Chapter 9
Socheon’s Banner
Im Chung returned empty-handed.
He had gone to meet Wang Gon, the hall master of the Shinhwa Guild, only to find that the man had left on a distant trip.
By the time Im Chung returned to the branch, everything had already been cleaned up. The bodies had been removed, and the merchants had all gone home after giving their statements.
Beon Saeng’s heart pounded nervously as he delivered his report. There had already been an uproar when he brought Jong Bae and his gang in, and now Tae Jeong had died inside the branch. He expected a furious reprimand to come crashing down on him.
Yet Im Chung’s response was unexpected.
“This may actually be for the best.”
“What? How could this be for the best?”
“The Taejeong Faction crossed the line when they stormed the branch. Now they have no grounds to protest. In hindsight, it may have been fortunate that I failed to meet Hall Master Wang.”
Arresting members of the Taejeong Faction had been an incident that could have caused all sorts of problems.
But the Taejeong Faction attacking the branch was an entirely different matter. The assault on the branch had become a larger incident that overshadowed the earlier arrests.
Of course, Im Chung did not truly believe that the Taejeong Faction had deliberately attacked the branch. Tae Jeong might have been a good-for-nothing thug, but he was not that stupid. He had probably come to intimidate them, only for the situation to spiral out of control.
And naturally, Baek Socheon must have been at the center of it all.
Im Chung lowered his voice.
“Martial Officer Baek killed Tae Jeong deliberately, didn’t he?”
“No. It was an accident.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Beon Saeng did not believe that was true, but he answered that way anyway. Believing it had been an accident would benefit him, Im Chung, and Baek Socheon alike.
“You may leave. Tell Martial Officer Baek to come in.”
“Yes.”
Beon Saeng almost said that Baek Socheon had done nothing wrong, but stopped himself. If he defended Baek Socheon unnecessarily, he feared he would only provoke Im Chung’s anger.
After Beon Saeng left, Baek Socheon entered the office.
Im Chung silently stared at him.
“What happened?”
“Exactly what I wrote in the report.”
“Why don’t we have an honest conversation?”
“Let’s.”
“I don’t know what kind of life you’ve led, but don’t do this. Martial Officer Beon is a good man.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Don’t shake him up.”
“So that he remains easy for you to use?”
“…!”
Im Chung flared up for a moment.
He had never imagined Baek Socheon would say such a thing, much less directly to his face.
Yet he could not immediately refute him. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps, somewhere deep inside, he really had viewed Beon Saeng that way.
“You…”
A sentence came to mind, but he could not bring himself to say it aloud.
“You may go.”
Only after Baek Socheon left did the words he had been unable to say slip out with a sigh.
“You’ve shaken me up too.”
Perhaps his pride had prevented him from saying it to Baek Socheon’s face.
‘Still, Wang Gon won’t let this go easily.’
Tae Jeong’s death felt like the relief of having a rotten tooth pulled.
The problem was Wang Gon, who would now come demanding his gold tooth back.
***
Sama Iljung’s first duty at the Strategic Command Center of the Hyeoncheon Pavilion was managing dispatches.
Hundreds of messages arrived there every day from all across the Central Plains, and each one was sorted and processed.
Military officers opened confidential dispatches and classified their contents, while emergency dispatches were delivered to Zhuge Hyeon without breaking the seal. Some of the most urgent messages were sent directly to the Alliance Leader.
Sama Iljung’s task was to sort ordinary dispatches. Since he was still new to the Strategic Command Center, he only served in an assisting role.
Woom—thunk!
Sama Iljung turned toward the conduit through which messages from Zhejiang Province arrived. He quickly broke the seal on the cylinder that had just dropped down and pulled out the dispatch.
It was an ordinary message that military officers were permitted to open.
“We have a report that Tae Jeong, the leader of a local underworld faction, was killed by Baek Socheon.”
At Sama Iljung’s report, a senior military officer classified the dispatch.
“Mark it as high priority and submit it to the Chief Strategist.”
“Yes.”
Normally, the death of a mere local faction leader would not even qualify as a low-priority report. It would never have been delivered in the first place.
However, the Hyeoncheon Pavilion was currently monitoring all information coming from Zhejiang Province, particularly from the Wencheng region. Any information concerning Baek Socheon was automatically classified as high priority.
