General Introduction (Ch’ongsŏ) 43
him alive, he will certainly harm the lives of our soldiers.” Since Agibaldo
wore armor and a helmet that securely covered his neck and face, he had
hardly any spot that was vulnerable to arrows.
T’aejo said to Turan, “I will first take his helmet off by shooting the piece
mounted on top. Then you shoot at his face immediately.” Speaking thus,
T’aejo galloped his horse and accurately shot the piece on the helmet. His
shot broke the helmet strap, and the helmet tilted to the side. The enemy
leader quickly tried to straighten his helmet, but T’aejo immediately shot
another arrow at the piece on top of his helmet and made it fall to the ground.
Taking this opportunity, Turan was able to shoot and kill him.
Their champion dead, the invaders were quite demoralized. T’aejo took
the lead in crushing the enemy forces, who fell and were badly shaken.
Their veteran comrades who had fought in the vanguard were all killed.
The enemy soldiers began to wail, and they sounded like ten thousand oxen
bellowing together. They ran up the mountain, abandoning their horses.
Our army chased after them up the mountain, beating drums and shouting
and yelling. The sound of their cheers and excitement shook the earth, and
the enemies were utterly vanquished.
The mountain streams ran red with enemy blood for a week. Unable to
drink the water immediately, our soldiers put it into containers and let it
settle for hours before finally quenching their thirst.
Victorious, our army took over sixteen hundred horses, and the number
of the enemy weapons was too great to count. At first, the enemy forces
outnumbered us ten to one, but in the end only seventy or so survived and
fled into Mt. Chiri.
T’aejo said, “Almost all the brave enemy fighters were killed. There is no
country under heaven that annihilates its enemies completely.” Speaking
thus, T’aejo no longer pursued the remaining Japanese [who had fled into
the mountains]. Then he laughed and said to the generals around him,
“When you attack your enemies, you should act like that.” His generals
were all impressed and admired him.
Returning to his military camp, he let the military band play music noisily
and the soldiers enjoy themselves with a mask dance. Our soldiers cheered
and presented decapitated enemy heads, which made a mountainous pile.
Some generals pleaded for their lives, bowing their heads to the ground
until they bled because they were afraid of being punished for evading the
fighting at the initial stage of the battle. T’aejo replied, “Your crime and
punishment are up to the government.”