Six Flying Dragons: Episode 20

by HeadsNo2

IT’S SO GOOD. It’s just so good. If this keeps up I’m going to have to find more inventive superlatives to keep from sounding like a broken record up here, but to say anything but the fact that this episode is a masterpiece in and of itself would be false. Saying it’s the best episode yet would get us a little bit closer, or alternatively, that we’re still firing on all cylinders twenty episodes in. I’d add that it doesn’t show any signs of slowing either, but since I don’t want the drama gods to smite me, I won’t.

SONG OF THE DAY

F.T. Island – “Pray” [ Download ]

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EPISODE 20 RECAP

By intercutting between Team Joseon and Lee Seong-gye, we find their viewpoints on the potential expedition into Liaodong to be the same—not only is it a foolhardy endeavor for all the obvious reasons, but if they don’t wait until harvest season, they won’t be able to adequately feed their troops.

General Choi dismisses these worries, claiming that their army will be able to find food when they conquer the region. He refuses to understand that they’ll be the ones at a disadvantage fighting away from home, which is all the more reason to make sure the army is at least properly supplied in Lee Seong-gye’s educated opinion.

Regardless of his protests, the king orders Lee Seong-gye to obey his wish and conquer Liaodong. But Lee Seong-gye, despite his deep respect for the king, takes a knee before him to say that his will can’t be done. “Above all, it does not stand to reason that a smaller nation should strike a greater one,” he adds, much to General Choi’s fury.

It’s like Jung Do-jeon has a direct line to their conversation, since he knows exactly what words are being exchanged just like he knows how this will all end for Lee Seong-gye—and the short answer is: not very well. Even if he were to win (slim the chances may be), he’ll be lucky to lose only half his forces. At that point, he’d have to stay in Liaodong and fight to keep the territory, which would be a never-ending campaign.

But Jung Do-jeon doesn’t think that General Choi is doing all this just to ruin Lee Seong-gye, but because he legitimately believes that Goryeo has a fighting chance. And that’s what will make compromising with him impossible.

Lee Seong-gye’s anti-expedition rhetoric reaches such heights that the king pulls a sword on him, and is only stopped from striking by General Choi. Lee Seong-gye doesn’t give in, proclaiming that while he’d fight to the death to defend their territory from Ming, it’s another matter entirely to conquer another territory.

General Choi tries the pep talk route instead, by reminding Lee Seong-gye that he’s never been defeated. That, the great general claims, isn’t true—an expedition he led into Liaodong in 1370 was technically marked as a victory, but because they had to retreat due to dwindling provisions, they lost thousands of men to starvation compared to the few dozen lost in the actual battle.

“We need to make sacrifices for the greater cause,” General Choi replies to that sentiment, which takes even Lee Seong-gye aback. Now he realizes that General Choi doesn’t care about the people or the individuals in the army, since the ends will always justify the means for someone like him.

While his father worries about whether this will bring in an era of misery for the people and Jung Do-jeon worries that this expedition might herald the end of his dream to build a new nation, Bang-won thinks that this might be the beginning of the revolution.

After General Choi’s announcement of the king’s order to conquer Liaodong goes about as well as you’d expect in the unsuspecting dodang, the separate factions split off to voice their outrage. But Lee Seong-gye seems to have given up on resisting, and has now resigned himself to following orders like a proper soldier.

Jung Do-jeon and Bang-ji spend some time together while fishing, with the main topic of the day being the great Chinese military strategist Jiang Ziya. It’s been obvious to Bang-ji that Jung Do-jeon is trying to mimic the first man in history to overthrow a dynasty, specifically the Shang dynasty.

But until he was called upon at the ripe age of seventy-two to do a task he’d wanted to do since he was much younger, he’d spent his time fishing with a straight hook or no hook at all, using the reasoning that the fish would come to him if they wanted to be caught.

Only when he admits aloud that Jiang Ziya probably caught zero fish using that method does a thought occur to Jung Do-jeon, and he calls for a Team Joseon meeting. When Bang-won and Boon-yi get the call, it’s kind of funny to see her struggle to use formal speech with him when they’re in front of others.

It might’ve taken a five day sojourn to fish with a straight hook for Jung Do-jeon to come to a realization, but at least he has. Bang-won tentatively asks if that means they’ll be moving forward with the plan, and Jung nods, “Yes, it’s a revolution.”

