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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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Seeing the absolute, inescapable slaughter unfolding before their eyes, realizing that their martial pride was entirely useless against this industrialized meat grinder, the psychological breaking point of the horde was finally reached. Some of the broken, terrified nomadic warriors chose to drop their weapons. The curved sabers and bone handled daggers clattered uselessly against the frozen, blood slicked earth.
They collapsed to their knees in the bloody slush, raising their empty hands to the gray sky, weeping uncontrollably as they surrendered. They pressed their soot stained foreheads into the mud directly before the marching Han infantry, completely surrendering their lives, their pride, and their heritage to the mercy of the southerners.
But the steppes had bred men of immense, foolish stubbornness. While the pragmatic fell to their knees, some proud, stubborn veterans, the gray bearded elders who remembered the old songs of conquest, and the scarred chieftains who refused to live as slaves, chose to fight fiercely to the bitter death.
They roared their final, defiant war cries, spitting blood and curses at the advancing black iron wall, throwing themselves forward in suicidal, desperate charges. A Xianbei noble, missing half his face from a shrapnel blast, swung a broken heavy mace with all his remaining strength, attempting to crush the helmet of a Han vanguard captain.
He was instantly met by three razor sharp halberds that punched cleanly through his abdomen, his chest, and his throat simultaneously. The proud veterans fell one by one, their bodies chopped to pieces, falling under the heavy halberds and piercing spears of the Han army until the snow was entirely carpeted with their corpses.
However, amidst this terrifying, absolute massacre of the armed men, the imperial soldiers displayed a shocking, profoundly disciplined restraint that spoke volumes of their Emperor's absolute control.
Strictly according to Lie Fan's previous, specific, and merciful orders, the women and young children were to be completely spared from the massacre.
As the heavily armored Han soldiers, completely coated in the gore of the men they had just butchered, advanced through the burning yurts, they did not engage in the chaotic looting, pillaging, or horrific violations that traditionally defined the sack of a city in the ancient world.
When a squad of imperial halberdiers breached a collapsed longhouse and found a group of terrified Wuhuan women huddled in the corner, shielding their crying infants with their own bodies, the soldiers simply lowered their weapons.
With a gruff, mechanical efficiency, the soldiers stepped over the corpses of the nomadic warriors, gently lifting the crying toddlers from the burning wreckage of the yurts. They grabbed the trembling women by the arms, not to harm them, but to physically pull them away from the collapsing, burning timbers.
These non combatants, the innocent blood of the steppes, were safely escorted through the carnage and brought into captivity. They were loaded onto secure, fur lined supply wagons waiting at the rear of the formation, destined to be delivered to the refugee cities where they would be assimilated later into the fabric of the empire, ensuring the survival of their bloodlines under the banner of the Dragon.
Far above the suffocating smoke, the screams of the dying, and the grinding crunch of the infantry advance, Lie Fan was calmly looking at all of this brutal but historic subjugation.
He stood upon a high, specially constructed, elevated wooden command platform that had been rapidly assembled by his engineering corps on a nearby ridge. The platform offered a flawless, omniscient view of the entire sprawling valley.
The freezing northern wind whipped his dark crimson cape around his broad, heavily armored shoulders, but his posture was completely relaxed, his dark eyes observing the systematic eradication of his enemies with the detached, satisfied calculation of a master architect watching his grandest blueprint come to life.
Standing respectfully right beside him on the elevated wooden platform, their own heavy robes rustling in the bitter wind, were the four brilliant pillars of the imperial army he lead, Sima Yi, Xun You, Xu Shu, and Lu Xun.
They watched the final banners of the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Wuhuan, Fuyu, and Yuezhi fall into the burning mud, trampled beneath the boots of the advancing Hengyuan legions. The centuries old threat of the northern horde was officially, permanently extinguished.
