Chương 374: Chapter 347. Youngwoo’s Thoughts

Youngwoo had no interest in founding yet another country. If a new state were established now, it would soon collide with Jin before it ever had the chance to confront Liao. There was still some distance between them. But as Jin expanded, it was inevitable that its power would one day reach Liaoyang. Jin would fill the vacuum left behind by the collapse of Liao, and a newly raised Balhae banner would not survive for long in the space between them. The hunger for power was a frightening thing.

Even knowing that everything might collapse within a few months, men still looked toward a throne. Give them one city, and they began dreaming of a country. Raise one banner, and they began imagining a royal seat beneath it. They thought of their own names before they thought of the blood the people would spill. If word spread that one man had founded a kingdom, another man somewhere else would begin dreaming the same dream. He too would think he could raise a banner. He too would think he could call himself king.

And so the name Balhae would wear thin, no longer meaning the restoration of a lost country, but becoming an excuse for men hungry for power. Youngwoo hated that. He hated the impatience of those who spoke of kings before Liao had even fallen, who spoke of a state name before the people had been secured, who spoke of enthronement before counting troops and provisions. The blood of those who had retaken the city had not even dried, and already men were arguing over who would sit above the others.

That was when he remembered something Oryang had once said. If the strength of Goryeo, Jin, Liao, and Balhae could be gathered into one place, they could unify the realm under Heaven. And by that, he had not meant merely taking the Central Plains and the lands south of the Yangtze. He had spoken of a great empire that would bind Liaodong and the steppe, the Three Han lands and Western Xia, and even Yunnan far to the southwest into a single order. The grasslands with their horses and bows.

Liaodong with its fortresses and granaries. The Three Han lands with their seas and rice fields. Western Xia, holding the gates of the desert roads. Yunnan, enclosed by mountains and rivers. A country that embraced all of them. Spoken aloud, it was a magnificent dream. Gather scattered strengths into one great state, and let the strength of one people make up for the weakness of another. Goryeo's administration and agriculture. Jin's cavalry and power in open battle. Liao's fortifications and institutions.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The memory the Balhae descendants still carried of Liaodong. If those things could truly fit together, perhaps the idea was not entirely impossible. But Oryang had immediately explained why it would be so difficult. The very man who had raised the dream had been the first to tear it apart. He had listed dozens of reasons it would fail. And none of them had been empty theory. They had all been drawn from history.

Sitting in the council hall of the Regent's Office, Youngwoo had remembered those words again. How long had it been since Liaoyang was retaken? And already men were talking about the name of the state and who would be king. Before discussing how to destroy Liao. Before considering the day Jin would come into conflict with them. Before calculating how much grain was needed to feed the people inside the city. Already the shadow of a throne was moving across the room.

Youngwoo recalled the ten great difficulties Oryang had pointed out. The great empire Oryang had spoken of could never be built with hearts like these. To bind Goryeo, Jin, Liao, and Balhae into one power, they would first have to overcome the kind of men who used those very names as tools for their own ambition. Youngwoo began going over Oryang's warnings one by one. First, their state institutions were far too weak.

Most Balhae restoration movements had begun with little more than a single fortress, one military camp, or a cluster of Balhae descendants living in a particular region. They could proclaim a royal title. They could declare a name for the state. But they lacked the institutions needed to collect taxes, provision armies, administer territory, control the provinces, and maintain supply lines to the rear. Second, they had failed to unite all Balhae descendants under one cause.

The descendants of Balhae were scattered across Liaodong, Liaoxi, and the northeastern regions. Some members of the old Balhae elite had cooperated with Liao. Others had been absorbed into military units. Still others lived as farmers, artisans, or among the miscellaneous registered households. They had failed to bind all those people together. They had failed to bind other peoples to them as well. Their sense of common political identity had weakened.

Balhae descendants had lived for generations within the institutions of Liao. Some held Liao civil posts. Some served in Liao armies. The name Balhae had remained, but the bonds between them were no longer strong enough for all of them to stake their political fate on the same cause. Third, their military strength rarely rose above the level of a regional rebellion. At first, they might seize a fortress or take control of troops belonging to a county or prefecture.

But once the regular armies of Liao or Jin arrived, they had little chance of holding out for long. Then came diplomacy. A Balhae restoration movement could not survive alone. It mattered enormously whether it allied itself with Goryeo, with Jin, or with some faction opposed to the Liao court. Da Yanlin's Xingliao Kingdom had sought Goryeo's support, yet it had not lasted. Go Youngchang would be no different. They had also been too quick to proclaim royal titles and state names.

Before securing provisions, soldiers, allies, and a stable rear, they declared a kingdom and raised a king. All that did was turn them into immediate targets for the surrounding powers. Geography itself worked against them. Liaodong was a region Liao, Jin, and Goryeo all cared about. If a restored Balhae state appeared, Liao would treat it as rebellion and move to crush it. Jin would see it as an obstacle blocking its path of expansion.

Goryeo, meanwhile, could not intervene too deeply without risking direct conflict with both Liao and Jin. In the end, the restoration movements could never obtain enough outside support, while the pressure from the surrounding powers remained overwhelming. Their economic base and logistical foundations were too shallow as well. Taking one fortress and maintaining a country were entirely different things. Most restoration movements could succeed in rebellion and initial occupation.

They could not sustain a prolonged war. Then there was the ambition of the leadership. At some point, restoring the name of Balhae became the same thing as building a throne for one man. They did not found a country to restore Balhae. They founded Balhae because they wanted to become king. And finally, the Balhae descendants had already been absorbed too deeply into the Liao order. A large part of the Balhae population had been incorporated into Liao's military, administrative, and technical institutions.

They were bound into Liao's administrative network itself. Youngwoo knew the foolishness of the men in that council would end before long. Had he not heard Oryang's warnings in advance, he might have been swept along by their impossible ambitions. Should he blame himself for having been emotionally shaken by the name Balhae? At least one place had been moving forward step by step. Jin. And that had been the result of Kim Yungyeong and the others throwing themselves into the work with everything they had.

They had carefully managed the very weaknesses Oryang had described, trying to prevent them from becoming the causes of disaster later on. Perhaps people lived by dreaming of things that could never truly be achieved. Tomorrow better than today. A place better than this one. A more beautiful immortal realm somewhere beyond the horizon. Still, Oryang's analysis had been extraordinary. Youngwoo still found it difficult to believe the claim that the old immortal had lived through another lifetime.

And yet, in the world of immortals, perhaps even that was possible.