Chapter 63 : Battle of Baesan (3)
Chapter 63: Battle of Baesan (3)
Dugu Huang, who had been surveying the battlefield, doubted his own eyes.
‘Light cavalry scatters at the front and unleashes a rain of arrows, followed immediately by a charge from the medium cavalry?’
It sounded easy in theory, but in reality, it wasn’t.
The battlefield was a space where even simple actions like ‘charge and stab’ often didn’t work properly. Frankly, it was impressive that the two units operated that way without getting tangled up and collapsing.
Yet the enemy had precisely coordinated the two different units. They scattered, fired arrows to shake the formation, and then struck the shaken formation to break it down.
It was a result of the horsemanship of the Malgal and Goguryeo men, the long-term coordination between Eulji Mundeok and Go Heul... and on top of that, Ondal’s unwavering conviction that it would succeed.
Thanks to Ondal’s confidence, the Guai-zama pierced through the Northern Zhou army without fail. The elite troops led by the Dugu Clan’s retainers died in vain.
‘Damn it, no, this can’t be!’
At that point, Dugu Huang jumped to his feet. He couldn’t lose the elites so meaninglessly. Their value was beyond enormous.
They weren’t just elite in battle; even if they lost an arm, they could still be used as officers or instructors... More importantly, they were Dugu Huang’s long-time companions.
He waved a flag to rally support for the stricken unit, but no one responded. Everyone was engaged in combat, with no time to mind the rear flags.
But Dugu Huang didn’t stay idle.
This was exactly the time for the reserves. He, too, had kept about 300 armored spearmen in reserve as his guards.
“Armored troops in the rear! Follow me!”
“You’re going personally, sir?”
“I am!”
It was right for him to go himself to rescue them and also switch to front-line command.
Besides, Dugu Huang had spent more time as a field commander than as a battlefield commander.
With the sharp instincts he had honed over dozens of battles, he seized a spot the enemy couldn’t avoid and charged in. As soon as Ondal came into view, he shouted,
“You bastard! Your arrogance ends here!”
“Shit...”
Even from a distance, it was clear that the Goguryeo Alexander grimaced. With a body that large, his face was just as big.
A new group charged in. They were here to rescue the elite troops who were surrounded and beaten by my soldiers.
Their timing and position were exquisite.
‘Shit, from the flank?’
What now?
It was too late to turn back.
I didn’t know who the enemy commander was, but damn, that was a good move.
...There was only one option.
“Let’s go, Bucephalus!”
I struck the horse’s flank.
My direction was toward the enemy. Charging forward gave me a 50% chance of survival; turning back guaranteed death.
You think it’s the opposite? No, this was right.
If a commander fled first because enemies showed up, they’d never be seen as human in Goguryeo.
Of course, Goguryeo didn’t exactly uphold the Silla-like spirit of ‘never retreat.’ It was vast, and false defeats or strategic retreats were compatible with its martial values.
But that didn’t mean commanders could just bolt. If a commander vanished suddenly, the whole unit would fall.
A retreat without blame only applied if the commander pulled back while preserving his troops. Anyone who just ran away didn’t deserve to be treated as nobility.
That’s why I was charging.
If I survived the charge, great. But if I turned my back and fled, leaving my troops behind, it didn’t matter if I lived or died—I’d be politically dead in Goguryeo.
I didn’t know how much impact I could have riding in alone, but at least I could buy time for my troops to regroup.
Just as I was about to charge—
“Urgh!”
My body jolted backward.
Someone had yanked my waist strap from behind.
I turned to see Eulji Mundeok.
“You’re heading the wrong way. Pull back.”
“If I pull back, what about the troops?”
“They’ll live.”
“...What?”
And then, in that instant—
Swa-swa-swa-swa—!
Like a lie, a rain of arrows poured down.
The falling arrows cut right through the waist of the approaching enemy cavalry corps.
“Our teacher timed it perfectly.”
Short arrows.
Pyeonjeon.
Our troops fell from the short arrows fired from somewhere.
“What the hell...!”
Dugu Huang was flustered.
Where had the arrows come from?
“Over there, 200 paces out!”
“200 paces?!”
Short arrows that could pierce heavy armor from 200 paces? Only one weapon matched that.
‘Heavy crossbows!’
A jungno was nearly the size of a person, requiring special tools just to load. It took a long time to set up and mount.
Normally, they weren’t carried around but mounted on fortresses.
The enemy probably pre-loaded them and fired while riding in... or had hidden them on the battlefield from the start.
