Army! His Majesty the Grand King is coming!”
Soon after, as promised, Grand King Go Yangseong arrived, leading half of Goguryeo’s elite Royal Army to the Gun’an Fortress headquarters.
“They sent a letter. Would you like to read it?”
“Of course I would.”
Supreme Chancellor Gogul handed the letter to the Grand King.
In summary, it read:
[You must respect Northern Zhou. We have restored all former Northern Wei territories and are on the brink of unifying the Central Region. It is lamentable that you aid the traitor Gao clan in such times, but we offer mercy.
Immediately cease all support for Gao Bonyeong, have your king personally open the fortress gates, proclaim loyalty as a vassal, and swear to send tribute. Then, we shall retreat.]
Go Yangseong clicked his tongue.
“Tribute? And I’m to do it personally?”
He looked dumbfounded.
It was long-winded, but in the end, it just meant, ‘Let’s fight.’
So Go Yangseong replied:
“Tell them to piss off.”
To that, Gogul wrote back:
[We have heard your words, and your might is well understood. His Majesty says your words shall be considered with his ministers. Now withdraw your army and return home.]
Naturally, Dugu Huang did not accept this.
Thus, in the fall of 577—
The curtain rose on the Battle of Baesan.