When Yifan went to see the Sage, there was none of the insolent pride which he had shown prior when promising all the bloodshed and the destruction of Jinki. The Sage was accompanied now by a retinue of the chief clergy that had sided with him, most particularly including the abbess of the Wangsan Temple and the venerable monk and writer of theology Lee Yongbok; the latter was, for some time just before the beginning of this war, a fugitive of the religious law for his extreme views. With Minseok was also Woohyun, the sword upon the Headmen at Jeongseon, having slain countless of their number in that single battle alone. Even Yifan was not unafraid of this formidable warrior, for none in the rebellion could match his strength. 

Now he bowed low before the Sage, and greeted him respectfully. The Sage gave Yifan no favour however, and asked directly: 

“Well, where is Lee Jinki’s head? Why is your army still outside of Silsa?” 

Seeking to flatter before giving his excuses, Yifan began, “Most gracious Sage of the True Faith, inheritor of Wonyung, wise and fortunate leader-”

“Speak quickly, Yifan, or don’t speak at all!” 

“Heaven did not give me victory.”

“If so, Heaven has also determined that negotiations with the King should be delayed!” said the Sage angrily. “As long as this war between you and Jinki continues — as long as he still breathes — negotiations will be defeated.”

“He can go nowhere, great Sage. It is here where he will meet his doom.”

“But when will he meet it? Tonight? Tomorrow? A week later? A month?”

To this Yifan had no answer, for the failure of his two great assaults had done much to wound his pride grievously. 

“Speak, traitor!”

“I am no traitor, Sage, but a faithful captain of your legions. I have done nothing thus far but persecute the mission you have entrusted me. Jinki still lives because he is a wizard, and possesses greater power than a mortal man can overcome.”

“You speak of him as if he wields magic.”

“Great Sage!” spoke Yifan in a powerful voice. “You are mightier than all the rulers of this world. You may send forth an arrow from your bow to the moon, or measure the depth of the ocean with your baton. I was prideful when I was ignorant of his power, and I have been punished for my insolence by the passing of the faithful into Heaven, whose number is as innumerable as the stars above. But you, who is great and powerful, to whom the entire Sindeok inclines and fears your every word — to you Jinki alone does not fall on his face; he is not submissive to the sight of you, but would raise his hand against your person and shed the blood of the faithful and insult you — cannot possibly tolerate his existence. For if you do not rub him out, if you do not bend his neck and ride on his back, your power will be in vain and your glory be empty; all across Nanwian they will say that a single dog-believer dishonoured the Sage of the Pure Realm; that he is greater and mightier than you.”

A silence followed. All of the rebel leaders and priestly representatives looked at the face of the Sage, holding their breath. The Sage was in deep contemplation. 

When the Sage did not yet say anything, Heechul spoke first: 

“Miserable excuses, Wu Yifan! The Sage entrusted you a task which you volunteered for! ‘War is my mother and my sister. Jinki slaughters, I will slaughter; he hangs, and I will hang; he burns, and I will burn.’ Those words you spoke with such self-confidence, as if you had the defeat of Jinki in your eye already. Go spend the night in the city! Go and pull the dog-believers from their trenches!”

“Heechul!” cried Minseok, and the commander went silent. 

The Sage rose and said to Yifan, “You have said it. I will bend the neck of Jinki and ride on his back, so that at least it will not be said that a dog-believer has disgraced me.”

For all of his savagery and evil, Yifan was an intelligent man, and he had learned some part of the word-craft of the Sage, which could accomplish in mere sentences what a hundred thousand warriors could not. 

Over the course of the next week the sounds of firing and battle ceased for the most part. The bombardment became more infrequent, and assaults no longer occurred. Replacing them were the sounds of construction, labour, and digging. The Sage did not try to take Silsa in a single day, recognising from the failures of Yifan that the Crown army, fighting from behind a rampart, would not yield as easily to brute force. Thus he sought to employ their old enemy: deprivation. 

The entire city was encircled. Kho-Orlok’s Sibirs guarded the roads and highways to the city, ensuring that no man could pass through the lines to beg for aid from other places. On all sides of the city except for the east high earthen walls were constructed, enveloping every avenue from which the besieged could sally from, and guns were mounted on their redoubts and ravelins. Beyond the circumvallation a contravallation was also built to prevent any relief army from coming to the rescue of the city easily. To protect the prospective approaches, both through the trenches and over ground, mobile wooden walls like that which Yifan had previously employed were erected just beyond the range of the guns of the defenders. Between these were also interspersed many small-caliber firearms. 