Sama Iljung carried the dispatch into Zhuge Hyeon’s office.
“This is news concerning Baek Socheon, who was assigned to the Wencheng Branch.”
Zhuge Hyeon read the contents and chuckled.
“Well, of course. A temper like his doesn’t disappear overnight. Send this to the Alliance Leader’s Hall.”
“Understood.”
Normally, among the information classified as high priority, Pavilion Master Zhuge Hyeon decided what should and should not be forwarded to the Alliance Leader’s Hall.
But all information concerning Baek Socheon was sent there without exception.
It meant that the Alliance Leader’s Hall was continuously monitoring him.
“Come to think of it, this is the first time Baek Socheon has ever been away from us. He was always by our side. Even after roaming the battlefields, he returned to headquarters. Both his glory and his downfall took place here.”
That was why they had always been able to see him.
Every time he was demoted, they had watched him trudge across the training grounds.
To Baek Socheon, the Martial Alliance had been both cradle and grave.
“Do you miss him?”
Zhuge Hyeon was just about to answer.
Dong! Dong! Dong!
At the sound of the emergency bells, Zhuge Hyeon and Sama Iljung hurried out of the office.
“What happened?”
A military officer rushed over and reported urgently.
“We have received word that a large force from the Cheukcheon Alliance is rapidly moving from Gansu toward Shaanxi.”
Gansu was territory controlled by the Cheukcheon Alliance, while Shaanxi belonged to the Martial Alliance.
“How many?”
“Eight hundred members of the Soul-Chasing Corps.”
“Eight hundred? That’s the entire corps!”
Zhuge Hyeon was shocked.
The Soul-Chasing Corps was one of the Cheukcheon Alliance’s primary fighting forces, and every movement it made was closely monitored. Its troops had been scattered throughout Gansu, which meant they must have secretly gathered together.
Either there was a hole in the Martial Alliance’s intelligence network, or the enemy had employed some revolutionary new strategy.
Neither possibility was good.
“What is their objective?”
“Judging from their direction, it appears to be the Shaanxi Division.”
“Declare an emergency at the Shaanxi Division and all nearby branches.”
“Yes.”
The military officer hurried away.
Woom—shoom!
The senior officers at the Strategic Command Center manipulated the mechanisms with practiced hands. Dispatches containing their orders shot through the pipes and out of the building.
Sama Iljung asked Zhuge Hyeon fearfully,
“Could they be trying to start an all-out war?”
Zhuge Hyeon shook his head.
“Probably not.”
War was always preceded by warning signs.
If the Soul-Chasing Corps was the vanguard of an invasion, then troop movements should also have been detected not only in Gansu but throughout Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan, Guangxi, and Guangdong, all regions under the Cheukcheon Alliance’s control.
Yet no such reports had arrived.
Of course, there was still a possibility that this was the beginning of another great war between the orthodox and unorthodox factions. The Cheukcheon Alliance was so unpredictable that no one could know what madness they might attempt.
“It is probably a large-scale exercise.”
That was Zhuge Hyeon’s judgment.
And his hope.
Even as they spoke, more dispatches continued to arrive.
“The Soul-Chasing Corps has advanced another ten li toward Shaanxi. At this speed, they will reach the border within half a double-hour.”
“What forces do we have near the predicted point of first contact?”
“Only fifty guards from a nearby branch. The Shaanxi Division has dispatched three hundred men as emergency reinforcements.”
That amounted to only three hundred and fifty soldiers.
If a clash occurred, they would be overwhelmingly outnumbered. Worse still, their enemy was the Soul-Chasing Corps, an elite force among elites.
Based on the incoming reports, the officers repositioned the banners on the troop deployment map.
The map had been modeled after the actual terrain of the Central Plains, and hundreds of banners stood upon it.
The banner representing the Soul-Chasing Corps steadily moved toward Shaanxi.
The banner of the Shaanxi Division moved to intercept it.
Sama Iljung was tense.
This was the first emergency he had experienced since being assigned to the Strategic Command Center.
He too had lived through the final stages of the previous war, but back then, he had been only a junior military officer. He had spent the entire conflict handling menial duties, and the war had ended before he knew it.
Now, for the first time, he was experiencing a serious confrontation with the Cheukcheon Alliance.
Orders poured endlessly out of the Hyeoncheon Pavilion, while several times as many reports flooded in.
