281
At dawn the next day, a group of envoys arrived at the northern camp outside Yangzhou.
Their banner bore black letters on a red field: "皇命"—Imperial Command.
Two cavalrymen rode in front.
Behind them, a single baggage cart rolled forward at a slow pace.
Sentries raised their spearpoints and blocked the road.
"Where do you come from."
"From the Jiangzhe Branch Secretariat.
We come bearing the Emperor's command."
"The Emperor's command…"
The sentry's voice trembled slightly.
Jiangzhe Branch Secretariat (江浙行省).
The title was large.
Few could immediately gauge what it truly meant.
Not long after, the report reached headquarters.
A document was brought into the main tent.
A scroll wrapped in red silk.
Its seal was stamped with the reign mark "至正".
The red imprint was crisp.
The scent of ink still lived in it.
To anyone's eyes, it looked real.
The official letter was delivered to Supreme General Yi In-jung.
He broke the seal himself.
Park Seongjin stood beside him.
Inside the tent were several officers, an interpreter, and a single clerk.
All eyes gathered on the scroll.
Yi In-jung began to read, slowly.
"By Imperial Command.
In the course of settling the unrest across Jiangzhe,
Zhang Shicheng has already expressed his intent to submit,
and his outcome rests upon the court's disposition.
The Goryeo army shall refrain from needless engagement
and immediately cease all clashes outside the walls.
Withdraw and stand by,
and act in coordination with the direction of the Jiangzhe Branch Secretariat."
Breathing grew heavy inside the tent.
Someone swallowed; the sound was oddly clear.
An officer could not hold it back and spoke low.
"General—if this truly is an imperial command…"
The interpreter took half a step forward.
Then stopped.
The clerk's lips moved without sound.
He could not finish a sentence.
Everyone was caught first by how convincing it looked.
Only after reading to the end did Yi In-jung lower the paper.
He did not fold it at once—
as though wary that the moment it folded, the words would harden into an order.
Park Seongjin spoke quietly.
"The ink scent is too fresh.
It doesn't feel like something that came down from Beiping."
The officers' eyes swung toward him at once.
Yi In-jung's gaze moved as well.
Park Seongjin looked calmly at the scroll's edge—
the red seal, the knotted silk cord—
and added, low and precise.
"Documents from the battlefield usually have a different grain.
Hands are hurried.
Blood seeps.
Paper gets pressed and bruised.
This one is too clean."
Without a word, Yi In-jung let his fingertips sweep once across the paper.
Lamplight slid along the seal's raised contours.
Then he looked at the clerk.
"This seal—who verified it."
The clerk bowed quickly.
"The outpost verified it first,
and the seal and reign mark were so clear that we forwarded it at once."
Yi In-jung neither nodded nor shook his head.
Instead he stared for a moment beyond the tent.
Dawn air slipped through the seams and shook the flame.
That wavering light made the characters on the paper seem to breathe.
He spoke softly.
"So Zhang Shicheng has put away the blade—and lifted the brush."
An officer blurted,
"Are you saying it's a forgery."
Yi In-jung did not answer directly.
He raised the document again and traced each line, slowly, from top to bottom.
At last—barely moving his lips—he said:
"Real or forged, the purpose is one.
To make us stop."
Park Seongjin asked with his head lowered,
"What will you do."
Yi In-jung set the paper down on the silk, unhurried.
He looked around the tent and spoke with finality.
"From this moment, no one lets this document leak outside.
The instant the soldiers hear it, their hearts collapse faster than they did for silver.
Interpreter—verify the reign mark and the document form.
Clerk—record the seal and the cord knot separately.
Send a messenger.
Find the Jiangzhe Secretariat's actual movements at once."
As the words ended, the air in the tent changed.
A breath that had been crushed by 'command'
was now crushed by 'doubt.'
Yi In-jung added one last line.
"Zhang Shicheng shook the soldiers with silver,
and now he shakes commanders with words.
From today, the front line is not the field.
It is inside this tent.
If we break first, the war ends—before it ends."
Park Seongjin answered briefly.
"I accept the order."
The lampflame jolted once.
The dawn wind brushed past the canvas.
For an instant, the red seal looked even redder—
not the red of blood,
but the red of suspicion.
The document was bound inside the tent.
Words were not.
Before the sun even reached noon, rumor began to seep upward from the lowest ground of the camp.
Not like an order—like a breath.
Not like a report—like a whisper in the ear.
"They say an imperial command came down."
At first, no one knew who said it.
It felt like a trace left by wind skimming over dirt.
A soldier paused while polishing a shield and muttered.
Another, pretending not to care, caught the words and carried them forward.
"What imperial command."
"They say Zhang Shicheng surrendered."
The words did not stop there.
By afternoon, details clung to them.
By evening, flesh had been added.
"Surrender" became "submission."
"Submission" became "the war is already over."
Rumor hardened quickly into certainty.
"So it's finished."
"They say we're not supposed to fight."
Some shook their heads.
Some smiled in silence.
The smile never lasted.
After the smile came thought.
After thought came calculation.
"Then what are we."
As smoke rose from the cookfires, rumor took its most dangerous shape.
It turned from a question into expectation.
"If it's real… did we fight for nothing."
"They say we sent the silver back."
"Crazy. Why would we."
The voices stayed low.
The fires were wide.
Each time the words moved from man to man, the facts wore down a little more.
The line between real and false no longer mattered.
What mattered was the thought:
It could be true.
"The commanders must know."
"Maybe they know and they're hiding it."
Someone raised a bottle, then set it down again.
He feared that if he drank, he would speak too much.
Someone else stroked his scabbard and murmured.
"If an order comes, we just stop."
No one answered.
Silence flowed like agreement.
The soldiers' eyes were changing.
They were no longer eyes that watched the enemy.
They were eyes that waited for orders.
No longer eyes that prepared to fight—
but eyes that calculated an ending.
From one side, a low voice joined in.
"But isn't it strange.
If it's an imperial command, why is everything so quiet."
The soldier who spoke had served a long time.
He deliberately glanced around as he spoke.
But it was already too late.
The words had been thrown.
Other words landed on top of them.
"Still—it's an imperial command."
"If it was fake, they'd have denied it already."
Just then, a junior officer approached from the cook area.
He was usually a man of few words.
Feeling their eyes, he paused, then said as if it were nothing:
"Stop saying useless things."
That single line fed the fire.
Several soldiers lifted their heads.
"It isn't useless."
"Everyone already knows."
The officer's face hardened.
He said nothing more and turned away.
Watching his back, a soldier murmured.
"See. He didn't deny it."
That night, the camp was strangely quiet.
No drums.
Fewer shouted commands.
Instead, there were more words—
low, careful, unbroken.
The document remained inside the tent.
Doubt followed soldiers into their bedding.
In the dark, someone muttered:
"If it's real… what are we supposed to believe."
There was no answer.
Inside each man, a different answer began to grow.
From that moment, the front line had already changed—
not on the field,
but inside the soldiers' thoughts.
Only the soldiers knew it.
And that was what made it most dangerous.