Newness of Life
By Anonymous
Below are the fragments of diary entries of a Mongol spy dispatched from Kublai Khan (the grandson of Genghis Khan) to infiltrate the ranks of the Goryeo peasantry as a travelling merchant in the early 1200s.
It details the inner life of a man whose double mindedness has caused his conscience to cry louder and louder to him day and night, pressing him to take one of two stances.
This is a fictional account.
February 5, 1230
Travelled across the Goryeo border today. There are 10 of us travelling with the caravan. One of the Koryo-saram had asked me for rations. I pitied him and offered him some of my half- eaten fruits. Here we are, ten Mongol spies in the midst of a hundred of the Koryo-saram, so far none have suspected our motives.
By the time we reach to Seongyeong, it will be the New Moon. We must press on.
Long live Kublai Khan!
February 21, 1230
Caught Xanadu singing with the Koryo scum around a campfire they made near a river. I severely rebuked him. “Why?”
“May our bonds be not too close with the enemy, lest we fail our mission.”
We recited our oaths together. Oaths we knew since young, to be ever loyal to our great emperor. He did so with tears.
September 1, 1230
We could see the outposts near the “mouth” of Seongyeong, small wooden huts nearing a large and heavily fortified gate. I estimate we would need 3 more days to pass through that gate with my 9 brothers. Our lord would be pleased with our progress.
Long live Kublai Khan!
September 4, 1230
Border guards discerned our province passes to be counterfeit. Xanadu and I charged our horses and we managed to race past the shouting guards. We travelled into the deep words and hid. Nergui, one of ours, with an arrow lodged in his right shoulder found us in a desolate ravine many hours later. The rest I presume have been captured.
September 9, 1230
What do we do? We speak not the tongue of the Koryo and our features betray us. Nergui has fallen ill. Xanadu frequently laments the choice we have made to venture to this land. I am at wit’s end. They will kill us upon sight if we are discovered.
September 10, 1230
A small-build man stumbled upon our makeshift living space in the deep woods. His right arm holding on to firewood, his right hand clutching an axe. His look of shock made me dread. He dropped his items and ran away. Hours passed, he returned with a number of men, ranging from 15 to 20. Nergui, too ill to speak a word, began to whimper at the sight of them. Xanadu then did the impossible, he spoke to them in their tongue. I have forgotten how this brother has spent much time with the enemy to a point that he could speak like them. The men embraced him! They lifted Nergui from his bed and treated him. The men led us to their settlement not far from our refuge.
Perhaps we could make use of this foreign hospitality… to fulfil what we came to this unconquered peninsula for. I was not interested to make friends.
October 23, 1253
Today, I brought my dear wife hongeo-hoe from Jeolla, after my month-long business trip. She told me she loved it! Little Heo Mok and Juseo ran to me and clung to me as I unlatched the house door… I love them. I love my family.
I still remember that fateful day, when Nergui, Xanadu, and I found grace in the hands of the foreigners. What a day! We failed our mission. Our captured brothers were never heard from again. The Mongol empire of course continue to expand regardless of our ineptitude.
December 2, 1253
How do I tell my dear wife and children, and my friends that I am a Mongol … in light of the devastating news that Kublai Khan will send his armies to capture Uiji and fleets of war ships to capture the coasts?
I have learnt the tongue, customs, traditions, and thinking of the Koryo. But where does my loyalty belong to when the local governor calls me to battle? I am at a complete lost.
January 11, 1254
Gwiji, Anju, Gandong have all been captured, pillaged, and razed to the ground. The captured Sino engineers have been utilized to create their new catapults, I have heard.
My son pleaded me to teach him archery today, he reasoned so that he could fight the Mongols if they arrive at Suan, where we lived.
If? There is no ‘if” for the Mongols… no kingdom has stood against them, it is a matter of ‘when’. I kept all these things in my heart. What am I to do?
February 8, 1254
I bid farewell to my family as they gathered with the rest of the villages, to be led by foot soldiers to seek refuge in the far south of the Goryeo peninsula, perhaps in Naju, or farther south. I had no more tears.
In my old rucksack, I found my old scimitar. Curved. Blunt. I tossed it to the closest river I could find.
March 1, 1254
I had a full meal with the brothers behind the barricade we managed to build in the outpost before the entrance of Suan. Xanadu (now Kim Ju-so) and I busied ourselves by sharpening the arrow heads in our inventory. Nergui (Gwangjong-yo) busied himself with feeding the war horses.
Xanadu called me by my old Mongol name several times in the afternoon during my shift at the outpost, I was busy watching the horizon of the enemy invaders. I could not recognize that name… for it has been so long since has called me by that name.
“Khulan! Khulan! Khulan! Khulan!”
People have called me “Wang-so” ever since that Day of Mercy…
And it dawned on me…
That amazing day begot me a new name, it brought about new life unto me — the recipient of grace, one who was and is unworthy of forgiveness, having trespassed others’ homeland with the intent to kill, steal, and destroy.
I thought of all the harshness I endured during training from my youth up in order to be selected as an elite vessel for the use of my old master, Kublai Khan. The torture we had to watch when one of our brothers did nor perform well. The news of foreign nations pillaged and razed numbed my conscience, why cannot the emperor who was already strong and powerful find contentment in his already established kingdom, why did he still necessitated the shedding of blood of millions of peasants? All for his selfish, tyrannical pleasure?
A new name has given me my new life, and hence being indebted, I will stand and fight.
History tells us that the Mongols eventually conquered Goryeo, Kublai Khan in fact tried to also invade Japan but failed. This small fictitious account reminds us that one’s responsibility flows from who one is. A person’s beliefs, actions, responsibilities come from who he is as a whole. There can be no inconsistencies as to which area ought to be compromised. A person who is willing to compromise a little, eventually will compromise in a larger scale in the future. And all such acts of responsibility, flowing from heartfelt conviction will demand high costs.