Everyone gets a separate task to mobilize the forces necessary, though the success or failure of their revolution depends entirely on Lee Seong-gye. They won’t move forward without his consent, which is why it’ll be important to convince him.

While Bang-ji gets the very special task of capturing General Choi alive, Bang-won gives Lee Ji-ran and elder Bang-gwa brother the rundown of the plan: arrest General Choi and stop the war. They agree on the basis that Goryeo will be ruined should the expedition go forward, so they’re tasked with gathering their troops to be ready for an attack on the palace.

Lee Seong-gye is having a crisis of conscience over what to do regarding the expedition, but he has only to wish for Jung Do-jeon’s guidance in order to receive it. But his solution rests on one very important question: “Will you become the king of a new nation?” If not, Jung reasons, then his strategy will be dead in the water and they’ll be branded as traitors.

I’m not quite sure what Lee Seong-gye thought would come out of Jung Do-jeon’s mouth once he agreed to the king part, because he goes into rigid shock the moment Jung mentions the word “revolution.” After relaying their plan to capture General Choi, Jung admits that some blood will undoubtedly be shed. But compared to the blood that would be shed if Choi were to continue on with the expedition, it’s nothing.

Jung Do-jeon reminds Lee Seong-gye in a strong voice that he should’ve known that agreeing to be king would come with establishing a new nation in response to the general’s surprise. Lee Seong-gye asks for some time to consider this momentous decision, but he doesn’t have much.

General Choi gets checked by Jung Mong-joo about silencing any ministers who oppose the expedition, with the latter statesman even daring him to even try silencing him—he won’t stop until he stops the war. But the resolute General Choi simply announces that the war has already begun, since he already killed twenty-one Ming delegates.

Sure that word has already reached Ming by now and that there can be no backing down, General Choi leaves nothing up for discussion when it comes to the other ministers. He will be joining General Jo and Lee Seong-gye in Seogyeong, along with fifty thousand conscripted soldiers, to conquer Liaodong.

But at the same time, General Choi has a plan in place to confine the rest of Lee Seong-gye’s family to their home once they leave for Liaodong—it’s his failsafe against Lee Seong-gye, should he have to use it.

Mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters all cry out bitterly as the men in their families are cruelly dragged away for conscription. Lee Seong-gye watches all this in deep thought, even happening upon Grandma as she tearfully begs and pleads for Moo-hyul and her other grandsons to just run away with her. None of them will, out of honor and duty.

With everyone having clear-cut plans for where they’ll station themselves strategically for the long night ahead, Jung Do-jeon reminds them that the whole plan could be called off if Lee Seong-gye doesn’t agree to it. If he does, they’ll see a black horse and proceed. If he doesn’t and they see a white horse, that will be their signal to cease everything.

Now it’s down to the wire, and Jung Do-jeon asks Lee Seong-gye for his decision. It comes as a surprise to the general that everyone’s already in place, but Jung stresses that they won’t act without his agreement, and tells him about the horses. “History will change tonight if you but nod your head,” he adds emphatically.

“What have you decided?” Jung Do-jeon asks. “Will it be the black horse or the white horse? Will you establish a nation or conquer Liaodong?” Looking straight ahead, Lee Seong-gye replies, “My decision is…”

Cut to Bang-won, Moo-hyul, and their contingent of soldiers crouched and waiting for the signal to storm the manor of one of General Choi’s allies. Bang-won hopes that his father made the right choice, as we cut to Jung Do-jeon approaching Shin-jeok at the stables. He picks the horse, but we don’t see which.

Moo-hyul can feel the pounding of hoofbeats through the ground, and everyone looks with eager anticipation toward the oncoming sound. It’s… the white horse. Their feeling of disappointment is palpable as the horse gallops by all the regiments lying in wait.

In voiceover, we hear Lee Seong-gye’s answer explained: “Sambong, when you spoke of the nation you were planning to establish, my heart also started racing. But I thought, how happy would I be if I were to become the leader who protects that nation? That’s right, that is all I am. My family, the people under my care are more important to me than the cause… and the people. I am an ordinary man. Should a king not protect his people first? But I will always choose my family. You would probably tell me that other kings would do the same, but if everyone is like that, what reason would I have to become king? I am sorry, Sambong.”

And so the armies march, with an ever upbeat Moo-hyul promising his weeping grandmother that he’ll take care of his younger brothers. Jung Do-jeon, Boon-yi, and Bang-won are left to watch from the sidelines in stoic silence as thousands of young men are taken off to what will surely be their deaths.

