- Dawn Battle
Before sunrise, in the dim hour just before daybreak, Park Cheongyun spotted two signal rockets—one red, one blue—shooting up into the sky.
They rose out of the darkness, so they were easy to see.
“Damn. We’re moving.”
Sosam muttered to himself, woke the others, and swung up onto his horse.
Soun, who had slept in full kit, vaulted onto his mount in a single step.
The rockets were going up from a basin not far away.
“That way.”
As the five riders sprinted in the direction Sosam indicated, other Baekryong teams—five men to a squad—burst out from ambush positions to their flanks and rear.
Across the half-dark plain, dust plumes rose everywhere.
Ahead, Unit Commander Gyeongpil stood alone facing nearly a thousand enemy riders.
What could fifty do?
If the enemy simply struck through and kept going, that would be that.
But when dust exploded from every direction, the enemy hesitated.
The scattered charges made the force look larger than it was.
In truth, the numbers were not that great.
Yet when riders poured in from all sides in an instant, the host looked swollen.
As trained, roughly two hundred riders gathered in the area in a heartbeat.
Not far away, the Second and Third Units began to move as well.
The moment Lee Hui swung onto his favorite horse, he drove it hard.
At an hour when everyone should have been asleep, the entire Baekryong Unit converged on one point.
Gyeongpil kept distance and spread his line.
“Spread out. Open the line—now!”
He had to hold until the Second and Third Units arrived.
He flicked his gaze upward, checking the Bogap’s position.
Signal rockets went up one after another.
“The Second and Third will arrive soon. And the commander, too.”
“What do we do—wipe them out?”
Of course it was Sosam again.
Whenever someone opened their mouth confidently, it was Sosam.
Beside him, Soun turned his head away as if embarrassed.
“Spread wide. Shoot. Lure them.”
“Where to?”
“Toward the Bogap.”
“Do you know where they are?”
Squad leaders gathered at Gyeongpil’s side, waiting for orders—orders that might decide who lived.
“Lure them toward the Bogap below Cheonok Mountain. The Second and Third will slam them from behind. No—maybe from the front. Either way—break them with arrows, then fall back. If they surge, fall back and shoot again. Three volleys. Understood? If they chase, draw them to Cheonmok Mountain. Don’t let anyone lag behind. Leaders—keep your men in hand.”
“Yes.”
Two hundred riders spread wide and advanced.
Talukcheol’s deputy commander sneered.
The enemy numbers were small.
There was nothing to fear.
“What a joke…”
Gyeongpil’s two hundred drew their bows and sent three or four high shots.
There was no single target line.
They were loosing into a packed mass that had stopped and bunched up.
Arrows fell wherever they pleased—and wherever they fell, they found flesh.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Most of the enemy wore no armor.
Men dropped from saddles as if pulled off by invisible hands.
Han composite bows outranged the enemy’s bows.
They were laminated—horn, bamboo, and more—built to throw farther.
“Shoot back.”
Bak Rokhan, Talukcheol’s deputy, laughed as he gave the order.
From the front, five times as many arrows arced toward the Baekryong line—a thin crescent of riders.
Most of those arrows fell short.
They struck dirt.
But Han arrows kept coming.
They toppled Bak Rokhan’s vanguard by the dozens.
“Damn it—our shots don’t reach!”
He realized it only after dozens had already fallen.
“Run them down! Kill them!”
Bak Rokhan roared.
The enemy’s front was not truly their strongest point.
It had become their rear during the approach, and it was weaker by nature.
They believed the Baekryong were too few to matter.
So they surged forward, leaving casualties behind, and threw themselves into pursuit.
The Baekryong did not bunch up.
They turned their horses away from the surge and fled in the opposite direction.
From a distance, it looked like a rabble scattering.
Two hundred turning away from a mere handful of attackers looked like a force with no will to fight.
Yet even as they withdrew, their order held.
Their spacing remained clean.
Bak Rokhan halted his pursuit.
“Come back. If they run, let them run.”
The moment the enemy stopped chasing, Gyeongpil wheeled around.
“All units—turn back to the attack line! Move to the attack line!”
The Baekryong squads that had scattered on purpose turned as one and returned to their marks.
The “attack line” was a notional boundary Lee Hui had set.
It was the distance where enemy arrows could not reach, but Baekryong arrows still could.
“Load one arrow!”
Gyeongpil bellowed.
Leaders drew again.
Bowstrings creaked.
“Ready!”
“Loose!”
Training showed its teeth here.
Two hundred arrows flew together, punching into the enemy’s center.
If the enemy chased, the Baekryong withdrew.
If the enemy paused, the Baekryong turned and shot.
