Post by ajk on Mar 17, 2014 1:29:48 GMT -5
The councilors are getting agitated; they want quick action from Lee Seonggye. But Lee has scouted the situation and says it's best to wait the pirates out. They have a strong defensive position so we shouldn't be the ones to attack. Actually the bigger issue with the councilors is that they don't trust Lee. Being only a naturalized Goryean, they think he's up to something. But Choi Yeong strongly defends him and even Lee In Im isn't worried, at least not yet. He's sure that if Lee is plotting something, Lee's wife will tip it off somehow.
It's Yangji! She survived...and she's serving tea to Lee Seonggye's wife? What the heck? We see a flashback of her being captured by the pirates where Jeong Dojeon left her, and later rescued by some fighters led by an older woman--the woman who Mrs. Lee is talking to right now as they share tea. Boy this is a puzzler, at least for now.
Also in flashback we see JD wandering back to the devastated village and getting arrested by Goryean soldiers who assume "He's with them!", meaning the refugees who were stealing from the army's food supply.
In the Goryean army camp, Jeong Mongju discovers JD as one of the refugee prisoners, just before JD is to be executed. JD was oddly resigned to his death and won't even tell the officers who he is. Turns out, he did steal military rations to survive. But he gets the news that his exile has been lifted...and then later wanders out of camp to head back home even as Mongju wanted to introduce him to Lee Seonggye.
Privately, Lee In Im tells Choi Yeong to order Lee Seonggye to attack. He says it's because "Goryeo will go broke at this rate" paying for the army to just sit there. But Choi won't do it; flat-out refuses. So Lee says the government can't send the army any more supplies. Hmmm....can't, or won't?
By now the pirates are standing outside the Goryean army's fortress, taunting them and making rude gestures. Then they bring forward some hostages to execute--but despite being supposedly out of arrow range, some immensely powerful shots from Lee Seonggye's huge bow take out a few of the pirates and send the rest fleeing, leaving the hostages behind. This apparently was too much even for Lee and he finally says, "Let's go to battle." Either this was too much...or maybe their coming out and taunting him suggests that the pirates' own supply situation must be getting desperate.
Now the armies are facing off across a huge flat, open field. Looks like Lee is meeting them on their terms. Wow. He's leaving the main army in Byeon Anyeol's hands and will lead the defense against the rear-guard action that he knows will be coming.
Long story short: a three-day, two-night battle. Massive, ferocious and bloody. Early success for the pirates, but in the end the Goryeans win and Lee Seonggye kills Akibatsu on the battlefield. Fewer than 70 pirates got away alive, and the Goryeans grabbed 6,000 horses! (And as we see briefly, JD had stuck around to watch the fighting from a distance before returning home.) Narration tells us that this battle, the Hwangsan Battle of 1383, turned Lee Seonggye into a national hero. Later Lee's army returns home to a wild, joyous welcome, and the king gives Lee a reward of gold, servants and land. And also, finally, a place in the court. Which Lee In Im's faction doesn't like at all, but they decide to lay low for now and not make an issue of it because public sentiment is so strongly with Lee. At least for now it is.
"If we had waited a little longer, the enemy would have come out." A chance meeting on the street; Lee Seonggye accuses Lee In Im of wasting soldiers lives by withholding supplies and forcing the action. He's really angry. But Lee In Im only warns him, "When you face an enemy on the battleground you have to draw your sword. When you face an enemy in the court, smile."
We learn that Jeong Mongju is going to Ming as an emissary to pay them a tribute of some sort. Relations with them are still tense in the wake of that envoy-killing mess, even though that was a while ago.
JD's wife is about to go wandering in search of her husband. But just then, guess who walks in the front door. Later we see JD teaching little kids in a mountain town somewhere. (Remember, he had to live outside of the capital to get his exile lifted.) Surprisingly he seems to be enjoying it. And the kids seem to like him a lot, mainly because he doesn't take himself or the material he's teaching very seriously. But at home he's been drinking too much lately and his wife is concerned.
Now some of the puzzle from before comes together. JD's wife is getting sewing work from the local temple. Yangji is teaching little kids at the temple school, and the woman who runs the temple school is the one we saw when Yangji was rescued. So the men with her were warrior monks, and that's how Yangji ended up there. Later, the mother of one of JD's students is talking to Yangji about the strange man who teaches her son in his village's school, and the description seems to ring a bell to her.
