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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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The discussion of strategy and the meticulous planning of the attack on Chang'an continued with renewed vigor, supplemented by the crucial intelligence Fa Zheng brought regarding the western gate's structural integrity and the morale of the local garrisons.
However, as Sima Yi began outlining a devastating bombardment pattern for the artillery batteries, Lie Fan raised his hand, halting the flow of conversation.
"There is an amendment to this strategy," Lie Fan interjected, his voice taking on a grave, serious tone. He leaned over the table, placing his fingertips on the depiction of the ancient capital.
"I want the cannons to be used, yes. Their psychological impact is undeniable, and they will save the lives of thousands of our infantrymen. However... I do not want massive, catastrophic damage inflicted upon the inner city of Chang'An."
The advisors paused, looking at their Emperor intently.
"Tong Pass was a military installation," Lie Fan explained, his eyes sweeping over his council. "Hongnong was a necessary stepping stone. But Chang'An... Chang'An has a huge, irreplaceable history. It was the cradle of the Western Han. The streets, the palaces, even the very stones of these walls have their own profound history. If we level this city to the ground, we are not liberators or unifiers, we are merely destroyers. We become no better than Dong Zhuo when he tries to burn Luoyang."
Lie Fan stood up straight, crossing his arms. "You may target the outer gates. You may shatter their barricades. You may use the thunder of the cannons to break their morale. Other than that, you could do anything you deem necessary to breach the defenses, as long as you are keeping Chang'An from being damaged too much. I want to inherit a capital, gentlemen, not a graveyard of rubble."
The Emperor's request instantly shifted the entire dynamic of the planning phase. It was a brutal constraint. Utilizing highly destructive, somewhat inaccurate early black powder cannons while simultaneously attempting to perform surgical strikes was incredibly difficult. It meant they couldn't simply rely on overwhelming explosive force to flatten the defenses and march over the ruins.
Sima Yi frowned slightly, his mind instantly running thousands of complex trajectory calculations. Pang Tong scratched his chin, a wry smile forming on his unique face as he considered the angles of elevation required. Fa Zheng looked at the map, visualizing how to funnel the enemy out rather than blasting his way in.
It made the strategy and the execution of the plan of attack significantly harder. But as Lie Fan looked at the men around the table, he saw no defeat in their eyes. With the unparalleled level of intelligence, talent, and cunning they possessed collectively, it wasn't a problem that couldn't be solved. It was merely a complex puzzle, and these men lived for the puzzle.
Meanwhile, miles away from the quiet confidence of Lie Fan's command tent, a very different kind of meeting was taking place inside the high walls of Chang'An.
An emergency military council had been hastily convened in the main hall of the imperial palace. The room, designed to showcase the boundless majesty and unshakeable power of the Han, now felt like a suffocating tomb. The towering wooden pillars cast long, oppressive shadows, and the air was thick with the scent of stale sweat, fear, and medicinal herbs.
At the head of the massive, dark wood table sat Cao Cao. The Emperor of Wei looked like a man who was slowly being hollowed out from the inside.
His face was a sickly, pale grey, his eyes were bloodshot and sunken deep into his skull, and he kept one hand pressed firmly against his temple, attempting to physically hold back the agonizing, pulsing headache that threatened to be his end.
Arrayed down the sides of the table were his legendary brain trust, Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, Jia Kui, Cheng Yu, Tian Feng, and Xu You.
The silence in the hall was deafening, broken only by Guo Jia's ragged breathing.
Cao Cao slowly opened his eyes, looking down the length of the table. When he spoke, his voice was not the booming, charismatic roar that had commanded armies at Guandu. It was a low, raspy, desperate rasp.
"Tell me," Cao Cao whispered, his voice barely carrying to the end of the table. "Tell me there is news. Is there any letter yet being sent from the western garrison commanders? Has there been any sighting... even a rumor... of their ships sailing through the Wei River to reach us here in Chang'An?"
The advisors exchanged heavy, pained glances. No one wanted to be the one to drive the final nail into the coffin.
Finally, Xun Yu slowly shook his head, his face a mask of profound sorrow and administrative defeat. "Nothing, Your Majesty. Not a single raven. Not a single scout report. The river is completely empty."
Cao Cao closed his eyes again, a long, shuddering breath escaping his lips.
"They are not coming," Guo Jia murmured softly, looking gdeeply at the map in front of them. "I feared this. The silence... it was not the silence of a stealthy maneuver. It was the silence of abandonment. The west has cut its ties."
"We are totally isolated," Cheng Yu added, his voice cold and pragmatic, devoid of any comforting illusions.
Cao Cao forced his eyes open, staring blankly at the map of the city spread before him. "Lie Fan... and his entire army... they have arrived. We have see the sea of black banners in front of our capital. From the east, Lie Fan's main host blockades the valley. From the south, Zhang Lu's zealots hold the foothills. And from the west... Fa Zheng has arrived with an army large enough to swallow the horizon."
He slammed his fist weakly against the armrest of his chair. "Three sides! We are boxed in on three sides by a rested, highly motivated enemy that outnumbers us five to one!"
Tian Feng leaned forward, his face grim. "Your Majesty, we must address the reality of our defenses. The 'Hedgehog Plan'..."
