Chương 375: Chapter 347. Youngwoo’s Inspection — The City Walls

By afternoon, Youngwoo made a full circuit along the city walls, inspecting both the inside and the outside. It was the first thing that had to be done after taking a city. Wherever he went, he always looked for strengths and weaknesses first. He studied the road an attacker would use from outside, and at the same time the route defenders would rely on from within. Only by looking at both could he understand where a city would hold and where it would break.

Liaoyang was the place once called Liaodong Fortress in the days of Goguryeo. Yet the city before him now did not seem able to bear the full weight of that old name. For a fortress said to have held out against the great armies of Sui and Tang, the walls had been maintained too lightly, and too few soldiers stood at each gate. It would have been enough if they had strengthened it so that even a coalition of the various tribes of Liaodong could not easily break through.

Yet signs that even that much investment had been spared were visible everywhere. There were far too few soldiers to defend the city. There were eight gates in all. Even if only twenty or thirty men were stationed at each gate and rotated in shifts, manpower would already be tight. The soldiers patrolling the walls were spread far apart, watching the distant fields. Their steps were slow. Their spears rested on their shoulders.

It looked less like they were defending a fortress than merely making the required circuit along the ramparts. There was a tiger right beside them. It simply had not roared yet. People had mistaken that silence for peace. But there was a limit to what could be done with barely two thousand men. Once troops were assigned to the walls and gates, and more were left to guard the government offices and warehouses inside the city, almost nothing remained. They had only just taken Liaoyang.

For now, they at least had to make the city look defended. And that appearance amounted to little more than men walking the walls, banners raised above them, and guard posts placed at every gate. If either the main Jin army or a major Liao force arrived, the fate of the city would be decided within a day. So what had to be done first to prevent that? Youngwoo slowed his pace and stared for a long time toward the south and west. There was no reason to make an enemy of Jin immediately.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Fighting beside them at Hubodagang had been the right choice. As long as the memory of that battle remained fresh, Jin would not turn its blade against them at once. But the situation would change the moment someone proclaimed a state name and mounted a throne. Jin would not see Liaoyang as the territory of a new country. It would see it as an obstacle standing in the path of its expansion.

Youngwoo found it bitter that men blinded by their own ambition could not see something so obvious. He entered the command post at the southern gate. There, he borrowed brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. He spread a sheet across the table and began writing down the ten reasons Oryang had once given him. The thought had come back to him, and he wanted to leave it in writing while it was still clear in his mind. They were cautions for anyone trying to establish a state in Liaodong.

Put another way, they were the things that had to be considered before a country was founded at all. Youngwoo set down the brush and stared at the paper for a while. Oryang's words had sounded like an impossible dream, but beneath that dream lay cold calculation. And the more Youngwoo understood that calculation, the more dangerous the words exchanged in the Regent's Office seemed. The second thing he wrote was a plan for the defense of Liaoyang. Liaoyang was a fortress on flat ground.

But rivers and streams wrapped around the north and east, giving those sides at least some natural protection. The real problem lay to the south and west. The roads were open there, the terrain gentle, and large bodies of troops could approach easily. If the city was to be defended, those two sides had to be strengthened first. The southern gate, Yongwon Gate, needed the heaviest concentration of troops. The Balhae soldiers themselves had entered through that gate the night before.

Which meant an enemy could target it as well. Chevaux-de-frise and wooden palisades should be set before the gate. A second defensive line should be established inside. If the gate began to give way, the road beneath the arch had to be bent and blocked so that attackers could not simply pour straight into the city. Dasun Gate to the west and Hyeondeok Gate to the southwest required the same attention.

A shallow moat should be dug again outside those sections, with the excavated earth piled inward to form low defensive works. Bows, stones, boiling water, and sand should be stocked on the walls. Reserve troops needed to be hidden beneath the gate towers. A fortress could not be held merely by placing guards in front of its gates. To the north and east, they could rely on the rivers and streams, but every ford, landing place, and shallow crossing had to be checked. An enemy did not come through deep water.

He came where the water was shallow. Where boats could land. Where men could cross at night. Small watch posts had to be placed at all such points, with smoke signals by day and fire signals by night. Inside the city, three successive reserve lines had to be designated. If the southern gate fell, the next defense would be made in front of the government offices. If that line began to break, they would fall back again around the barracks and warehouses.

And as a final position, a route had to be prepared along the higher walls near the palace enclosure. A fortress that ended the moment its first line was pushed back was no fortress at all. There had to be another place to resist after retreating. Youngwoo also considered building an additional outer wall in front of the main rampart—a yangma wall—to create a first defensive line before the city wall itself. The distribution of troops also had to be changed.

If the soldiers were divided evenly among all eight gates, every gate would be weak. It would be better to concentrate manpower at the southern and western gates, while assigning the northern and eastern gates primarily to observation and signaling. Young men from inside the city should be organized to carry supplies, replenish arrows, and evacuate the wounded. Those capable of fighting should be grouped into reserves. Youngwoo raised his brush and wrote the final lines.

Liaoyang had to become a city that endured through people, provisions, and time. It had to recover the role once held by Goguryeo's Liaodong Fortress. No matter how many soldiers came against it, it needed to become a tall, thick, self-sustaining fortress that would not easily yield. He also kept in mind that Balhae fortresses had not always been as strong as people imagined.

Because their military power had often operated by moving from place to place, much like Liao did now, they had not always invested in making every city wall extraordinarily high and thick. Youngwoo waited for the ink to dry, then folded the paper and tucked it into his robe.

"Nothing unusual?" The man guarding the southern gate immediately straightened.

"Loyalty! Nothing to report."

"Oh, you do not have to do that with me. I'm only here to help. I'm nobody in particular."

"No, sir." Youngwoo had declined such military courtesies because he did not want to be drawn into the same games of power now beginning around him. Yet everywhere he went, there were still men who stopped to salute him.