Overlooking the burning steppes, taking in the sheer, continent spanning magnitude of his absolute victory, Lie Fan slowly turned his head toward his council. A proud, deeply resonant smile touched his handsome features.
"Look upon the horizon, my brilliant friends," Lie Fan proudly said to them, his smooth, commanding voice effortlessly cutting through the whistling wind.
He gestured with his gauntleted hand toward the sprawling, conquered expanse of the frozen north, an area of the world that had terrified the central plains for thousands of years. "It looks like the vast, untamed steppes have finally become part of the Hengyuan Dynasty fully. The wild grass has been tamed by the iron plow, and the wolves have been broken by the Dragon."
The four brilliant advisors, men whose own legendary intellects had been perfectly harnessed by the Emperor to achieve this very moment, respectfully nodded their heads in deep, profound agreement. They looked at the burning camps, and then looked at the man who had orchestrated the impossible.
One by one, deeply moved by the monumental, world altering scale of the victory they had just witnessed, they each took turns stepping forward, bowing deeply, and giving grand, incredibly sincere compliments to their Emperor.
Sima Yi, the cold, calculating master of logistics and statecraft, was the first to speak. His normally impassive face was alight with genuine, burning awe.
"Your Imperial Majesty," Sima Yi began, his voice trembling slightly with the weight of the history they were writing. "This historic victory, this absolute, flawless eradication of a threat that has haunted our ancestors since the dawn of the first dynasties, was all entirely due to your divine foresight. You saw the weakness in their pride before we even marched. You orchestrated their internal collapse, turning their own massive numbers against them. You wielded the armies of Hengyuan not as blunt instruments, but as a knife, perfectly excising the rot from this continent. Your mastery of power is absolute, and the world is now entirely within your grasp."
Xun You, the calm and meticulous grand tactician, stepped forward next, bowing so deeply his forehead nearly touched the wooden floorboards of the platform.
"It is a triumph of strategy that will be studied for ten thousand years, Your Majesty," Xun You passionately stated, his eyes shining with profound professional and personal respect. "Your brilliant grand strategy outmaneuvered five different warlike nations simultaneously. You manipulated their fear, you dictated the terrain of every engagement, and you unleashed weapons of such terrifying ingenuity that the enemy was defeated in their minds before our infantry even crossed blades with them. You have redefined the very art of war itself."
Xu Shu, the grounded, highly pragmatic advisor who understood the deep, structural roots of the empire, offered his own heartfelt praise, his voice thick with emotion.
"This victory is not just the result of a single battle, my Emperor," Xu Shu said, gesturing broadly to the endless lines of well fed, highly disciplined Han soldiers marching below them. "It is the culmination of your unmatched vision in building Hengyuan from the ground up to reach the glorious, invincible current stage it is now. You built the wagonways that fed these men in the freezing winter. You forged the foundries that cast those devastating cannons. You elevated the common people, turning starving farmers into the most elite, high morale heavy infantry the world has ever seen. You did not just build an army, you forged an engine of civilization."
Finally, the youthful genius Lu Xun stepped forward. His sharp eyes looked out past the burning nomadic camps, envisioning the peaceful, prosperous centuries that would follow this day of immense bloodshed.
"They speak the absolute truth, Your Majesty," Lu Xun declared, his voice ringing with absolute, fiery conviction. "The scholars of the past believed the northern barbarians were a curse sent by the heavens, an unstoppable plague that had to be appeased with tribute and high walls. But you have proven that the heavens bow to the Dragon Throne. Only through your peerless, transcendent leadership could we finally subjugate these barbaric nomadic tribes once and for all."
Lu Xun fell to his knees, pressing his fists to the floor in the ultimate gesture of submission and gratitude, speaking not just as an advisor, but as a citizen of the central plains who have heard of those who had bled to the nomadic raids.
