Chapter 236 — The Man Named Lee Yeongu 3
Case 2.
There were countless examples like this.
Once, Yeongu entered someone else's military tent.
The person inside the cramped tent at first thought he had come for some urgent matter and sat up.
Yeongu looked around the inside once, then said quite calmly,
"Oh, this is not the place."
If he had entered the wrong place, and once he realized his mistake, he should have left at once.
He had entered someone else's military tent by mistake, the owner was inside, and the night was deep.
An ordinary person would have laughed awkwardly and withdrawn.
But Yeongu did not.
He looked toward the entrance for a moment, then nodded as if a better idea had occurred to him.
"Since I came in, I might as well sleep a bit before I go."
The owner of the tent was speechless.
Yeongu was already unfastening the blade from his waist.
He loosened the leather strap, took off his wind cloak and tossed it to one side, then lay down without the slightest hesitation inside someone else's narrow military tent.
The tent was not spacious enough for two people to lie down comfortably.
It was so cramped that if one person stretched his legs even a little, they would touch the other person's knees.
Yeongu did not seem to care about that at all.
Rather, he looked as if things had gone well now that he had found a place to lie down.
He lay on his side, looked up at the tent roof for a moment, then said to the owner,
"Wake me at dawn."
Before the owner could even answer, he added,
"Ah, but do not wake me even if it is mealtime. I am tired, so I will sleep more."
Even those words were completely natural.
He was as natural as if he were lying in his own tent, and nowhere on his face was there any thought that he was borrowing someone else's sleeping place and someone else's discomfort.
He did not apologize to the owner, who must have been uncomfortable in that narrow space all night.
When dawn came and he rose, he simply shook out his wind cloak, put on his blade, left behind the words, "I slept well," and went out.
Yet strangely, it did not feel unpleasant.
The man who had suffered it from him eventually let out a hollow laugh.
It was not because Yeongu was shameless, but because in Yeongu's world that much truly seemed like nothing at all.
Conversely, if someone had mistakenly entered his tent and slept there, it was obvious Yeongu would not have made the slightest issue of it.
Perhaps he would have said he could sleep outside himself, and if the other man had fallen asleep first, he would have covered him with a blanket.
He was not a person who demanded of others what he would not allow for himself.
Just as he borrowed another man's place, he believed others could borrow his place as well.
That attitude existed in some strange place between rudeness and generosity.
He crossed other people's boundaries too easily, but he also left his own boundaries too easily open.
So people kept laughing at moments when they ought to have become angry.
The influence spreading from Yeongu's peculiarity was by no means small.
The military camp where he was present always seemed as if one screw had come loose somewhere.
Military discipline had not collapsed, yet unnecessary tension left people's faces.
Someone roasted more meat by the fire, someone laughed while telling the story of him entering the wrong tent, and someone exchanged jokes while polishing equipment even before a battle in which they might die the next day.
That atmosphere was bright and cheerful.
But it was not merely light.
When Yeongu stood in front, people who had been laughing immediately picked up their weapons.
When he said, "Let's go," soldiers who had been joking until just a moment before climbed onto their horses. When he drew a road with his finger, even a path that looked impossible somehow became a breakthrough.
Laughter and combat power did not move separately.
Rather, because of that lightness, their bodies moved quickly.
Fear makes a military camp heavy.
A heavy military camp hears orders slowly, and a slow military camp misses the enemy's opening.
Where Yeongu was, that weight gradually slipped away.
People were less afraid, less rigid, and less hesitant.
So although his military camp looked loose on the surface, when it actually collided with the enemy, it was the fastest and sharpest.
He looked at fortress walls and said they could simply be broken.
He looked at the enemy's flank and said they could simply go around.
He ate all of someone else's skewer and said they could simply roast more.
The root of all those words was the same.
If something is blocked, break through it.
If something is missing, find it.
If something is wrong, do it again.
That simple attitude made the hearts of the soldiers light.
The Great Khan knew that.
The military camp where Yeongu was present was at times absurdly free.
