314.
That night, the night of Chizhou split open.
Through the tent in the dark, fire and blood poured in.
By dawn, the city had already fallen.
The flames had subsided.
Chizhou's banner was down.
With the disappearance of Chang Yuchun's command core, the army aged all at once.
An army moves with its head.
When the head is cut off, what remains is flesh stripped of training.
In the narrow alleys, soldiers shoved one another.
Those pushed back died first.
The Goryeo warriors drove their blades into those gaps.
When steel enters, blood comes first—
then breath.
Archers added supporting fire from behind.
They pierced cleanly through the backs of enemies already engaged.
One arrow.
Two.
Three.
Even as bodies fell, more arrows struck.
A man dies most easily at the moment he collapses.
Park Seong-jin let the fleeing go.
To block a raging current head-on is to burn strength.
Empty the flow, and what remains settles itself.
Some could not flee.
Some resisted to the end.
To them, cruelty returned.
War is never divided by equal weight.
The Goryeo troops turned them into hedgehogs with arrows—
neck, armpit, thigh,
finding the exact gaps in armor.
The screams were not long.
When breath ends, words end with it.
Before the fog fully lifted, dawnlight spread across the river.
Burned cloth and black ash scattered on the wind.
Soldiers dragged bodies away and recovered arrows.
Wet blood was covered with sand.
No one cried.
Crying comes later.
Park Seong-jin stood before the place where the command tent had been.
The tip of his brush paused for a moment.
Long sentences were unnecessary.
Only short, precise words remained.
「Chizhou Castle recovered.
Rendezvous immediately.」
He sealed the message and handed it to the courier.
"Our numbers here are small.
Come quickly and secure this place.
Go at once."
"Yes, sir."
As the sound of hooves faded, Park Seong-jin looked up at the gray sky.
Over the blood-stained river, dawn spread thinly.
About one shijin later, on the northern plain of Chizhou, Chen Youliang received the courier.
He slowly broke the seal.
There was blood on the paper.
Dried blood caught on his fingers.
"Chizhou has been retaken?"
The surrounding generals looked at one another.
"It could be a trap."
"The Goryeo forces couldn't move that fast."
Chen Youliang did not answer.
He brought the paper closer and traced the strokes once with his eyes.
Clean lines.
An ending without tremor.
He knew this handwriting.
It carried Park Seong-jin's breath.
Chen Youliang spoke low.
"Hard to believe."
The courier added, "They say their forces are too few to hold it.
That we must come quickly."
Chen Youliang folded the paper.
He raised his head.
Caution remained, but the decision had already set.
"We go."
That afternoon, Chen Youliang led his elite south.
Beyond the distant sky, Chizhou's walls came into view.
On the battlements fluttered a banner marked with a red dragon—
the banner of Goryeo.
Chen Youliang reined in his horse and murmured,
"So… they truly retook Chizhou."
The wind blew.
The smell of smoke still lingered over the river.
Zhu Yuanzhang's Command Tent — "Silence Arrived First"
The report entered without sound.
Footsteps stopped outside the tent.
The canvas stirred, then settled.
Zhu Yuanzhang did not lift his head.
The tip of his brush was still on the page.
He wanted to finish the sentence before the ink dried.
"Your Majesty."
Only after adding one more character did the brush stop.
Zhu Yuanzhang set it down slowly.
Ink stained his fingertips.
He did not wipe them.
"Enter."
The courier knelt.
His breathing was uneven—
not the breath of a long journey, but the breath of a man already broken before speaking.
That breath spread through the tent.
Zhu Yuanzhang smelled it first:
fire, water, blood.
"A report from Chizhou."
The courier extended the sealed document.
The seal was intact.
The edge of the paper was slightly damp.
Zhu Yuanzhang did not open it at once.
He left it there for a moment.
In that pause, every sound in the tent stopped.
"Read."
The courier unfolded the paper with trembling hands.
But his mouth would not open.
His face was one that could no longer see the letters.
"Your Majesty… General Chang Yuchun—"
His throat closed on the name.
Zhu Yuanzhang raised a hand.
"That is enough."
It was a short command.
He asked no more.
There was no need to hear more.
Zhu Yuanzhang took the document himself.
The paper was light.
Its lightness became weight.
The text was brief—
too brief for a military report.
There were no explanations.
Only place and result.
Chang Yuchun fallen.
Chizhou waterways lost.
Zhu Yuanzhang did not read it a second time.
He folded the paper and placed it on his knee.
The tent remained wordless.
The courier stood frozen, like a man who had forgotten how to breathe.
"When."
"Today at dawn… in the flames…"
Zhu Yuanzhang nodded.
Without explanation, the scene assembled itself.
Fire.
Smoke.
Waterways.
A small force.
Even the face Chang Yuchun would have worn at death—
a face that did not retreat.
After a moment, Zhu Yuanzhang spoke.
"Chang Yuchun was a general who did not know retreat."
It was a statement of fact.
"So the one who killed him would not know retreat either."
He rose slowly.
He did not don armor.
He did not reach for a sword.
Instead, he walked to the map.
His finger traced the line of the Yangtze.
Chizhou.
His finger stopped there.
"We have lost the river."
His voice was calm.
Beneath that calm, much collapsed.
The river was a road.
Roads were armies.
Armies were time.
Lose time, and a war grows old.
The generals in the tent held their breath.
No one spoke.
After a long while, Zhu Yuanzhang said,
"The Goryeo army has moved."
It was not a question.
It was a conclusion.
He folded the map.
His movements were slow, but without hesitation.
Zhu Yuanzhang looked at the courier.
His eyes were steady—
the steadiness of a man who has finished choosing.
"Return.
Do not speak loudly of today's matter to anyone."
"Your Majesty… General Chang Yuchun's death—
the battlefield is, after all, a place that records death.
Many die—"
The courier did not finish.
He bowed and withdrew.
The footsteps faded.
Silence returned to the tent.
Zhu Yuanzhang murmured, as if to himself,
"Many wield the sword well.
Few cut the road."
His gaze returned to Chizhou's place on the map.
"At last… he has appeared."
Only then did Zhu Yuanzhang truly recognize Park Seong-jin's existence.
A presence that overturned the flow of the battlefield in a single motion had emerged.
He had sensed for some time that something different in texture was moving—
this was it.
He had lost his greatest general.
He had lost a fortress that could not be lost.
Chizhou was a kind of forward bulwark.
It had been prepared for thoroughly.
Its defenses were complete.
Even tens of thousands could not easily break it.
That night, Zhu Yuanzhang remained awake for a long time.
Yet he issued no orders.
Before a war moves,
it chooses its direction
in silence.