Ch. 4 — River Crossing
A moment after the announcer’s introduction concluded, a broadcast connection came through, and a voice filled the interior of the vehicle.
It was nothing like what I’d expected — not the voice of a soldier bloated with self-importance, nor a revolutionary consumed by uncontrollable fervor.
Just the hoarse, weighted voice of an old man who had weathered many long years of hardship.
[Dear citizens of our nation, and beloved patriot soldiers. I am Army Field Marshal Song Hak-su, acting Commander of the Revolutionary Forces.]
The moment that name came through the radio, Seo Yu-jin’s body visibly stiffened.
Her elegant brow drew tight.
Even the bodyguard in the front seat flinched.
[Today, we took up arms. But these arms are not pointed at people. They are pointed at a festering tumor. A tumor so thoroughly rotted that, if left uncut, it will kill the entire body — and it is to excise that rot that I stand before you today.]
[The military — has been loyal to the imperial house.]
[In ages past, we were loyal even when the ancestral lands bequeathed to us were nearly swallowed whole. In more recent times, we were loyal even as the royal consort’s clan ran rampant and held the government hostage for decades. And beyond even that — when the crown prince, who should have held all under heaven in his heart, sank into self-interest and treachery, filling this nation with the stench of faithlessness and dishonor, our armed forces remained loyal to the imperial house.]
[And yet the military, which exists to fulfill the sacred duty of national defense, has at last been reduced to a plaything in a succession struggle between rival factions of the imperial court.]
I had no choice but to sit there in silence.
……He’s not actually wrong about any of that.
Whether I looked at it through the common sense of a citizen of a republic, or through the eyes of someone who’d been victimized by this insane makjang drama — honestly, none of it was false.
[And so, our revolutionary forces, honoring the final testament of the Great Emperor, seek to bring an end to this corrupt and decayed old order. I am not a man who sells revolution to seize power. Until not long ago, I was nothing more than an old soldier who simply wished to see our dynasty — with all its long history — endure forever. But I stand here now to save this nation from the imperial house itself. The state must be renewed. The consort clans must be swept away. The glory that was stolen must be reclaimed. And this nation must once again become a nation of its people. That is the entirety of this revolution.
I ask only that the people understand the loyalty that moves a soldier’s heart.
Long live the revolution!
Long live the Republic of Korea!]
Click.
Seo Yu-jin snapped the broadcast off with a sharp, rough gesture.
“A difficult adversary has made himself known.”
“Do you know him?”
“Field Marshal Song Hak-su. The Tiger of Manchuria.”
Seo Yu-jin said it with a sardonic bite.
“I assumed he’d gone to the National Cemetery long ago. It seems he’s still breathing.”
I stared blankly at the ceiling of the seat for a moment.
The part about the crown prince being faithless and dishonorable — that I could agree with.
Even accounting for how pathetic his father must have looked to him, what kind of person tells their own Emperor to his face: “Do your job as a ruler properly!” That was around episode eleven, if I recalled.
I’d only caught it through clips tagged #SatisfyingMoment making the rounds online, but still.
That said — being faithless and dishonorable in the 21st century is not the same thing as deserving to die.
“——Wouldn’t you agree, Secretary Seo?”
“Whatever justification they attach to it, they are nothing more than rebels. Do you truly believe there were no innocent lives in Deoksugung?”
Fair enough.
I nodded and turned to the front.
“Kwak Ji-hun. What do you think?”
“The descendants of Admiral Yi Sun-sin do not commit treason.”
“Good.”
With those few words, I shook the old Marshal’s speech out of my head entirely.
“Then let’s go shatter that rotten fantasy of his.”
*
*
The Ilsan Bridge was drawing closer.
“We’ll take the vanguard and scout the approach to Ilsan Bridge.”
Marine Captain Kwak Ji-hun.
They hadn’t served together all that long, but the military life he’d grown accustomed to was one endless hamster wheel — yesterday the same as today, today the same as tomorrow.
But surely no soldier in the entire armed forces was having a day quite as eventful as his.