Wielding an ax that doesn’t even look like it could cut butter, General Choi begins a rallying cry of “Manse!” that reverberates through the tens of thousands of troops.

They’ve barely began their journey when Lee Seong-gye starts receiving reports of mass desertion, which only strengthens his resolve to speed up the march toward victory. Though Ji-ran would follow him to hell and beyond, he can’t hide the disappointment on his face when he hears that they’ll continue onwards.

Bang-won grows nervous that their time to influence his father is running out, since his army has already reached Wihwa Island, which is on the Amnok River. He knows his father isn’t capable of betrayal and wants to do the betraying for him (much the same mindset he had when he stamped his father’s seal), but Jung Do-jeon is staunchly opposed: “Even if we were to do everything for him, we cannot make the decision for him!”

Their stalemate is interrupted when Yeon-hee brings news of the Lee family’s confinement under General Choi’s orders. This includes Boon-yi, Lady Kang, and Da-kyung, who are being held in a tiny abode as hostages. Jung Do-jeon knows that General Choi did this so that Lee Seong-gye would keep pushing forward, even though all of nature is working to stop their advance.

Relentless rain pummels the contingent Moo-hyul is in on Wihwa Island, forcing him to jump into the river to save one of his fellow soldiers from drowning as they try to build a weak bridge to allow them across. Moo-hyul rages about the futility of the exercise to Young-kyu, but it’s useless telling him how they can’t advance when everyone knows they can’t, but they’re still being forced to die trying.

General Choi hears all the trouble the army is having trying to cross the river but seemingly doesn’t listen, since all he resolves to do is get a royal command to push the army on. Just take a whip and start cracking, why don’t you.

Young-kyu and Ji-ran give Lee Seong-gye a pretty bleak report of their progress on the river crossing, or lack of it—and it’s all made worse by the shortage of food. General Choi had counted on them finding food once they’d conquered Liaodong, but since they’ve been set back on their timeline by the weather, they won’t have enough to even get them there.

And, just like Lee Seong-gye predicted would happen, disease is already spreading amongst the troops. They’ve already asked to be able to turn back only for the king to tell them no, but Officer Nam enters the tent and kneels before Lee Seong-gye to ask him to turn back regardless of what the royal command dictates.

But Ji-ran tells him the sad truth that Lee Seong-gye’s family has been taken hostage and will be beheaded should they disobey the royal command. Lee Seong-gye adds nothing, his expression strained and helpless.

Similarly, Moo-hyul feels the same desolation in camp when one of his little brothers comes down with whatever it is circulating among the men. He doesn’t care about contracting it himself and tries to tend to him in the pouring rain, only to be pushed away by the soldiers carrying him. Everyone’s on their last nerve.

“What’s happening? How is this a war?” Moo-hyul asks defeatedly. From behind, an equally downtrodden Young-kyu replies, “It is. This is war.” Translation: “This is hell.”

Having sent another request to be allowed to turn back, Lee Seong-gye kneels to receive the king’s response/royal command, which is only that he continue to push forward. Lee Seong-gye shakes with barely suppressed rage, which is when the messenger conveys a personal message from General Choi: “There is no battlefield without difficulty.”

Following that oh-so-helpful bit of advice, Lee Seong-gye goes out into the rain to pass judgment upon all the soldiers caught attempting to run away. Watching him struggle to keep to the official edict to execute any deserters becomes actively painful. Someone make it stop!

When it comes time to behead the deserters for their treachery though, one of his men refuses the order and points his sword at the king’s messenger instead. Lee Seong-gye is reminded of the disguised Goryeo bandits he once rounded up, and the leader who railed against the broken system that made him.

That pirate leader is the one now refusing a direct order, since Lee Seong-gye put him in his army as an act of penance for him. When Lee Seong-gye accuses him of betrayal in the present, he drops his sword and fires back, “You are the one who has betrayed us.”

He points out the fifty thousand troops before him, and the hundred thousand fathers and mothers waiting for them at home. If the war continues, he claims, Lee Seong-gye will be taking all those sons from their parents—is he prepared to handle the tears of blood those hundred thousand parents will shed?

Dropping to his knees, he only asks to be killed, because he won’t kill the deserters. Moo-hyul is the second to drop his sword and kneel before Lee Seong-gye, admitting that while he didn’t know the answer the night it happened, now he realizes that it should’ve been the black horse, not the white horse.

