332
The Third Day
At dawn on the third day, the fog fell even thicker.
Smoke from the day before mingled with the damp air, turning the mist not into a white veil but into a heavy wall that blocked the battlefield.
Neither side's banners could be seen.
The drums failed to carry far.
Yet within that fog, Chen Youliang's navy had already slipped downriver, cutting off the enemy's rear.
Zhu Yuanzhang's central army was encircled from front and back—
a siege like an unseen blade pressed to the nape of the neck.
Chen Youliang raised his cavalry and pointed toward the enemy's main force.
"Within that fog lies the dividing line of the realm."
If Zhu Yuanzhang's army broke here, everything might end.
The expectation rose not as joy, but as a weary breath pulled up from exhaustion.
As Chen Youliang's hand dropped, horns sounded and drums burst forth.
Fog twisted together with fire and smoke, then split apart.
Through the opening, the teeth of the battlefield were bared.
At that moment, Zhu Yuanzhang's main force emerged.
Chen Youliang reined in his horse and lifted his spear toward the sky.
"Today, the realm receives a new name!"
At dawn of the third day, fog once again settled over the river at Taiping.
Sky and earth blurred together.
Even the sound of breathing lost its direction.
The flames had burned for three days already.
Ash and flesh clung together along the riverbank.
The ground beneath was soaked earth.
The air carried the mingled stench of burning and blood.
Mud clung to the hooves of the cavalry.
Dried blood stiffened the hems of soldiers' garments.
Everyone was exhausted.
Eyes were open, but hearts were half extinguished.
They believed in neither victory nor defeat.
Without speaking it, all of them only hoped this time would end.
Chen Youliang's army stretched along the river in a crescent.
Cavalry waited mounted.
Infantry stood behind raised shields, catching their breath.
Whispers leaked from between soldiers' lips.
"Is the enemy there?"
"I can't see them."
"I can't hear anything either."
The Goryeo forces were deployed along a low ridge on the southern embankment.
Park Seong-jin pointed to a small mark on the map and spoke to Chen Youliang.
"If we move here, the enemy will feel fear before they see us."
"Where?"
Park Seong-jin tapped a point he sensed as the battlefield's pulse.
It was not calculation, but instinct.
Like a vital point on a human body—touch it, and the whole body shudders.
An army was no different.
Even as the sun rose, its light could not pierce the fog.
The mist remained dense.
All sound was smothered.
Drums and horns alike fell silent.
In that stillness, Chen Youliang briefly closed his eyes atop his horse.
Both hands gripped his spear.
White breath rose from the horse's nostrils.
The horse, too, knew the battlefield.
Then, faintly from beyond the fog, came the sound of metal—
Ming armor knocking against itself.
The enemy was moving.
Chen Youliang opened his eyes.
"They're coming."
Park Seong-jin said,
"There."
Chen Youliang lifted his spear again.
"Within that fog lies the dividing line of the realm."
The raised hand fell.
The sleeping drums exploded.
Boom— boom— boom!
Chen Youliang's cavalry surged forward.
Hooves tore through the mud.
The fog collapsed.
Enemy banners emerged within it.
Zhu Yuanzhang's forces charged at the same time.
Great army met great army.
There was no room for stratagem—
it was a collision like gravity itself.
This was the boundary between the central army and the left and right wings.
In a space not so wide, both armies were packed together.
Different commands tangled in a single place.
Formations must be built with spacing.
When the foundation collapses, it becomes blood.
Park Seong-jin had already marked that distortion.
What he had seen became reality in an instant.
Spears struck spears.
Horses fell.
Human bodies were crushed beneath hooves.
Sunlight broke above the fog, and blood rose as steam.
The battlefield became a boiling cauldron.
Hot blood and cold mist mixed in one place.
The cavalry's charge traced a vast circle—
from west to south, from south back to north.
At the center of the whirl stood Chen Youliang.
His armor was soaked in blood.
The spearpoint flashed red in the sunlight.
"Follow me!"
The Ming main force wavered.
Commanders tried to turn their horses, but their paths were blocked.
Waves of iron cavalry pressed in from both sides, crushing them.
The clash of steel and the cracking of bones poured together.
Park Seong-jin led his elite unit deep into the heart of the battlefield.
It felt like a path he could walk even with his eyes closed.
The edge of his curved blade had dulled.
His arms were heavy; his wrists trembled.
But he did not stop.
As heavily armored troops closed in behind him, the enemy split in two.
An army that can no longer hold command collapses first.
A collapsing army stops trying to win and begins trying to survive.
Near midday, the fog finally lifted.
Along the riverbank, corpses lay piled like hills.
The survivors fled.
The river was already red with blood.
From the ridge, Park Seong-jin looked down at the scene.
"There's nothing floating on the water now but death."
Chen Youliang's banner was raised.
He climbed onto the battlements and lifted his spear high.
"Taiping is mine today!
Heaven has chosen my will!"
Cheers erupted, yet beneath them ran a faint wind—
a sound as though it had passed through the mouths of the dead.
The battlefield held a silence forged by victory and death together.
By evening, the wind rose.
The fog was gone, but smoke remained.
The wreckage of burned tents and streams of blood flowed into the river.
Park Seong-jin descended to the riverbank and murmured,
"The river will flow toward Yingtian now."
He tossed a shard of armor from his hand into the water.
Small ripples spread.
From afar, Chen Youliang's cavalry sounded the trumpets of victory.
The sound stirred wind and smoke, blood and ash.
Thus ended the dawn at Taiping—
a dawn that resembled an ending.
That night, the river still ran red.
Burning ships drifted downstream.
The battle was over, but the aura of battle remained.
A soldier whispered softly,
"If such a grim ending is the beginning of peace…
how much darker will the end be?"
The wind blew.
After the flames died, only the footprints of a new ruler remained on the fields of Taiping—
footprints pressed into blood.
They formed the first line leading to the next battlefield.