"The Hedgehog Plan is a corpse," Cao Cao interrupted bitterly, his voice rising slightly in a spike of desperate anger before his headache forced him to lower it again. "The plan was designed based on the absolute certainty that we would have two hundred thousand fresh troops from the west to garrison the secondary barricades and hold the inner choke points."
He gestured wildly at the map. "Look at it! With the number of soldiers we actually have currently within the walls of Chang'An, battered, exhausted, terrified men who just survived the slaughter at Tong Pass, the Hedgehog Plan couldn't possibly work to its maximum capability!"
Cao Cao leaned over the table, his eyes wide and hollow. "Without the western reinforcements, we do not have enough spears to make the hedgehog bristle. We only have enough men to man forty percent of the required barricades! Forty percent! That means for every street we hold, there is an alleyway left wide open. For every gate we reinforce, there is a section of the wall manned by ghosts!"
The devastating mathematical reality hung in the air, a physical weight pressing down on the shoulders of the greatest strategists in the north.
They were trapped in a massive fortress, vastly outnumbered, surrounded by an enemy wielding weapons of terrifying power, with a defense plan that was fundamentally broken before the first arrow was even fired.
Meanwhile, two more agonizing hours bled away. The tension stretched taut across the plains surrounding Chang'an, thick enough to blunt a blade. By the time the sun began its slow descent from its zenith, perhaps midway through the early afternoon, the air was suffocatingly hot, baking the earth and the armored men standing upon it.
Lie Fan positioned himself at the absolute vanguard of the eastern encampment. He sat tall in Pangu's saddle, his dark armor absorbing the harsh sunlight. Flanking him were some of his most formidable champions, Zhang Liao, Huang Zhong, Dian Wei, and Taishi Ci. Behind them, a seemingly endless ocean of Hengyuan infantry and cavalry stood in grim, disciplined silence, a coiled spring waiting for the release.
But it was not the men who would strike the first blow today.
Arrayed in a massive, terrifying crescent line ahead of the infantry were the engines of Hengyuan's supremacy.
Dozens of heavy trebuchets sat with their throwing arms cranked back to the breaking point. Beside them were rows of Hwachas, their honeycomb barrels loaded with hundreds of iron tipped rocket arrows.
And anchoring the line, positioned with mathematical precision to maximize shock while minimizing structural devastation to the inner city, were the Cannons. Their bronze muzzles gleamed menacingly, aimed dead at the fortified outer gates and the secondary barricades of Chang'an's eastern wall.
High above the front lines, on a towering command platform erected from heavy timber, stood the architects of the assault. Sima Yi stood at the railing, a stiff breeze snapping his dark robes.
Beside him stood Fa Zheng, Meng Da, Pang Tong, and the rest of the brain trust, their eyes fixed on the city. Sima Yi held a series of colored command flags tightly in his hands, his gaze flicking between the artillery batteries below and the signaling drummers positioned at the corners of the platform.
Down on the ground, the artillery crews worked with frantic, well drilled efficiency. Powder charges were rammed down the cannon barrels, massive stone spheres were hoisted into the leather slings of the trebuchets, and the fuses of the Hwachas were primed.
A heavy, unnatural silence fell over the eastern front. Even the warhorses seemed to hold their breath. The only sound was the snapping of the banners and the creak of tension in the trebuchet ropes.
Lie Fan looked up at the command platform, making brief eye contact with Sima Yi. The strategist gave a single, sharp nod. The engines were loaded and primed.
Lie Fan turned his gaze back to the towering, imposing walls of the ancient capital. He felt a fleeting moment of historical reverence, a brief acknowledgment of the centuries of emperors and warlords who had bled for this very stone. But reverence did not win wars.
Lie Fan slowly raised his right hand high into the air, the sunlight catching the polished steel of his gauntlet. He held it there for a heartbeat, letting the anticipation build to a fever pitch.
Then, with a swift, violent motion, he swung his arm forward, pointing directly at the eastern gate of Chang'an.
On the command platform, Sima Yi instantly slashed the red command flag downward.
"FIRE!"
The drummers brought their heavy mallets down upon the massive war drums. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The response was instantaneous and apocalyptic.
The cannons fired first. Tongues of orange flame and thick, billowing clouds of acrid white smoke erupted from the bronze muzzles. A fraction of a second later, the deafening, chest rattling roar of the gunpowder charges physically shook the earth beneath Lie Fan's horse.
Before the sound of the cannons had even faded, the trebuchets released. A chorus of loud, wooden THWACKS echoed across the plains as the massive throwing arms snapped upward, hurling boulders the size of draft horses high into the afternoon sky.
And then came the Hwachas. With a terrifying, high pitched screeching sound that tore at the eardrums, thousands of rocket propelled arrows ignited simultaneously, leaving trails of grey smoke as they arced over the battlefield like a swarm of angry, metallic locusts.
Immediately, the eastern wall of Chang'an was engulfed in a maelstrom of destruction. The cannonballs struck the reinforced outer gates and the lower masonry with sickening, concussive thuds. Splinters of ancient oak the size of javelins exploded outward, and chunks of stone were pulverized into blinding dust.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0