“We have received word that their forces are about to enter the border region between Gansu and Shaanxi.”
Two banners stood close together on opposite sides of the boundary between Gansu and Shaanxi, as though separated by a national border.
This was no exercise.
It was a truly dangerous situation.
If the enemy numbered only a few dozen, the matter might have ended as a localized skirmish. But these were eight hundred members of the enemy’s finest unit.
The moment they crossed into Shaanxi, it would have to be considered an act of war.
Considering the time required for messenger hawks to arrive, the outcome had likely already been decided.
The tense minutes dragged on.
Every officer stared at the mechanism through which dispatches from Shaanxi arrived.
All messages from other regions were placed on hold unless they were urgent.
Woom—thunk!
At last, a dispatch arrived from Shaanxi.
Everyone watched the mouth of the officer reading it.
“Ah! The Soul-Chasing Corps turned back without crossing into Shaanxi!”
Every officer released a sigh of relief at the same time.
With the tension leaving his body, Zhuge Hyeon collapsed into a nearby chair.
Sama Iljung brought him a cup of water.
“Thank you.”
Only after drinking did Zhuge Hyeon finally relax.
“What a relief.”
“Their provocations are becoming increasingly severe.”
This latest move had felt like a warning.
As though they were saying that there was not much time left.
“Do you know something? The lower Baek Socheon’s position fell, the more aggressively the Cheukcheon Alliance began to move.”
“What? Surely not.”
“It is an unfortunate coincidence, but it is true. Every time Baek Socheon was demoted, they launched another provocation.”
“Do they not know that Baek Socheon lost his internal energy?”
“They know.”
“Then why?”
“It means that even without internal energy, the mere fact that he occupied a high-ranking position served as a considerable deterrent against war.”
It was not about Baek Socheon’s martial prowess.
It was about the symbolic weight carried by the man himself.
Of course, that interpretation could be wrong. The Cheukcheon Alliance might simply have resumed preparing for war, and the timing might have coincidentally overlapped with Baek Socheon’s demotions.
But Zhuge Hyeon was far too intelligent not to have considered that possibility.
He must have sensed that there truly was a connection.
“Then all the more reason Baek Socheon should return to the Alliance.”
“That is true.”
However, the Martial Alliance Leader had even taken back the sword he had once bestowed upon Baek Socheon.
It was a declaration that he never wished to see him again.
Under such circumstances, could Baek Socheon truly return?
‘How did things end up like this?’
The two men Zhuge Hyeon remembered had once been truly close.
Wherever the Martial Alliance Leader went, Baek Socheon had been there.
He had always stood beside the leader, like Zhao Zilong, a warrior who could complete any task entrusted to him.
Baek Socheon had seemed magnificent.
Dependable.
Zhuge Hyeon had not been the only one who thought so. Many of the martial artists in the Alliance at the time must have felt the same way.
The Cheukcheon Alliance’s provocations were growing ever more severe, and the situation had deteriorated to the point where no one would find it strange if war broke out at any moment.
Of course, martial artists outside the Alliance had no idea that matters had become this grave.
Zhuge Hyeon rose and walked toward the troop deployment map.
The two banners that had been pressed close together at the border of Shaanxi and Gansu were now farther apart.
After staring at them for a moment, Zhuge Hyeon searched through a box of spare banners beneath the map.
A short while later, he pulled out a striking crimson banner edged in gold, the kind used to represent a large military force.
It was the first banner ever created for a single individual since the founding of the Hyeoncheon Pavilion.
A banner representing one man who had been treated as an army.
A clear name was written upon it.
Socheon.
Zhuge Hyeon remembered the days when the Socheon Banner had moved freely across the entire strategic map.
Whenever Baek Socheon’s banner advanced, enemy banners fell and were removed from the board.
And if war broke out once again—
‘Can we truly win a war without Pavilion Master Baek?’
Zhuge Hyeon stared at the Socheon Banner for a long time.
Then he carefully brushed the dust from it and returned it to its original place.
As he walked out of the Strategic Command Center, he gave an order.
“Lift the emergency declaration in Shaanxi once the Soul-Chasing Corps has withdrawn more than two hundred li.”
“Yes, understood.”
On that day, a small town at the southern end of Zhejiang Province became a little more peaceful.
But the Central Plains became a little more dangerous.