There had been no other option.
In Yoshitoshi's eyes, Park Seong-jin was not an enraged general.
What was frightening was that he was a man who had already finished the verdict.
He did not raise his voice.
He did not threaten.
He only listed facts.
As if reading down a record already filed away, an event already processed.
That calmness ran cold along Yoshitoshi's spine.
"It's already over."
Each sentence carried the feel of something irreversible.
No negotiation.
No compromise.
No pleas.
He was not speaking in conditions, but in outcomes.
The lord was dead.
The retainers were dead.
The wealth had been stripped and sent to Goryeo.
The land had been made unlivable.
In that moment Yoshitoshi understood.
This man does not threaten.
He has already executed it, and he is simply using that execution as the baseline.
When Park Seong-jin pointed north, Yoshitoshi saw not direction, but time.
A past already gone.
A future about to arrive.
Next… could be us.
There was no hatred in Park Seong-jin's eyes.
No pity.
Only facts, and the necessity that follows from them.
His speech came like this:
"Since that's what they did."
That single line collapsed everything.
Why it happened, who was at fault, what apology was due—
all those questions lost meaning.
Because it had already happened.
Only then did Yoshitoshi understand.
There was only one way to survive this man.
Do not try to reduce the wrongdoing.
Do not try to divide the responsibility.
Do not try to slip away through words.
Only this remained:
"What will we do."
So he pressed his forehead to the floor.
Not by samurai etiquette—by human instinct.
This was not a sovereign.
Not a conqueror.
He was closer to a natural phenomenon that enforces punishment.
You don't ask why lightning strikes.
You don't protest a fire spreading.
Before that, excuses, logic, and dignity are useless.
Yoshitoshi knew:
if he wanted to live through this room, he had to break himself first.
At first, someone suggested fighting.
No matter how high a master of Hwagyeong might be—was he not still a man.
There must be an opening.
If they put an army forward, would it not be different.
"He's only one expert."
"If we can create a battlefield, war belongs to the army."
Those were not unfamiliar words.
Satsuma had lasted for centuries precisely because of such practical judgment.
But the opinion did not last.
Someone brought out an old forbidden book.
A volume sealed deep in Satsuma's archive—
a book whose title was never spoken aloud in ordinary times.
That day, for the first time, Yoshitoshi brushed dust from its cover.
Inside was an explanation of Hwagyeong.
More precisely, a denial.
A master of Hwagyeong does not appear in the world.
Has never appeared.
Cannot appear.
If one does appear, it is not a human struggle,
but closer to disaster.
That sentence quieted the council chamber.
Then old tales were dragged up as well—
unofficial histories no one could prove true,
and no one could fully deny,
flowing out as if they were fact.
Yeon Gaesomun of Goguryeo.
A story that Tang Taizong personally rode out,
failed to withstand him, and withdrew all the way to Luoyang.
Eccentrics of the Central Plains who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Eight Immortals.
As always, they were the kind of stories people only laughed at over liquor—
until they heard what had happened in Kyushu.
Hirado.
Hitoyoshi.
Sashiki.
They were not battles.
They were incidents.
It ended before the castle gate even opened.
The lord died before orders could be issued.
The army never managed to fight.
They gathered reports and analyzed them, and the conclusion was one.
There was no tactic.
No formation.
No battlefield.
He appeared.
The matter ended.
He vanished.
And nowhere in the process was there any "trace of fighting."
Only then did the forbidden line make sense.
A natural disaster has no tactics.
You can prepare for it,
but you cannot oppose it.
The council's conclusion was not battle.
It was contact.
That was why Yoshitoshi had been chosen.
A man whose words ran straight, whose excuses were few,
whose judgment was quicker than his calculations.
His mission was clear.
Not to find a way to win,
but to confirm whether there was any margin to avoid annihilation.
And now Yoshitoshi was certain, the moment he met Park Seong-jin's eyes,
that the conclusion had not been wrong.
In the end Yoshitoshi did not lift his head.
His tone was calm, but his decision was already inside it.
He added a proviso.
Not an excuse—
a method.
"I will carry out everything you said.
However, it will take time to separate them."
He said he would identify every participant without leaving out a single one.
Whether they personally drew the blade,
or lent a ship,
or supplied rice,
or distributed loot—
he would place on the same line those with blood on their hands
and those who made that blood possible.
"I will punish them.
And I will send compensation to Goryeo.
Not a single grain will be missing."
Here he drew a breath and continued.
"However… there is no one who can bear twelvefold compensation immediately."
Before that could sound like excuse, he crossed the line at once.
"So Satsuma will pay first.
We will cover the damages immediately from Satsuma's warehouses."
Then he brought out the true core.
"And afterward, the remainder corresponding to the twelvefold total,
we will —without fail—extract from the responsible individuals.
Through labor.
Through forced service.
If even that is impossible, we will send them as slaves and fill it to the end."
He asked for time.
He asked for grace, but attached no conditions.
"The people of Satsuma are not guilty.
If they all starve or scatter, it only creates more bandits in the end."
Then he produced documents prepared in advance.
When Park Seong-jin opened them, every item he had just spoken was written in full.
Criteria for identification: lists and standards — completed within one month
Types and order of punishment: explicit punishments by罪, with compensation method fixed by name-list
Route of compensation to Goryeo: shipped to Karatsu in Hizen,
Method for covering shortfalls: if the culprit lacks means, the Shimazu house advances first, then collects afterward
Final deadlines: each item had a time limit written in
Some were one month.
Some ran years.
It was detailed to the point of being excessive.
It even looked as though they had already grasped what had been done elsewhere.
And one line was added.
To keep the people of Satsuma from falling into ruin, we beg the minimum margin of time.
Park Seong-jin read the letter to the end without a word.
He did not tear it.
He did not fold it.
Yoshitoshi knew that silence was neither approval nor rejection.
Only one thing remained now.
Not words, but results.
They had bought time,
but there was nowhere left to run.
"Ei-shi.
I wanted to get properly drunk and have a round of it…."
Park Seong-jin let it slip like a mutter.
A joke without laughter.
Yoshitoshi understood its weight and bent lower again.
"Please allow it.
As promised, it will be carried out."
Park Seong-jin pinched the bottom edge of the letter and reread the last line.
Then he pointed at the signature with a finger.
"Understood.
But whose seal is this."
"It is the seal of the Shimazu daimyo."
Park Seong-jin did not nod, and did not move on.
He drew the paper close and studied the strokes.
Thin and long.
Not a showy brushstroke of power,
but an excessively restrained hand.
"It looks like a woman's seal.
Thin. Light."
Yoshitoshi's pupils flickered—then the answer came.
"You may confirm it.
You may come as well."
Not a hair of hesitation.
A prepared line.
"I will send an underling."
Park Seong-jin spoke evenly.
"To confirm whether this is truly the lord's seal,
and whose hands it passed through."
Only then did Yoshitoshi take one deep breath.
"Of course."
He understood exactly what this meant.
This was not distrust.
It was procedure.
Not because Park Seong-jin could not believe—
but because he moved on the premise that belief is irrelevant.
Park Seong-jin did not trust people.
He trusted words even less.
An agreement that passes without verification and investigation
is not an agreement anymore.
Regrettably,
only one agreement was possible here.
Send an inspector.
Then speak with results.
Yoshitoshi accepted that condition.
From the moment he stepped into this room,
there had been no other option.