Chapter 335. The Great Battle of Hubodagang 6 — Martial Arts of Heaven
Youngwoo felt his chest burn as he watched.
It was the same martial art he had once gazed upon in speechless awe.
Movements that seemed to imitate the laws of heaven through the human body.
A sword art in which rhythm came before strength, breath before rhythm, and the mind before breath.
And now that sword art was cutting through the central army of the Liao emperor in the middle of the battlefield at Hubodagang.
The silver light of the immortals' blades drove toward the center.
The Balhae heavy cavalry followed close behind.
Go Youngchang and Go Hoewon widened the opening on either side, while Youngwoo's halberd cleared the way ahead.
The Liao center shook even more violently.
The emperor's banner was forced farther back, and every newly formed line of imperial guards was split apart again.
The moment the battle movements of dozens of immortals shattered one corner of the Liao defense, the road Youngwoo had opened grew wider.
Youngwoo laughed.
Even amid blood, dust, and the winter wind, laughter burst from him.
Ahead stood Tianzuo's banner.
Behind him came the Balhae heavy cavalry.
Go Youngchang and Go Hoewon widened the path on either side.
From the south, the Goryeo army was pressing into the Liao left wing.
And now his master and the immortals were driving into the center.
The weight of the battlefield had completely shifted.
The Liao army raised new defensive lines around the emperor, but Youngwoo's spear, the immortals' hwando, the charge of the Balhae troops, and the pressure of the Goryeo army struck at the same time.
Block one side, and another opened.
Raise a shield, and a blade curved around it.
The more the imperial guards gathered around the emperor, the wider the gap between the left wing and the center became.
Youngwoo looked forward again.
Tianzuo's banner was close.
He raised his weapon and shouted,
"Follow me! Keep coming!"
The Balhae soldiers roared.
The Goryeo troops answered behind them.
The immortals' long cries rang out again.
Sword-light, halberds, and pounding hooves surged together toward the Liao center.
On the opposite side, the young Jin commanders Dolhapsok, Samyoari, and Aribo were also driving into the enemy ranks.
All of them had the same target.
The emperor in the center of the Liao army.
Dolhapsok lowered his horse's neck at the front.
His spearpoint aimed directly at the center of the Liao shield line.
Samyoari moved slightly off to one side and cut into the left, while Aribo drove his tribal cavalry through the opening between them.
The three commanders took different paths.
But every path led toward the same place.
The imperial banner.
Behind them, the Iron Pagoda Cavalry began to move.
Men and horses alike were clad in iron.
Layer upon layer of plates covered the horses' necks and chests.
Hard armor protected the riders' shoulders and arms.
Their spearpoints were low.
Their shields covered the front.
As they advanced in rhythm, the earth began to tremble before they even arrived.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Their hoofbeats rolled like war drums.
The Liao front ranks raised their shields.
Long spears extended forward like a forest.
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry did not slow.
They drove straight in.
The first collision exploded like thunder.
Spear shafts snapped.
Shields flipped backward.
Men and horses were driven sideways together.
Liao spearpoints scraped across horse armor and glanced away.
Arrows struck iron plates and scattered in every direction.
The strength of the Iron Pagoda Cavalry did not come from the martial ability of any one man.
It came from the weight of the entire formation.
The horses in the first rank struck.
The horses behind them pushed again.
When the front tore apart a shield line, the riders behind widened the breach.
Low spearpoints drove into men's waists and horses' chests.
Shields pushed across the broken front rank.
Once a gap opened, it became a road for the cavalry behind.
Dolhapsok drove along that road.
He straightened in the saddle and extended his spear.
A Liao commander charged out to meet him.
The man intended to stop the Iron Pagoda Cavalry head-on.
But behind him, the shield line was already being forced backward.
Spearmen tangled with one another.
Horses swerved aside and disrupted the formation.
The courage of a single commander could not hold a collapsing line against the wave of heavy cavalry bearing down upon it.
The Liao commander came straight for Dolhapsok.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, his upper body rising prominently even on horseback.
His spear shaft was thick.
Its point drove directly toward Dolhapsok's chest.
Dolhapsok lowered his horse's neck.
He pressed himself deep into the saddle and locked the shaft firmly beneath his arm.
His left hand shortened the reins.
The speed of the horse and the strength of the rider gathered into a single spearpoint.
The two weapons seemed about to strike at almost the same instant.
The Liao commander's spear thrust toward Dolhapsok's shoulder.
Dolhapsok shifted his horse's head half a step aside.
The spear scraped across his shoulder armor and passed.
Metal rang sharply against metal.
At that instant, Dolhapsok's spear was already inside.
Rather than trying to go over the enemy's shield, he aimed for the narrow gap between shield and helmet.
The point entered beside the chin guard beneath the helmet.
It struck the links of the armor first, then drove deeply between neck and collarbone on the next breath.
Dolhapsok's horse pushed one more step forward.
The spear shaft bent sharply.
The Liao commander's body snapped backward.