We see JD getting roughed up and kicked out of a restaurant for being too drunk and apparently not being able to pay the bill. As he struggles to pull himself together out on the village road, look who's standing there in front of him: Yangji.
It's Yangji! She survived...and she's serving tea to Lee Seonggye's wife? What the heck? We see a flashback of her being captured by the pirates where Jeong Dojeon left her, and later rescued by some fighters led by an older woman--the woman who Mrs. Lee is talking to right now as they share tea. Boy this is a puzzler, at least for now.
Also in flashback we see JD wandering back to the devastated village and getting arrested by Goryean soldiers who assume "He's with them!", meaning the refugees who were stealing from the army's food supply.
In the Goryean army camp, Jeong Mongju discovers JD as one of the refugee prisoners, just before JD is to be executed. JD was oddly resigned to his death and won't even tell the officers who he is. Turns out, he did steal military rations to survive. But he gets the news that his exile has been lifted...and then later wanders out of camp to head back home even as Mongju wanted to introduce him to Lee Seonggye.
Privately, Lee In Im tells Choi Yeong to order Lee Seonggye to attack. He says it's because "Goryeo will go broke at this rate" paying for the army to just sit there. But Choi won't do it; flat-out refuses. So Lee says the government can't send the army any more supplies. Hmmm....can't, or won't?
By now the pirates are standing outside the Goryean army's fortress, taunting them and making rude gestures. Then they bring forward some hostages to execute--but despite being supposedly out of arrow range, some immensely powerful shots from Lee Seonggye's huge bow take out a few of the pirates and send the rest fleeing, leaving the hostages behind. This apparently was too much even for Lee and he finally says, "Let's go to battle." Either this was too much...or maybe their coming out and taunting him suggests that the pirates' own supply situation must be getting desperate.
Now the armies are facing off across a huge flat, open field. Looks like Lee is meeting them on their terms. Wow. He's leaving the main army in Byeon Anyeol's hands and will lead the defense against the rear-guard action that he knows will be coming.
Long story short: a three-day, two-night battle. Massive, ferocious and bloody. Early success for the pirates, but in the end the Goryeans win and Lee Seonggye kills Akibatsu on the battlefield. Fewer than 70 pirates got away alive, and the Goryeans grabbed 6,000 horses! (And as we see briefly, JD had stuck around to watch the fighting from a distance before returning home.) Narration tells us that this battle, the Hwangsan Battle of 1383, turned Lee Seonggye into a national hero. Later Lee's army returns home to a wild, joyous welcome, and the king gives Lee a reward of gold, servants and land. And also, finally, a place in the court. Which Lee In Im's faction doesn't like at all, but they decide to lay low for now and not make an issue of it because public sentiment is so strongly with Lee. At least for now it is.
"If we had waited a little longer, the enemy would have come out." A chance meeting on the street; Lee Seonggye accuses Lee In Im of wasting soldiers lives by withholding supplies and forcing the action. He's really angry. But Lee In Im only warns him, "When you face an enemy on the battleground you have to draw your sword. When you face an enemy in the court, smile."
We learn that Jeong Mongju is going to Ming as an emissary to pay them a tribute of some sort. Relations with them are still tense in the wake of that envoy-killing mess, even though that was a while ago.
JD's wife is about to go wandering in search of her husband. But just then, guess who walks in the front door. Later we see JD teaching little kids in a mountain town somewhere. (Remember, he had to live outside of the capital to get his exile lifted.) Surprisingly he seems to be enjoying it. And the kids seem to like him a lot, mainly because he doesn't take himself or the material he's teaching very seriously. But at home he's been drinking too much lately and his wife is concerned.
Now some of the puzzle from before comes together. JD's wife is getting sewing work from the local temple. Yangji is teaching little kids at the temple school, and the woman who runs the temple school is the one we saw when Yangji was rescued. So the men with her were warrior monks, and that's how Yangji ended up there. Later, the mother of one of JD's students is talking to Yangji about the strange man who teaches her son in his village's school, and the description seems to ring a bell to her.
We see JD getting roughed up and kicked out of a restaurant for being too drunk and apparently not being able to pay the bill. As he struggles to pull himself together out on the village road, look who's standing there in front of him: Yangji.