Anyone who felt excited to have broken out of that tedium would have to be out of their mind.
Captain Kwak Ji-hun, who prided himself on being an entirely reasonable and well-adjusted person, had been wound tight with tension at the start of all this — that much was only natural.
And yet, time heals all things, as they say.
When he’d climbed into the armored vehicle and moved out, his palms had been soaked through.
Now, he was able to read the situation with considerably more clarity and composure.
His throat, however, remained bone dry.
“Just a sip. Just one sip.”
He unscrewed the cap and let a trickle of liquid slide down his throat.
“Ah…… hah.“
The sensation burning its way down his esophagus was excessively hot for what it should have been — but he put it down to the adrenaline surging through him in a national emergency.
Kwak Ji-hun licked his lips and tilted the canteen again.
With each small sip he drained from it, the fear somehow evaporated, and in its place, from somewhere deep in his chest, welled up an inexplicable swell of something — emotion he couldn’t quite name.
So this is what it feels like.
Escorting His Majesty’s person.
In the flesh.
How many soldiers in this nation had dreamed of that?
……He had never, in his wildest imaginings, pictured it coming true like this.
Oh, to hell with it.
What was the point of overthinking it?
Forget it — he’d just have one more sip of this strangely sweet canteen water——
Sweet……?
As the tension unwound and sensation returned to his tongue, Kwak Ji-hun tilted his head.
And the strangeness wasn’t only on his tongue.
The liquid going down his throat had been unusually hot.
A burning heat slid down his esophagus and dropped heavily into his stomach.
That smell.
That taste.
……This is alcohol.
In that instant, Kwak Ji-hun’s eyes shook like a building in an earthquake.
Sure, he’d been known to fill his canteen with liquor when pulling night duty — and yes, earlier when they’d been opening that bottle of whisky, he had quietly poured some in to save for later — but surely he hadn’t actually brought that with him into this situation?
But reality is what it is.
Drinking.
In a wartime situation.
He was completely out of his mind.
……That thought, however, came slightly after the first one:
Oh…… I make mistakes when I drink.
But it was far too late to undo.
Thinking it was plain water, he’d been sipping at 40-proof whisky whenever he tried to calm his nerves.
The alcohol began hammering through his bloodstream straight into his brain.
Kwak Ji-hun’s particular brand of drunkenness, however, was this: the more intoxicated he became, the more composed he appeared on the outside.
The hammering of his heartbeat, which had been in chaos, settled with eerie calm.
The clammy sweat on his palms dried up entirely.
Fear.
Tension.
Confusion.
Every last bit of it dissolved white in the powerful solvent of alcohol.
In their place: an abnormal, crystalline coldness.
And decisiveness.
“Company commander, sir! Three kilometers ahead — the southern end of Ilsan Bridge!”
“Report status.”
Kwak Ji-hun’s carefully steadied voice didn’t tremble by a fraction.
Uncharacteristically for a man who normally talked with a loose, easy drawl, his diction was now sharp and precise enough to put a news anchor to shame.
“The bridge’s southern approach is completely locked down! Forces packed in solid!”
“Rebel or loyalist?”
“Unable to confirm! Two separate units are facing off at the front!”
“The bridge approach is completely controlled. Anti-tank weapons identified!”
The subordinate finished his report and shot a quick glance at Kwak Ji-hun’s face.
Even in the dim interior of the armored vehicle, Kwak Ji-hun’s face was visibly, explosively flushed red. Thick veins stood out all the way up his neck.
The company commander…… must be burning with righteous fury over the unjust death of the late Emperor, Your Majesty. His blood is boiling.
No one present had any idea it was simply the effort of suppressing 40-proof whisky.
Beep.
The command net radio crackled.
It was Yi Jin’s vehicle, waiting at the rear of the column.
[Kwak. Why have we stopped. What’s happening up there.]
Yi Jin’s voice.
Urgency threading through it.
Kwak Ji-hun picked up the mic.
“Multiple Army units are in standoff at both approaches to Ilsan Bridge ahead.”
[Standoff? Who are the rebels?]