Either way, since reloading a jungno took ages, no more arrows would be flying for a while. Dugu Huang was relieved by that.
The surprise attack was shocking, but one volley wasn’t enough to decide a whole battlefield.
He still had the strength to rescue his guards.
All he needed was to finish off that oversized bastard and take out the heavy crossbow unit...
...But then Dugu Huang realized something odd.
‘Wait... why don’t I see the heavy crossbows?’
They were big enough to mount on fortresses—why weren’t they visible? Dugu Huang looked toward the direction the arrows had come from.
‘Those guys... are just holding bows?’
At that moment, the enemy lifted their bows.
There was a wooden tube attached, and they loaded the short arrows into the tube before firing.
And then—
Swa-swa-swa-swa—!
Just like before, a storm of short arrows poured down.
Only then did Dugu Huang’s question get answered.
‘That was it. They’re using that tube thing, like a crossbow... The arrows are smaller, so they’re faster, sharper, slipping through the gaps....’
Dugu Huang’s thoughts ended there—one baby arrow had pierced his armpit. Ondal didn’t miss the opportunity.
“Hey Mundeok. I’ll just take the commander’s head and go.”
Ondal rushed back and struck Dugu Huang’s head. Killing a commander hit in the armpit with a baby arrow wasn’t hard.
“How’d that baby arrow taste? Didn’t it make you wanna cry like a baby?”
“Shut up and get on your horse.”
The 300-man Pyeonjeon unit trained by Go Heul moved swiftly on horseback, unleashing focused volleys wherever needed.
“Flag’s over there! Kill those bastards!”
“Fire, fire!”
“Turn ’em into porcupines, yeah!”
Watching them filled me with awe again.
‘A Pyeonjeon unit...’
At first, I thought it was just a stronger archer unit. But Go Heul had different ideas.
He gave 300 Pyeonjeon archers sharp, steel-tipped baby arrows and fast horses to form a reserve unit.
You’d think “reserves” meant some lazy back-up troops like a reserve force—but this was different.
Ordinary battlefield troops had fixed positions. Some were front-line, some rear, some in charge of charges.
They moved based on pre-arranged mechanisms.
But reserves didn’t have fixed positions—they waited.
When a problem arose or when it was time to change the tide, they were deployed at the general’s discretion.
They were game-changers on the battlefield.
As Friedrich said, a general without reserves was merely a bystander.
Thus, Go Heul equipped the Pyeonjeon unit with horses.
Sure, firing baby arrows while riding was something only monsters like Yi Seong-gye could do—but riding to a location and firing after dismounting? That was doable.
A sort of Hamabotu Archer.
A simple shift in thinking, but the effect was astonishing.
‘That Pyeonjeon unit is the one that can provide support the fastest on this battlefield.’
Their armament was incredibly light.
They weren’t cavalry, so formations didn’t matter—charging their horses at full speed recklessly wasn’t an issue.
Since they carried baby arrows, their quivers held two to three times more than others.
...Above all, their maximum range was 200 paces.
To secure a 200-pace range in this era, you’d need a catapult, or fire a ridiculously heavy heavy crossbow that took about a minute to reload.
But baby arrows, being arrows, had short reload times, allowing for rapid fire projection over a short period.
‘They quickly ride in on horseback... dismount and fire powerful, long-reaching baby arrows, and if it gets dangerous, they hop back on and escape to resupply arrows? Isn’t this basically a “shuttle river” tactic?’
In this way, the Pyeonjeon unit relentlessly ravaged the battlefield with overwhelming speed and range.
The enemy commander was killed by baby arrow fire.
If this were a game, a “Commander Defeated!” alert would’ve popped up and the enemy might have fled.
But reality was neither a game nor a drama.
Commanders didn’t wear golden armor and parade around, and shouting “The enemy commander is dead!” while holding up his head was meaningless.
Why?
“The Goguryeo commander died with his tongue sticking out!”
“We killed a Western Land commander! Took an arrow in the ass while fleeing!”
People were shouting things like that everywhere.
Whether ally or enemy, whenever someone in a helmet died, folks would chop off the head and raise it, claiming they’d killed the enemy commander.
So who would even believe it if someone actually lifted the ‘real’ enemy commander’s head?
On this first-person battlefield, news of the enemy commander’s death would likely spread very late.
However, though the death hadn’t spread yet, the shockwaves of that death had already begun.
“Where are we supposed to go?”
“We’re surrounded! Where’s the reinforcements?!”