"You have decisively and permanently ended the bloody terrors, the massacres, and the endless, terrifying border raids that have relentlessly plagued the central mainland for many, many centuries," Lu Xun passionately concluded, looking up at his sovereign with total, unquestioning devotion. "Our children in the border will sleep safely. The northern borders will no longer be marked by watchtowers and fear, but by the thriving trade routes of your empire. You have granted the world an eternal peace, bought with the iron of your will."
Lie Fan stood upon the elevated platform, bathed in the pale light of the northern sun and the orange glow of the burning steppes, listening to the sincere, deeply emotional praise of the greatest minds of his era.
He looked out over the conquered world, feeling the absolute, intoxicating weight of his ultimate destiny fulfilled. The fragmented, chaotic era of warlords and barbarians was completely, irrevocably dead in his graps.
The brutal, apocalyptic battle out on the vast open plains continued for a short time after the devastating artillery bombardment had finally ceased, but it did not last long. The fighting, which had begun as a massive, continent spanning clash of civilizations, quickly devolved into isolated, chaotic pockets of desperate violence, and then, inevitably, it completely died down.
The sheer, concussive trauma of the Black Dragon Cannons and the fiery monsoon of the Hwacha rockets had entirely broken the back of the nomadic horde.
Stripped of their warlords, their command tents reduced to smoking craters, and their elaborate, desperate battle plans turned to ash, the remaining steppe warriors faced a horrific reality. There was no glory left to be won on this frozen earth.
High above the suffocating smoke and the grinding, logistical aftermath of the slaughter, Lie Fan stood upon the elevated wooden command platform. He had watched the entire, world altering spectacle unfold from this omniscient vantage point.
After all of that bloody work and the meticulous securing of the area was done, the roaring fires below beginning to burn themselves down to smoldering embers, Lie Fan finally looked away from the burning remnants of the camp.
He turned his broad, heavily armored shoulders to face his council. The cold northern wind whipped his dark crimson cape around him, but his expression was completely calm, his mind already moving past the victory of the sword and onto the heavy burden of the ledger.
He looked at his four brilliant advisors and calmly asked them how many prisoners they had successfully captured in hand.
Xu Shu, the highly pragmatic and grounded advisor who oversaw the intersection of military logistics and civilian administration, respectfully stepped forward. He held a freshly tallied, detailed report that had just been brought up by a breathless runner from the quartermaster's corps.
Bowing deeply, Xu Shu unrolled the silk scroll. "Your Imperial Majesty," he began, his voice steady but carrying the undeniable weight of the staggering figures he was about to recite. "The preliminary tallies from the holding pens and the evacuation wagons have been counted. The estimated numbers show there are roughly around three hundred thousand people captured in total today."
A heavy silence fell over the platform. It was a number that defied ancient comprehension, the population of a massive, sprawling metropolis, captured entirely in a single afternoon of fire and iron.
Xu Shu continued, detailing the specific demographic breakdown of their conquest. "It is vital to note the composition of this number, my Emperor. A staggering seventy percent of this massive total are the non combatants, the women, the elderly, and the young orphaned children we evacuated according to your merciful decree. The remaining thirty percent are the surviving, broken warriors, the men who threw down their weapons and have officially surrendered their arms to the imperial vanguard."
Hearing that massive, unprecedented count, Lie Fan nodded his head thoughtfully. He did not smile. He simply processed the sheer, crushing logistical and sociological reality of what he had just won.
"Three hundred thousand souls," Lie Fan murmured, his smooth, commanding voice carrying a tone of deep philosophical contemplation.
He looked back out over the plains, where the massive herds of captive humanity were currently being organized by his soldiers. He turned back to his council, speaking with the absolute gravity of a supreme statesman.
"It is an incredibly big number of foreigners, my friends. To hold them in chains is simple, but to properly assimilate them into our society... that is a task that will require far more brilliance than any artillery barrage." He stepped toward the heavy mahogany map table that sat in the center of the platform, his gauntleted finger tracing the vast, empty expanses of the northern steppes that now officially belonged to him.
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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