Book 19 Chapter 4
Reconsideration (復碁)
—Startling the Snake by Beating the Grass (打草驚蛇)
“Will it be alright?”
Majinga asked in a cautious tone. His words still lacked conviction. In truth, it wasn’t his words that lacked conviction, but his heart. He wanted his trusted and capable advisor to instill confidence in his wavering heart.
“Are you worried, Commander? Because I’m being too honest?”
Eunmok Son Myeonggyeong smiled, his thin eyes, which seemed to appear and disappear, tracing a gentle curve.
“Honest? Who are you talking about?”
Majinga continued, feigning exaggeratedly to look around.
“Well, if I’ve laid bare everything in my heart, I suppose you could call it honest. I couldn’t be any more honest if I cut open my belly and showed you what’s inside.”
“Honesty is a good thing. It carries power, just like truth.”
He knew well that this power was the greatest driving force behind moving people’s hearts.
“Besides, since I held nothing back, there’s no moral issue, is there? It’s beneficial in many ways.”
However, even as he said this, Majinga did not place his full trust in Son Myeonggyeong’s morality. A military strategist’s job was to deceive the enemy, so a little immoral act related to it did not violate professional ethics. It was even encouraged.
He asserted with conviction that, as many scholars had pointed out, honesty could sometimes be more savage and cruel than lies, and this was true.
In this particular case, if Majinga’s honesty was a result of Son Myeonggyeong’s strategy, a very paradoxical situation arose: Majinga’s honesty became dishonesty for Son Myeonggyeong—used as a means to deceive whoever the opponent was.
“But was there really a need to make such a grand gesture? I did as you instructed, but……”
Majinga worried that he had said too much in front of Machaenggak’s eyes and ears.
Furthermore, those eyes and ears might also serve as eyes and ears for others. For those beings, called ‘feathers,’ who had been tormenting them for a hundred years.
The mere thought was unpleasant.
“If you were suspicious, wouldn’t it have been better to quietly investigate and gather evidence?”
Important matters, like the one just discussed, should have been handled in a private, quiet, and discreet conference room, with great care taken to ensure no one overheard. He still seemed unsure if it was a good method to have excitedly chattered on in front of someone who represented Machaenggak, whose sincerity was now highly questionable. It was an undertaking that involved taking too many risks.
However, the architect of the strategy seemed to have considered all these concerns.
“I know well what you are worried about. You are afraid of committing the error of startling the snake by beating the grass, aren’t you?”
Son Myeonggyeong said with a smile and a subtle tone.
“You saw it correctly.”
If you beat the grass and startle the snake, making it run away, you cannot catch the snake. If it dives back under the water, how can you find it? They couldn't afford to waste years waiting for a faint bite. But Son Myeonggyeong wasn't worried at all.
“You are the complete opposite of me.”
“Opposite?”
“Yes. I, on the other hand, wish they would move a bit more nimbly. So they can be seen from afar.”
Currently, the grassland called Jungwon was too vast, and conversely, the available manpower was insufficient. Searching without any indicators would only lead to exhaustion and collapse.
“Are you saying you provoked them intentionally?”
Son Myeonggyeong smiled once more.
“They have been hiding too well for too long to be startled by the beating of the grass. It’s probably difficult to find them on the ground where the grass grows. They are creatures coiled deep underground. Hundred-year-old vipers. They will never move unless we show them our intention to turn over the earth if necessary.”
“What if they burrow even deeper?”
This was a plausible scenario. And there was no scenario that Son Myeonggyeong hadn’t considered. Therefore, Son Myeonggyeong already had an answer prepared.
“If they become quiet, that’s fine too.”
Son Myeonggyeong said as if he had no worries at all. But Majinga was worried.
“Why is that? If you know something, please tell me too. That’s why I’m paying you a salary, isn’t it? Even if it’s not my money, but the academy’s, you are still my chief of staff and aide.”
He didn’t want to waste time pretending to know what he didn’t know. A chief of staff’s role was to complement one’s shortcomings. Therefore, he had no reason to feel ashamed for having someone do what he couldn’t. The shame should arise when he fails to utilize the staff’s abilities to their fullest, not now when their abilities are being fully demonstrated. What is needed now is not shame, but decisiveness.
Decisions, however, cannot be delegated to a chief of staff. And it is not something that can be entrusted to others. Avoiding a decision is equivalent to abandoning responsibility, which means giving up one’s position as a leader.
He did not want to regret his decisions, so he listened intently to Son Myeonggyeong’s words.
“Not only moving conspicuously is a reaction. Suddenly becoming quiet is also a reaction. To move, one must first be still. Not only movement (動) is motion. Stillness (靜) is also motion. The reverse is also possible. To stop, one must have been moving beforehand. Motion is change. What I want to see is this change. The change in status, the emergence of differences, the state of not being the same as now. The larger the scope of this change, the easier it will be to grasp them. And not all grass is the same. A little while ago, we marked one particular patch of grass.”
*Clap!*
Majinga slapped his knee without realizing it.
“Indeed!”
His intellect did not disappoint him.
“I see! The first disclosure of what we are suspecting was only in the meeting just now. So if that story reappears elsewhere later, it would have leaked through that young man.”
Discrimination is, in essence, a series of operations that occur within human thought.
“Precisely. By marking only one patch of grass, we can pinpoint the channel through which information is leaked.”
“So that’s why you later told the elders to keep quiet.”
After the young envoy left, Son Myeonggyeong asked the elders present to strictly keep silent about what had happened in Daejeon. He didn’t forget to mention that there would be severe consequences for disobeying. This was to prevent them from carelessly wagging their tongues and marking other patches of grass in all directions without permission.
“Do you think Machaenggak is their base?”
The shock that this would bring was terrible to even imagine, yet he could not stop imagining. The leader’s role was to strive for the best while always preparing for the worst-case scenario. He could not shirk his duty due to personal preferences. In fact, the more unpleasant the imagination, the more attention he had to pay to that place. For that is where the real danger lies.
“It’s too early to say definitively. However, it is evident that their influence has infiltrated to a considerable extent.”
If not, an incident like this could never have occurred.
“They are like foxes who have hidden for a hundred years without being discovered. They are adept at hide-and-seek. Unless we shake them up significantly, they will not come out from their rocky crevices. To lure them out of their dens, we must set them on fire.”
“I hope those foxes, startled by the smoke, will jump out of their dens.”
Then, and only then, could they begin hunting the foxes.
“It will surely happen.”
Son Myeonggyeong replied, his two rows of eyes unmoving, his lips smiling.
“Hong, are you there?”
“I am here, Commander!”
A voice transmission came from the ceiling.
“Please.”
“Hmm, but what is it?”
“……”
“……”
“That thing, that thing.”
“Ah, that thing? Understood!”
“They say a capable subordinate is telepathic, so do I have to say it all?”
“What’s the point of having a mouth if not for this?”
“Aren’t ‘that thing’ and ‘this’ fifty steps and a hundred steps apart?”
However, Majinga could not hear his answer. Hong had already vanished.