He tried to seize the shaft with both hands, but Dolhapsok's horse kept driving forward.
The force tore the helmet strap loose and twisted the chin guard aside.
Blood burst from the commander's mouth.
His huge body lifted once from the saddle and then fell sideways.
The spear in his hands scraped through the air as it dropped.
His riderless horse ran several more steps before crashing into the Liao shield line.
Dolhapsok twisted his spear free.
Blood sprayed from the point.
He immediately lowered it toward the next rank.
The fallen commander's body rolled directly before the Liao front line.
The soldiers behind tried to avoid it and collided with one another.
One shield opened sideways.
Into that opening came the hooves of the Iron Pagoda Cavalry.
Dolhapsok shouted,
"Drive through!"
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry accelerated again at his cry.
Armored horses thrust their chests against the Liao formation.
Their spearpoints aimed not at the faces of shields but at the gaps between them and at the chests of the spearmen behind.
The front shields flipped backward.
Spear shafts broke.
Soldiers' feet slid across the red earth.
The cavalry behind did not waste the opening.
They poured into it and widened it further.
The front line bent backward.
The spearmen lost their footing.
The following cavalry pressed deeper through the opened space.
The formation broke and opened.
Those who somehow blocked the first impact were simply driven backward by the force of the charge.
The shoulders of the spearmen crushed together.
Samyoari did not miss the breach.
His cavalry entered diagonally from the side.
Unlike the Iron Pagoda Cavalry, which crushed the line head-on, Samyoari's riders swept obliquely and stabbed into the flank.
Each time they entered, spear struck spear with a great crash.
The Liao defenders poured their strength into holding the front, only to be opened again by spears and blades coming from the side.
Each time Samyoari's banner shifted, his cavalry changed direction.
The Liao line struggled to match their speed.
Aribo drove forward with the fierce energy of youth.
He kept his hundred or so tribal riders behind the Iron Pagoda Cavalry, then rushed through the moment the defensive line split.
He threw a short spear from horseback and immediately drew his hwando.
His men were agile.
When the Iron Pagoda Cavalry opened a road, they entered along it and cut down Liao standard-bearers and messengers.
Once a banner fell, the unit around it lost its sense of direction.
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry found its rhythm again.
White clouds of breath poured from the horses' nostrils.
Dust clung to every iron plate.
Even after the first collision, they continued pushing forward.
The horses in front smashed into the shield line, and the horses behind added their weight against the same place.
When a shield flipped backward, spearpoints entered behind it.
When spearmen gave ground, armored horse chests widened the space.
Once the front rank collapsed, the next line immediately received the impact.
They broke the shield wall.
They shoved the spearmen aside.
Then they pressed into the horses and wagons behind.
Whenever the Liao hastily formed another defensive line, the Iron Pagoda Cavalry lowered their spears and went straight toward it again.
When the iron-clad horses approached, strength began leaving the shoulders and feet of the Liao soldiers even before the collision.
There was only one way to describe it.
The silver wave seemed almost invincible.
Nothing could stop it.
The imperial banner in the center drew closer.
The Liao imperial guards stood layer upon layer across the road.
They were elite soldiers.
They held long spears.
They locked shields together.
Their spearpoints gathered toward the chests of the oncoming horses.
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry drove into them anyway.
Spears caught against horse armor.
Shafts bent.
The weight from the rear pushed again.
Then the entire shield line slid backward at once.
Dolhapsok shouted,
"Look at the emperor's banner!"
At his cry, Samyoari's banner swung to the right.
Aribo's tribal cavalry rushed through the opening.
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry pressed from the front.
The young commanders widened gaps from both sides.
The Liao center was pushed from ahead, torn from the flanks, and trapped by its own wagons crowding from behind.
The sounds of battle grew harsher.
Iron crashed against iron.
Horses screamed.
Broken spear shafts rolled across the earth.
Above it all, the Jin drums continued.
Boom.
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry pushed another step.
Boom.
The Liao shield line slid backward.
Boom.
More imperial guards rushed toward the emperor's banner.
The young Jin commanders saw only that banner.
Loot could not distract them.
Provision wagons could not distract them.
Even fallen enemy commanders could not hold their attention.
Aguda's command had been clear.
Break the center.
Shake Tianzuo's banner.
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry carried out that order with the weight of iron.
Samyoari, Dolhapsok, and Aribo followed the road opened by that weight and drove deeper into the Liao army.
The strongest part of the Liao center was beginning to split.
The imperial guards gathered again and again to block the way, but wherever they formed, another hammer-blow of armored cavalry fell upon them.
That day at Hubodagang, the young commanders of Jin showed their courage.
The Iron Pagoda Cavalry gave that courage form.
Men and horses clad in iron drove forward as a single mass and shook the central army of the Liao emperor.
The battlefield at Hubodagang had now entered another phase.
The Jin struck at the center.
The Goryeo army pressed the left wing.
The armies of two states moved in the same direction toward the banner of the Liao emperor.