A couple of hours later Seungwan had left Silsa with just five hundred cavalrymen, intending only to scout the situation at Bonui and return speedily. Beyond the environs of Silsa the ruined country began; everywhere were traces of the black hand of Yifan. The grain had just been planted, but fields of them were burned or flattened, trodden into the earth. Seungwan had seen before rich neighbourhoods destroyed by Datar raids, but the scenes of mad destruction before her were like no other, as if a hurricane had passed over them. Forests were burned as well as grain; if fire had not devoured them the leaves and bark were swept from the trunks with tongues of flame; scorched, smoked, blackened, until they were like burnt skeletons. From Gagok to Juksan, Sudu, Yujeom, there remained no villages or houses, but only blackened ruins. The men had all run off the Minseok, buoying the women and children up to the rebels as captives while taking those of others as their own. Crows, vultures, and wolves now inhabited the villages, while the people hid in the woods. 

Seungwan urged her men on to Bonui without drawing breath. But when they finally neared the village, she seized her head, crying sadly, “Oh, Bonui! I see that we are too late!” 

Fleeing peasants were stopped by her men, and they related in some accounts that the village had already been taken, not by Yifan, but by three thousand men belonging to Hwang Hyunjin, and that it was him who had committed such inhuman devastations on the road. The rebels on capturing the town had killed all of the nobles and taken the women to their camp where a fate worse than death awaited them. But the great Bonui Temple complex, built during Yeonbul’s reign for the Ashul sect, held out yet under the leadership of a Lee Joohyun. But many of the monks had been killed, and Joohyun was at the limit of her strength as she had run out of powder, and was not about to survive the night. 

“Bonui is lost,” said Seungmin. “We shall arrive too late. We should rather defend other places and provide them with garrisons.”

But Seungwan would not hear it, for the name of Joohyun had roused in her the determination to rescue the person who had helped defend Sooyoung’s honour, and who was also a kindred spirit in this time of great upheaval. 

“Since we have come so far, we will not leave without blood!” said Seungwan, and they went on. 

About two kilometers from Bonui a dense cloud of smoke from the fire could be seen. The day was coming to an end. A few riders approached Seungwan’s force, and when she recognised them, she knew what had already happened. 

“The temple has been taken!” 

“It has!” answered Joohyun, whose eyes flashed with recognition, but then at that moment also fainted into Seungwan’s arms, for she had been shot through, slashed with sabers, and had lost much blood. But her companions — young Yongjae, Namjoon of Jiaozhi birth, one-eared Ryujin, and of course the silent Seoyeon — began to tell what had transpired. The warriors of the temple were cut down to the last man, preferring to die rather than yield, and the monks were all killed by the mob for refusing to join them. Joohyun had forced her way through the mob and the broken gates, while in the temple a few groups of nobles were defending themselves in the rooms. 

The cavalry swept on with speed while Joohyun’s companions were instructed to go on to Silsa and come under the protection of Jinki. Now the town was in sight, and a dense mass of the rabble were issuing from the burning houses, all the more confidently, for perhaps they had been blinded by alcohol, or the capture of the temple had emboldened them, or they were simply unaware that it was not any noble host coming to punish them, but the Prince of Mount Geum herself. Thus they descended the hill boldly, and only at the plain before the town they formed up for battle with great readiness. Seeing this a shout of joy erupted from Seungwan’s riders, and at once formed into battle order, the heavy cavalry in the center and the light horse on the wings. Seungwan flew between the regiments, lance in hand, examined them and gave final orders. The fire of the town and the evening twilight reflected off her armour, and she alone glistened between the dark ranks. 

“Kill them so that they feel they are dying!”

Seungmin himself waved his lance, and his men bent in their saddles and went on. To spare them he did not advance first at high speed, but led them slowly, quickening as they approached the enemy. The mob on foot hurried towards him with scythes and spears, in order to restrain the impetus of the cavalry charge and lessen its impact for the rebel soldiers. When they were separated by only a few tens of meters, the mob saw the noble banner of Seungmin, and began to cry out: 

“Oh great noble, the harvest is near; why don’t you order out your peasants? Our respects, great lord! We shall parade your head on a spike!”

A shower of bullets rained on the cavalry, but inflicted no harm, for the horses were now running like devils and struck mightily. The mob’s weapons clattered off their armour, and after that came cries and groans. Like a meadow is cleared by mowers, who hew through the grass easily with the swings of their scythes, so was the mob cleaved, battered, and trampled by the rushing mass of horses. Unable to stand their ground, they began to waver. “Save yourselves!” they screeched, throwing down their weapons, and tried to rush back to the rebel soldiers behind. But the soldiers, fearing that the flight of the mob would disorder their ranks, bristled their lances at them; the mob then rushed in despair to the sides, but were immediately turned back by the light horse under Junmyeon and Jongdae. 

Seungmin, now riding over the bodies of the mob, came to the front of the rebels and rushed towards them. They too, wishing to answer momentum with momentum, rushed at him with their lances. They struck each other like opposing waves; horses rose before horses, their riders like the waves, their swords above them like the sea foam. Seungmin realised that he was not working with a mob now, but trained and professional soldiers formerly with the royal army, and the two lines pressed on each other without mercy, neither able to break the other. Bodies fell thickly. His lance broken, Seungmin now took his sword to work with the sweat of his brow, puffing like a blacksmith’s bellow. 

But on the rebel side came Hyunjin now, who was the more terrible for he possessed a fearsome glaive that weighed forty kilograms, and was so massive and thick that it was more of a hunk of raw iron fit for bludgeoning and crushing than a blade for slicing and slashing. So fell the brothers Yunho and Yunwoo, laying in their gilded armour in the dust under hooves, but Hyunjin rushed on to farther ranks. In an instant he killed Lee Chanyoung, who was only sixteen, by crushing him through his shoulder right down to his waist. His master, the banneress Son Chaeyoung, wished to avenge her servant and shot Hyunjin with a pistol, but the bullet missed his face and merely tore away part of his cheek, which only infuriated him further. Covered in his own blood, with wild eyes and distended nostrils, Hyunjin raged like a tempest and cut Chaeyoung from her horse by swinging his weapon into her stomach. Others drew back in fear, especially as behind Hyunjin gleamed a hundred more sabers and lances, all bathed in blood. 

The furious colonel finally saw Seungmin, and gi