After repeating that twice, the Second and Third Units arrived.
Lee Hui’s main force reached the opposite ridge.
Bak Rokhan understood his error.
He should never have tried to wait them out.
Hundreds had already fallen.
Now additional Baekryong riders were arriving.
The numbers had turned.
His weapons were worse.
A few hundred kept distance, shot, withdrew, then shot again while shifting angles—like hunters tightening a ring.
It was as if they had learned his own tactics and refined them.
Bak Rokhan had no room left.
He chose a direction and drove hard toward the unit that had first harassed him.
Break one side.
Escape through the wound.
With Bak Rokhan at the tip, his riders formed a wedge and thundered straight at Gyeongpil.
Gyeongpil turned and ran—toward Cheonok Mountain.
This time the enemy did not stop.
They chased in earnest.
Behind them, the Second Unit pursued.
To the flank, the Third Unit came in, loosing arrows as they ran.
Han horses were not as strong.
Even with equal strength, armor and weapons slowed them.
As the chase dragged on, the distance closed.
Near Cheonok Mountain they passed between two low ridges.
There, the Bogap stood in dense ranks, leaving a narrow channel open.
They let the Baekryong riders slip through.
Shields held aside just long enough for armored cavalry to pass.
Behind, the enemy cavalry chased like mad.
“Close the shields!”
A wall snapped shut.
Huge shields formed a curtain.
Dense long spears jutted out between them.
Behind, archers and the Bogap held firm.
The pursuing riders yanked on reins.
A trap.
Not the mouth—his chest cried it out.
Gyeongpil cut behind the Bogap and swung outward, climbing the ridge.
Bak Rokhan’s force checked too late.
Arrows poured into them.
The halted front jammed.
Those behind, unable to see, shoved forward.
With the path blocked, Bak Rokhan suddenly thought of one word.
Annihilation.
Cavalry cannot break a packed Bogap braced behind shields and spears.
They had not even fought a proper battle.
They were about to become nothing but targets.
The Second and Third Units swung wide and angled toward the ridge.
One ridge remained.
It looked like a trap.
But it was empty.
There was no other choice.
Pushing through the Bogap’s wall looked impossible.
And behind, fully armored cavalry were closing, their formation clean.
“Follow me! Break through the left ridge!”
Bak Rokhan charged uphill like a madman.
Less than two hundred managed to follow.
Then Bak Rokhan’s horse went down.
He flew, not even understanding why, and slammed into the ground.
The earth struck his chest.
His breath collapsed.
A hidden tripline—masak—had been laid low across the route, meant to catch horse legs.
A horse fell on top of him.
Another fell.
The hillside became a furnace of screams.
Over that chaos, arrows fell like rain.
An arrow drove deep into Bak Rokhan’s back.
Pain tore flesh.
Fear flooded him.
Breathing turned into struggle.
“To think… I’d fall to arrows like this…”
Above, Baekryong riders had already taken the ridge and barred the way.
“Dismount—break through on foot!”
Bak Rokhan tried to shout with his last strength.
It did not sound like his own voice.
It felt as if an arrow had pierced his lungs.
A wet, grinding rattle rose in his throat.
Blood climbed into his mouth.
Bak Rokhan’s rear guard died there.
On the ridge, Soun trembled.
Strategy.
Formations.
Superior weapons.
Training built for battle.
He watched the result with his whole body shaking.
He could no longer pretend that martial skill alone was enough.
These riders might have been the ones who had attacked the Yu family estate.
Or they might not.
Facing an impossible victory, he replayed everything.
The long-range march.
The ambushes.
Small teams converging.
A withdrawal that became a gathering—then a sudden swelling of force.
His days of tiger-step training flashed faintly, like a distant dream.
He looked down.
On the opposite ridge, General Jin Mugwang watched the enemy collapse with a blank, cold stare.
His face did not move.
He stood like a stone statue, looking down on the field.
After that, the Northern Route Army set up stop-lines, blocked them with Bogap, and littered the approaches with masak and obstacles, striking the retreating enemy again and again.
The raiders who had ridden south in arrogant momentum now panicked.
They were obsessed with crossing before the frozen river thawed.
They rushed more than they needed to.
They also tended to retreat in scattered groups rather than gather.
So small detachments that tried to slip north were wiped out in pieces.
Their road home became hell.
Han traps waited everywhere.
The more they feared the thaw and hurried, the more easily they fell into snares.
Jin Mugwang recovered horses and weapons, increasing the mounted strength.
The Baekryong, once organized only up to the Fifth Unit, expanded—Sixth, Seventh, even Eighth.
With captured mounts, the unit grew.
The cavalry was reorganized again and again.