- The Map, and the Bottleneck
Zhu Yuanzhang lowered his gaze to the map once more.
There was no anger in his eyes, no impatience.
Only calculation.
One of the aides finally spoke.
“Your Majesty… there is a warrior called Park Seongjin.”
Zhu Yuanzhang’s hand paused for a moment.
“I know him.”
“I know him well, that bastard.”
The reply was short.
“They say he reads the battlefield.”
Zhu Yuanzhang nodded.
“That is precisely why we must hurry.”
“Finish the deployment before he finishes reading the terrain.”
He said no more.
Yet everyone inside the tent understood.
This was not a battle of armies.
It was a battle of routes against routes.
Zhu Yuanzhang spoke again, slowly.
“Hukou must be taken first.”
“We cut their retreat and their supply lines.”
“We fight at Poyang Lake.”
The lamp flickered faintly.
Far away, the waters of the Yangtze murmured low.
At the very least, any commander worth the name should assume the enemy was thinking the same way.
That night, Zhu Yuanzhang did not sleep.
He lay awake calculating Jin Yuliang’s lines of retreat.
At the same hour, on a different battlefield,
someone was already reading the grain of the wind
and moving toward Hukou.
*When Park Seongjin left the gorge and arrived at Hukou,
the sun had not yet begun to tilt toward the west.
The sky was high.
The light was sharp.
The river lay calm.
The vast body of Poyang Lake narrowed at the bottleneck called Hukou,
gathering speed as it poured outward.
Water from the wide lake pressed into a narrow throat,
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
paused for a single breath,
then exhaled again into the Yangtze.
It was a place that deserved the name
the bottleneck shaped by heaven.
Seongjin dismounted.
The horse’s breath rose white.
Pebbles rolled softly beneath its hooves.
He did not hurry,
as if he had known this place for a long time.
Slowly, he closed his eyes.
When his eyes shut, the world widened.
He was already accustomed to this sensation.
What reached him first was not the sound of water.
It was the footsteps of soldiers aligning their ranks,
the breathing of commanders,
the tremor of wind tugging at the tips of banners.
No figures were visible yet.
But the knot of preparation for battle
was already pressing toward Hukou from afar.
The direction of weight as soles pressed into the earth,
the faint ring of metal brushing metal,
the heat of human bodies leaking through the gaps in armor—
all of it gathered into a single current.
Seongjin stepped onto a low outcrop.
The stone was warm from the sun.
Below it, the river spun cold, forming twin eddies.
“This is it.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
The current on the left side of Hukou was firm.
Its flow did not break, stretching cleanly toward the northeastern forest.
The grain of the water met the forest’s shadow without disturbance.
“They will wait here.”
He pointed to a gentle slope descending from forest to river,
with a low ridge behind it.
It was inconspicuous,
yet sufficient to conceal men
and ideal for gathering troops.
Force was pooling there.
The wind did not stir at that point.
A lack of movement meant someone had taken position.
The air felt bound, unnaturally quiet in that single spot.
Then Seongjin felt the center of Hukou grow hollow.
The water was smooth,
yet something heavy pressed down at its heart—
like a great stone lying beneath the surface,
splitting the current just slightly.
“The main force will come this way.”
He pointed over the river.
Above the water, the wind drew a straight, invisible line.
When the warships entered, they would follow that line.
And it would interlock perfectly with the ambush.
No ships were visible yet.
But the water was already settling.
The surface tensed and yielded its place—
a sign that something massive was approaching.
“In two shijin, the main fleet reaches Hukou.”
“Hide.”
“We set the ambush.”
There was no wavering in his voice.
The wind shifted.
Mist parted to the right.
At Hukou, the wind always followed terrain and momentum.
Here, the grain rose upward.
“Fortune leans toward Zhu Yuanzhang.”
It was the flow by which heaven lifts someone up.
If this continued, Jin Yuliang’s army would be shaken badly at Hukou.
The terrain favored the enemy,
momentum gathered to him,
and fortune rose above it all.
Before the battlefield even opened,
the possibilities were already arranged.
Seongjin knew this in his body.
A battle is half decided
before blades ever meet.
He drew a deep breath.
The breath of someone who now knew exactly what had to be done.
“I stand there.”
He indicated the center of the ambush ground.
“Zhu Yuanzhang will emerge from that position.”
Then he added, quietly,
“So I will break that place.”
The wind turned.
The air at Hukou changed.
Mist split, and the center of the flow divided in two.
Seongjin tapped the sheath at his waist lightly.
“This battle is already half finished here.”
He surveyed the entire terrain.
“If one is a living formation of geomancy,
one must also know how to change the road.”
Seongjin turned and began walking toward the forest.
The horse’s ears pricked into the wind.
His hand brushed once along the animal’s neck.
“The board is set.”
“Now I overturn it.”
At that moment, the thunder of hooves approached—
Yao Zhang’s unit riding hard.
Seongjin stepped forward and said,
“That is their rear line.”
Yao Zhang looked toward the Yangtze.
“What is a rear line?”
“That is what we call forward scouts in Goryeo.”
Yao Zhang stared toward the distant horizon
where sky and water met.
He could not see them,
yet he did not feel their absence.
“They will arrive soon?”
“Yes.”
Seongjin traced the terrain on the ground.
“They land here.”
“They intend to cut our retreat and our supplies at once.”
“They wait here, then tighten the noose after full disembarkation.”
Yao Zhang asked again,
“The timing?”
“Two shijin.”
Yao Zhang exhaled once, sharply.
Then he summoned his subcommanders and gave orders.
Invisible.
Silent.
Ready to spring at any moment.
Even the horses’ breathing had to be suppressed.
Behind Hukou lay broad ground,
a mix of plain and low hills.
It was difficult to conceal everything—
which meant preparations had to be denser, quieter, firmer still.
The battlefield was about to open.