The enemy gradually realized that their command structure had suddenly become chaotic. The elite Royal Army troops seized the moment and furiously slaughtered the enemy.
‘As expected of the Royal Army.'
Handpicked even among the Gaema Cavalry, raised by pouring in the resources needed to raise three into one—King Gwanggaeto’s legacy.
They lived up to their name. And under their protection, our infantry began to form up.
No—there was no need to say “our infantry.”
The enemy had virtually no infantry.
Swashswashswash!
Arrows fired from the infantry unit smashed into the enemy cavalry’s flank. Cavalry may be able to shoot arrows, but they were still no match for infantry.
Infantry could fire farther on solid ground and throw spears or stones with greater force.
Most of all, the number density was vastly different. Where three cavalry fit, you could fit ten infantry—and then some.
At that moment, Eulji Mundeok shouted.
“Senior! The enemy Armored Spear Commander is charging at our troops!”
“What? Where?!”
“Straight ahead! Go quickly!”
The front?
As soon as I heard that, I was relieved.
What Eulji Mundeok said wasn’t a warning.
It meant: don’t miss the chance to earn merit.
At a glance, swords seem like a master’s weapon, and spears like something for conscripts—but that’s not always the case.
Of course, Goguryeo typically armed conscripts with spears. But even the Imperial Army, the other pillar of the central forces alongside the Royal Army, had many spearmen.
However, other than the fact they used spears, they had nothing in common with conscript spearmen.
First, their gear was different.
Imperial Army spearmen handled long spears with one hand—spears that conscripts barely managed with two—while their other hand held sturdy square shields, and they wore armor.
But the biggest difference from conscripts wasn’t their equipment—it was discipline.
Unlike conscripts who broke and scattered at the slightest disturbance, these were elites who held their ground even under enemy cavalry charges.
Even when forming phalanxes with conscripts, these elite spearmen formed the core. And a unit composed entirely of Imperial spearmen, like now, had discipline second to none.
Spears were indeed easier to learn than swords or bows, but maintaining formations was hard.
And having the courage to stand at the very front, receiving the enemy and pushing forward—that was even harder.
Goguryeo rewarded those who took on the hardest tasks with the greatest rewards. These spearmen were often treated better than even Gaema Cavalry—let alone swordsmen or archers.
Gaema Cavalry had horses, so they could retreat and survive. These men fought with death constantly at their side.
And now—
The skill of the Imperial Army spearmen shone.
“Enemy medium cavalry incoming.”
The enemies charged at our infantry line holding long spear lances (槊).
Their momentum was terrifying. From this era until the end of cavalry dominance, the aesthetic of medium cavalry was in annihilating the enemy with a single charge.
Retreating to resupply horses and weapons after one strike? That was something you did after a failed charge—not a proper tactic.
“Everyone, ready!”
Hearing this, the Goryeo spearmen followed textbook protocol: they raised shields and knelt, pointing their long spears diagonally forward.
This two-person spear technique was originally developed by the Dongye to counter Goguryeo cavalry—and now, with Dongye fully absorbed, Goguryeo used it in reverse.
The front-line soldier aimed with a shield and spear, while the rear soldier gripped and fixed the spear’s butt.
Since horses had long necks and protruding heads, the spear tip ended up aimed squarely at the enemy horse’s neck or head.
“Everyone, prepare!”
“Ha!”
As the enemy approached, the front line knelt behind their shields to brace for impact. At the same time, everything imaginable flew over their heads.
In the second rank, crossbowmen and archers fired short bows and crossbows. Axe-throwers threw caltrops, and curved blade wielders hurled throwing spears.
Stones, dirt clods, and lime pouches were thrown as well—sometimes deadlier than blades. And there was a particularly fascinating weapon.
Bwoooong—!
Stones and wood tied together by string—commonly called a bola. When thrown with centrifugal force, the stones spun and the string wrapped around the target.
Not native to the Korean Peninsula, this weapon was Ondal’s invention.
He had seen a horse trip on a fallen flail during training and recalled a hunting tool from a childhood survival series.
He thought, “Goguryeo people are good at throwing rocks—shouldn’t they be good with bolas too?” So he handed the concept to the catapult masters...
Hiiiiiing!
“What the—why’d the horse fall?!”
“Something’s tangled in its legs! What is this?!”
It was quite effective. Many horses fell, tangled up in the bolas thrown by Goguryeo’s rock-hurlers.
“Uwaaaah!”
“T-the horses!”
As the front collapsed, horses thrashed and brought down the others around them.