Then, pleadingly, he begs the general to save his brothers by blood before asking him to save his brothers-in-arms. As Moo-hyul kneels there sobbing, the king’s messenger demands that Lee Seong-gye behead them for their impudence.

That’s when Lee Seong-gye flashes back to Jung Do-jeon showing him the Hanja character for country, taking apart its individual pieces to find that the meaning of the character itself is “to protect the land and its people with a shield.” By adding one character, he explained the meaning to be, “Protect the land and the people and become a family. This is what it means to be a nation.”

With the messenger goading him on and all the noise of the falling rain, Lee Seong-gye finds himself faced with a momentous decision. Closing his eyes, he says the names of his wife and sons, remembering that to disobey means to end their lives. And remembering how putting his family first is what caused him to send out the white horse that fateful night.

Only now, he asks of his faraway family, “Forgive me. I must do this.” The messenger draws his sword to behead the men himself, but Lee Seong-gye draws his sword and orders him to be arrested.

A brief flash to the end of what Jung Do-jeon was trying to explain to him with the Hanja characters, which was that if he were to extend his boundary fencing in the people he protects to the borders of their nation, then the nation would become his family. “And that defines a king.”

In the present, he roars, “I, Lee Seong-gye, will not cross Amnok River!”

The First King of Joseon: Taejo, Lee Seong-gye.

 
COMMENTS

On the incredibly unlikely chance that the show somehow failed to get across the importance of this very moment, we’ve now reached what’s known in history as the starting point/turning point/point of no return for the end of Goryeo and the rise of Joseon known as the Wihwado Retreat. Also known as “Turning back the army from Wihwa Island,” but you can see how that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily.

This is the decision that led to the overthrow of an entire dynasty, though this also happens to be one of those cases where the episode really just speaks for itself. I’m kinda out of a job if there’s no need for me to reiterate the gravity of what just happened when the show couldn’t have done a better job if it tried, but it did, and the results were phenomenal. Really, if anyone’s here just for the recaps, you’re missing out—I may be a master wordsmith who can conjure up everything you need to vicariously experience Six Flying Dragons, but my godlike powers of verbiage can’t substitute for the actual fun of watching. In lieu of that, hopefully these recaps can at least serve as a decent enough companion piece to a great show, because this would be an awfully lonely exercise in futility otherwise. (To recap the recap: Watch and read!)

But enough with the all-encompassing praise and onto the more specific praise, which is admittedly a tough task when everything worked so well. Even though individual time with our younger dragons has taken a bit of a backseat recently in favor of the overarching political thorough-line, what little moments we’d get with Bang-won or Boon-yi served to reinforce the characteristics we’ve come to expect from them. Though Moo-hyul hasn’t yet earned the title of dragon, he certainly had his moments to shine this hour, since the horrors of war were reflected best through his own personal lens.

And that’s really the genius of it, since they took a universally beloved character who trotted off to war with a song in his heart and thrust him not into glorious combat, but into the cold, wet, slow-moving and disease-ridden heart of greed. In this case, it was General Choi’s greed for power and recognition, not for him, but for this crazed idea of Goryeo he has so firmly rooted in his mind that there’s no doubt he’d die defending it. This wasn’t the sendoff Moo-hyul was expecting because he didn’t know what to expect, and his admission that he had no thoughts one way or the other was eye-opening, to say the least.

Though we’ve always known Moo-hyul to be a little slow on the uptake, something about his confession was intensely pitiable—because while Bang-won, Bang-ji, and everyone else knew the job they had planned to perform that fateful night and believed in the cause, no one took the time to lay it out so Moo-hyul could understand. Likewise, no one thought he’d have anything worthwhile to contribute even if he did know, since he’s just the lovable oaf who follows orders, which is precisely what left him so ill-equipped to handle a situation where the orders being passed down were so clearly wrong.

It would’ve been all well and good had he just refused to carry out that last order and we would’ve loved him the same, but his revelation about which horse Lee Seong-gye should’ve sent said infinitely more about who he is than simple actions ever could. And while he’ll always be that lovable oaf who stands a head and shoulders above an entire army to us, his heartfelt plea served as a reminder that there’s more at stake in this war of power than territory or titles, and that relentless force without reason will never inspire the kind of loyalty that true understanding can bring about.

 
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