436.
Zhang Shicheng — Solitary Calculations After the Storm
Early morning sunlight settled over the courtyard in Yangzhou.
A flock of wild geese passed overhead in the distance, while Zhang Shicheng remained seated indoors, a white blanket draped over his official robes, not yet stepping outside.
The door opened, and his trusted aide Zhang Ce bowed deeply.
“Your Majesty, it is over.”
Zhang Shicheng’s eyes trembled slightly.
“…What is?”
“Zhu Yuanzhang has been captured. By Park Seong-jin.”
A brief silence followed.
The hand Zhang Shicheng had resting on the stone steps slowly tightened.
“Captured—without collapsing, without escaping?”
“Yes. A complete defeat. He was taken alive.”
For a long moment, Zhang Shicheng could not speak.
What spread across his face was neither anger nor joy, but a hollow sense of emptiness.
“Ah… so the war is over. No one will be able to reach that boy anymore.”
Zhang Ce raised his head.
“Your Majesty—by ‘that boy,’ you mean…”
“Park Seong-jin.”
Zhang Shicheng’s gaze was deep and still.
It was not the look of one chasing supremacy, but of one who had already read the flow.
“I suppose I am now paying the price for never fully committing myself to this war.”
“Goryeo has seized one leg of the cauldron of the realm.”
There was no jealousy or resentment in his words.
Only the calm acceptance of understanding.
The news was swiftly delivered to Yi In-jung as well.
A soldier ran in, breathless, and dropped to one knee before him.
“Senior General, the great battle at Poyang Lake has ended.”
Even before the report arrived, Yi In-jung had sensed a shift in the air.
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But when he heard the words, his steps halted.
“You’re saying the tide was overturned?”
“Yes. And General Park Seong-jin captured Zhu Yuanzhang.”
Yi In-jung’s eyes narrowed.
Surprise, joy, and emotions beyond words surged into his chest all at once.
“That child… he finally did it.”
A deputy at his side asked carefully,
“Are you not pleased, Commander?”
Yi In-jung nodded slowly.
“I am. More than I can say.”
His gaze drifted far away.
“Only… Seong-jin’s path now flows across a river I can no longer cross with him.”
He recalled the day in Geumseong when he first crossed blades with Park Seong-jin.
He had never thought of him as a disciple, but as a companion.
“He is no longer merely a warrior of one state. He has become a blade that cuts the current of the world itself.”
The wind blew in.
It carried with it the overturned currents of the realm from Poyang Lake.
Yi In-jung quietly placed his hands on his knees and bowed.
“Well done, Seong-jin.”
The war was over.
But peace had not yet revealed itself.
A silence fell, as if the clock hand of the world had briefly stopped.
The clash of blades and the roar of battle were gone.
The smoke of gunpowder had washed away.
Across rivers and fields remained only a calculating quiet—measuring what came next.
People did not speak of the battlefield.
They calculated instead.
Who would benefit from this victory.
Who would grasp the realm next.
Where would Jin Youliang establish his capital.
When would Zhang Shicheng move.
How would relations with the Yuan unfold.
Northern campaign, or reconciliation.
At the center of every calculation floated a single name.
Park Seong-jin.
News of the victory, departing from Nanchang, reached Yangzhou in a single day.
Zhang Shicheng immediately assembled a congratulatory envoy.
He had been the one who lingered, hedged, insisting the time was not yet right.
But now, if he did not change his stance swiftly, survival itself might be at risk.
The realm of Jiangnan would now belong to Jin Youliang.
The letter was concise:
“We congratulate Your Majesty on the great victory and consider it an honor, as a member of the allied forces, to have shared in your grand undertaking.”
The words were courteous, but the calculation within them was precise.
Zhang Shicheng was reading perfectly the direction in which control of the realm was moving.
The gates of Jin Youliang’s headquarters opened wide.
For the first time since the war’s end, Park Seong-jin and Yoon Dam arrived together to meet him.
Deep within the camp, the three sat facing one another with a map between them.
The scent of the battlefield still clung to the walls, and the waterways of Poyang Lake and Nanchang were clearly drawn across the table.
Jin Youliang spoke first.
“Without the strength of you two, my life would have ended at Poyang Lake.”
Park Seong-jin bowed silently.
Yoon Dam answered in a calm voice.
“The great work begins now.”
Jin Youliang took a deep breath.
“…How should Zhang Shicheng be handled?”
“For now, he is a partner,” Yoon Dam replied.
“But his actions will always be guided by profit. That has made things difficult before. Treat him accordingly.”
Jin Youliang turned his gaze to Park Seong-jin.
After a moment’s thought, Seong-jin spoke.
“Zhang Shicheng is a righteous man. But not all around him are the same. Many are merchants at heart—unsuited to governing a state.”
Yoon Dam nodded.
“So we walk together for now. But when the moment of decision comes, each must have their own path prepared.”
On the map, the flow of the realm moved quietly.
The discussion grew heavier—
Yuan, capitals, balance, the next age.
At the end of it all, Park Seong-jin spoke in a low voice.
“The realm must stand on three legs of a cauldron.”
The room fell silent.
Jin Youliang turned the words over in his mouth for a long time.
To him, they sounded like counsel to remain content with Jiangnan alone.
He had thought so himself—but could that truly be maintained?
Even if he sought stillness, the winds might yet rise fiercely.
Yoon Dam was already sketching a new order in his mind—
a realm balanced atop three legs.
And at the edge that cut through that order,
stood a blade bearing a single name.
Park Seong-jin.
