Past Life Story

In the twenty-first year of King Myeongjong, you were born into a yangban military family. Your house had served as frontier officers for generations, and your father was the Military Commander of Hamgyeong Province. When you were born, your father was not in Hanyang. You spent your early years on the frontier. Your first scenery was snow-covered mountains and rough wind. At five you held a bow, at seven a small sword. Your first teacher was your father, your second the mountains. Each dawn you ran along the slopes, training your body. Nor did you neglect study. Force alone was not enough for a martial officer—that was the teaching of your house. At fifteen you passed the local military examination, and at twenty you passed the great military examination. Your first post was a small frontier garrison. There you came to know the true atmosphere of the battlefield. Jurchen incursions were frequent, and you fought several small engagements. Your subordinates trusted you. You always fought at the front. In your twenty-eighth year, the Imjin War broke out. The Japanese landed at Busan, and within a month Hanyang fell. You left your post immediately and became commander of a militia. Your unit was small but solid. You used the mountain terrain for guerrilla warfare. You cut Japanese supply lines and raided by night. Your name became a name of fear among the Japanese. In your thirtieth year, you took a wound in a great battle. A deep sword scar remained on your left arm. You wore it with pride. It was the mark of having defended the people. After recovering, you became commander of a larger force. In a winter of your thirty-second year, you fought your greatest battle. The mission was to cut a major Japanese supply line. You fought three days and nights, and half your men died. But the mission succeeded. The victory of that battle later turned the tide of the war. The king bestowed an appointment upon you, but for your dead men you poured a single cup of wine. "I survived. They departed." That was the burden of your life. In your thirty-fifth year, the war ended. You returned to Hanyang and became a martial officer of the third rank. Yet your heart was not in Hanyang. Each morning you bowed toward the east. For your fallen subordinates and for the people who had perished on the battlefield. In your fortieth year, you took a wife. It was a late marriage. She was the daughter of a martial family who had also lost relatives to the war. The two of you understood each other in silence. You had two sons. In your fiftieth year, you volunteered for the frontier again. The politics of Hanyang did not suit you. You preferred the mountains and the wind, with your subordinates beside you. There you spent another ten years. In a spring of your sixty-second year, you finished your last patrol and returned to camp. That night you slept as always, and you did not wake again. When your subordinates found you, your hand rested on the hilt of your sword. Your final words were that very posture: "The blade does not lie." Your tomb lies on a mountainside on the frontier. Upon the very earth you guarded all your life. Your two sons also became martial officers, and they too defended the frontier as you had. You did not chase glory. You were merely a sword that defended the people. That sword was honest, that sword did not waver, and that sword shone to the very end. That was your life.