Yet within that freedom, people laughed louder, moved faster, and rode farther.
A bright and cheerful energy raised morale, and that morale soared to its highest point in the moment of battle.
Case 3.
It was the same when he saw a camp where no anti-cavalry obstacles had been set up.
Yeongu silently looked around.
He examined in turn the low road through which enemy cavalry could suddenly rush in, the flat ground where cavalry could build up speed in the dark, and the empty outer spaces where the firelight did not reach.
Then he muttered as if to himself,
"Ah, why did they not do this? This should have been done before anything else."
Those words sounded like a reprimand, but they did not end with scolding.
Yeongu moved immediately.
He did not call someone over or issue long orders.
He moved first.
He picked up a spear shaft lying nearby and drove it diagonally into the passage where horses might charge in.
The spearhead faced outward, and the shaft was pushed deep into the ground.
He stamped it down with his foot until the earth held it firmly, then shook it with his hand to check the angle.
Next, he took out caltrops.
Small iron-spiked obstacles scattered from his hand by the handful.
He did not spread them too densely, but threw them with enough spacing that horse hooves would find them difficult to avoid.
Outside the reach of the firelight, he strung a low cord, laid branches down in front of it, and left separate paths for people to pass through.
His movements were so natural that those watching could not simply stand still.
No one had given an order.
Yet one by one, they began to move after him.
Someone carried spear shafts, someone sharpened stakes, and someone brought sacks filled with caltrops.
The soldiers watched the angle and spacing at which Yeongu planted things and imitated him exactly.
He only corrected directions from time to time with gestures.
"The enemy will circle in through there. Block it."
"Leave that front open. Our people need to go out."
"Lay them outside the firelight. If they are visible, they will avoid them."
Those words were short.
But they were enough for the soldiers to understand.
It was not a tactic that required long study.
It was the handwork needed to survive tonight.
Yeongu knew that better than anyone.
He was a man who had climbed up from the bottom.
He knew what an ordinary soldier feared on a cold night.
He knew what thoughts passed through a sentry's mind when he stared into the darkness outside.
He knew how people endured in a camp where spears were lacking, stakes were lacking, food was lacking, and dry firewood was lacking.
He also knew that the war spoken of by superiors over a desk was different from the war endured by those below in wet shoes.
The difficulties of those below were usually not grand.
A single bowl of rice lacking, or the absence of one bundle of arrows, brought trouble.
Difficulty began with a wet blanket that would not dry.
A march at dawn was delayed because grass for the horses could not be found.
Armor could not be repaired all night because there was no leather cord to tie a fallen iron plate.
There were times when a sentry could not close his eyes to the end because one obstacle had not been set up.
Yeongu knew that sorrow.
And he knew that such small lacks killed people on the battlefield and drove a battle toward defeat.
What he always looked for first was supply.
Before the bravery of soldiers, he looked at rice.
Before a commander's order, he looked at arrows and fodder.
Before telling men to fight well, one had to make them able to fight.
Horses had to be fed grass, soldiers had to be fed meat and warm broth, wet shoes had to be dried, and at night obstacles had to be set so cavalry could not charge in.
Yeongu did not speak of those difficulties in a difficult way.
What was missing could be found, what was lacking could be shared, and if there were not enough hands, he could move first.
That was how he thought.
That was how he moved.
So people moved after him.
At first, even if they did not know what it meant, once he put his hand to it, the reason soon became visible.
Spears were planted, caltrops were laid, and the empty road in the darkness was blocked; then the unease of the camp settled a little.
The sentry's face changed.
A moment earlier, his eyes had looked as if he had to bear the wide darkness alone. Now he could trust the spears and iron spikes set before him.
It was not a perfect defense.
But it would buy one beat, kill the speed of the horses, and prevent a surprise attack from ending as a surprise.
With that one beat, a person survives.
A person who has climbed up from the bottom knows.
On the battlefield, what divides life from death is sometimes not a grand strategy, but who planted spears and scattered caltrops first during the night.