All this was done within sight of the camp of Jinki. For lack of powder they did not fire upon the enemy works and disrupt them, and to conserve their strength Jinki held back sorties and raids on the enemy camp. The approaches grew closer to the rampart; the encircling walls grew higher; more and more guns were spotted in the enemy lines. In the day the rebels dug like moles and raised their own ramparts, in the night their whole camp was lit up like day as they prayed fervently to their Sage and readied themselves in spirit and morality for the coming storm. Day by day the uncertainty grew in the hearts of the besieged, and a darkness loomed ever higher over their heads. This was the tactic of the Sage: to array his forces and preparations as extensively as possible for his enemy to see in their entirety, and lose heart from the siegeworks that were like an ocean in their endlessness. He knew that the taking of Silsa was not a matter of a single day, but he could not allow himself to be dragged into a long siege either; this was therefore a delicate balancing of the factors of time, morale, and strength. Enough time had to pass until the defenders became sufficiently weak from fear and deprivation, and only when that Heaven-appointed moment arrived would his forces be able to storm the camp by force and seize the city in one monumental push. 

Much of the action in that week was in the firing of guns at the trenches and occasional skirmishes in groups or singly, but moreso in exchanges of the tongue. In these Namjoon managed to distinguish himself, for there was no match for him in the rebel camp. 

“Hey!” cried the rebels once. “Hey, nobles! Why have you gone quiet? Where are your sorties, your daring raids, your cavalry sallying from the rampart? Is it that womanly discourage has seized you? So much for the Prince of the Mountain; within days we shall be having that handsome woman, and we shall use her like a breeding-sow! She shall be a fine mother to our warriors!”

The Prince’s men frothed at the mouth when they heard that, and they demanded to be let against the issuers of that insult. But Namjoon got them to calm down; he came to a good embankment and cried to the enemy trench: 

“You abominable beasts! Have you lain with sows before to be able to know how to savage the Prince in that way? Now you will also be telling me that you lie with your goats, oxen, and dogs too! Perhaps also fishes, monkeys, and wild deer?”

Enraged, the rebels fired upon the embankment, but Namjoon jumped behind it and covered his head well. After the hail of gunfire ended, Namjoon popped his head out and began shouting again:

“Sit here at Silsa, you clowns, but Lee Taemin is going down the Lu River. By the end of this year all of you shall be able to claim relation to him, for you will find your wives and daughters pregnant in their cottages where he has passed! Next spring there will be many crowds of little Taemins in your homes!”

More bullets rained on the embankment, and Namjoon continued shouting, “You have missed, dog-thieves! I am alone here! Come on, shoot me while you have the chance, for next spring you will be working the mines in Bonghwa, or serving Datar princes on the steppe! You may also be caring for many children, all of whom are not yours, but little lordlings; you may have to ask us then for stipulations and pensions to feed your families!”

This angered the men in the opposing trench so much that they issued impetuously from it, without orders from their officers, and rushed to the embankment to cut the wagging tongue from Namjoon’s big mouth. They were met with crushing defeat, for Namjoon was not alone, and the assailants were in turn slain almost to the last man by the Prince’s men; those taken captive were met with the most gruesome tortures, such that when their bodies were displayed on the face of the rampart, the rebels said their prayers and trembled at the sight of the mutilated bodies, and not a single one made any insult of the Prince of the Mountain again. 

Namjoon’s words were also conveyed to the Sage by the grapevine, and they bode ill for him. Minseok did not hold the insolence of this unknown warrior in his eye, but the threat of Taemin was very real for him, and the insults only served as a reminder that he could not stay long at Silsa; Lee Taemin, the only man capable of putting down this rebellion where it was strongest, could already be marching from Gyeonggu with his tigers of men, and preparing to lunge from his bases to tear Minseok apart. Time was not on the side of Jinki, but neither was it on Minseok’s. 

Finally, on the last day of the month, the assaults began anew. The crowds did not appear in as dense throngs as in Yifa