Kwak Ji-hun’s mind raced.
The southern end of Ilsan Bridge fell under the 17th Army Division.
The northern end, the 60th Division.
And honestly, there was a strong chance that neither side had any clearer idea than the other about who was rebel and who was loyalist.
Which meant……
[We’re stuck here?]
Stuck.
That word hit Kwak Ji-hun’s Marine soul with the force of a physical blow.
Marines don’t stop.
The alcohol had reached its peak.
Into Kwak Ji-hun’s mind came a thought that was perfectly logical and perfectly insane in equal measure.
“Negative. We’ll prioritize breaking through the 60th Division blocking the crossing from the opposite direction.”
Kwak Ji-hun opened the radio net so every unit — and Yi Jin’s vehicle at the rear — could hear him.
“All vehicles, listen up.”
Inside the armored vehicles, and in the hands of every soldier holding a radio, breathing stopped.
“Whether the forces ahead are rebel or loyalist — it doesn’t matter.”
And Kwak Ji-hun proclaimed, with gravity:
“We are the Geunhwang-gun. The Loyalist Army.”
Geunhwang-gun. The army that rises to rescue the Emperor.
Those weighty words cut clean through the radio and buried themselves in the chest of every Marine listening.
[……Kwak.]
Yi Jin called out, sounding startled and thrown off — but Kwak Ji-hun did not stop.
“We are the only unit in this country that is directly escorting His Majesty the Emperor. That makes us the sole shield of the imperial house. The only legitimate armed force of the crown.”
And therefore the Loyalist Army does not retreat.
[……Captain Kwak. This is Seo Yu-jin. Are you planning to find a way around?]
“Army boys can’t cross a river without a bridge. We’re Marines.”
Yes. This is it.
Kwak Ji-hun spoke into the radio.
“All forces, listen.”
The more the alcohol rose, the more completely the fear of battle evaporated — and what remained in its place was the particular, inexplicable Marine Corps spirit that defies all rational description.
“Come about! We’re going into the river!”
[HUA!]
The moment his words ended, a bone-chilling roar tore through the radio speaker, loud enough to blow it out.
[HUA! 1st Platoon, amphibious crossing ready!]
[2nd Platoon! Close hatches!]
ROOAAARRR——!!
The massive amphibious assault vehicles let out a thunderous roar in unison and pivoted on their tracks.
The armored vehicles peeled off the road, kicking up clouds of dirt as they tore across the rough riverbank, and began charging straight toward the black churning waters of the Han River.
The men moved with seamless discipline, as if they had been waiting for exactly this order.
“Vehicle commanders, prepare for river crossing!”
“Marine propulsion units and bilge pumps, confirm!”
“All hatches sealed, confirm!”
In the midst of this absolutely unhinged atmosphere, Kwak Ji-hun’s expression remained as solemn as a school principal delivering a moral lesson.
“I take point. Everyone stay on me.”
KWOOOOOOOM—!
The instant Kwak Ji-hun’s lead vehicle crested the steep riverbank—
A massive plume of white water erupted as the armored vehicle plunged without hesitation into the black river below.
And the vehicles behind it followed, one by one, slamming their heavy hulls into the Han River at full speed.
“Twelve o’clock ahead — Ilsan riverbank. Straight on, no deviation.”
After Kwak Ji-hun’s words:
“One minute to landing on north bank!”
“Immediately upon landing, spread armored formation wide!”
Inside the violently pitching armored vehicle, Kwak Ji-hun stared forward with wide-open eyes.
Whether it was the whisky, or whether the blood of a warrior was genuinely boiling in his veins — he couldn’t say for certain.
Only one thing was clear.
When this insane day finally ended, his fate would be sealed.
Either a corpse shot dead by rebel bullets.
Or the meritorious first hero who put down the insurrection.
“Let’s go.”
The lead vehicle’s hull touched the Ilsan bank — and in the same breath, Kwak Ji-hun said it.
And every Marine packed inside those armored vehicles let out a war cry in unison as they surged forward.
“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!”