If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead and more, be sure to check out my P-Tang12!!!
________________________________
(A/N: Also everyone I have a new novel named "From Couch To The Inquisitor", be sure to check it out and give some power stone)
...
"Do not fear the recoil," Lie Fan instructed, his voice calm and steady as he demonstrated. He smoothly bit a cartridge, primed the pan, and rammed the ball with practiced, modern efficiency. He brought the stock tight to his shoulder, leveled the barrel, and fired, the sharp crack echoing down the line as he blew the head off a target. "It kicks like a mule, but it bites like a dragon. You must master the steps until they are carved into your muscle memory. If you panic and double load your powder, the barrel will burst and take your hands with it."
He spent hours in the mud, adjusting their stances, showing them how to properly aim down the smoothbore sights, and enforcing strict, unforgiving safety protocols.
But Lie Fan did not stop at simply teaching them how to shoot. Utilizing the unique, out of this world knowledge from his past life, vividly recalling the brutal, mechanized combat he had seen in war movies, military history documentaries, and modern news broadcastsz he realized that ancient formations would be absolute suicide in a firearm battle.
He completely shattered their understanding of warfare. He introduced revolutionary new tactics and strategies that the ancient world had never conceived.
"Standing in a rigid block of thousands is how men die!" Lie Fan shouted, drawing diagrams in the dirt with a stick. He aggressively forced the ancient soldiers to adapt to concepts that blew their minds.
He taught them the art of staggered volley fire. He organized them into three rotating ranks. The first rank fired, instantly dropping to one knee to frantically reload, while the second rank stepped forward to unleash their thunder, followed by the third. It created a continuous, unbreakable wall of lead that would psychologically and physically break any charging cavalry.
He introduced the concept of suppressive fire. He taught the blunderbuss units to lay down a blind, deafening barrage of shrapnel toward the enemy lines, not necessarily to kill, but to force the enemy to keep their heads down while the flintlock infantry maneuvered to flank them.
Most radically, he forced them to dig. He introduced the concept of utilizing trenches and cover. Warriors who believed that hiding behind dirt was the ultimate act of cowardice were brutally drilled into digging deep, zig zagging trench lines. Lie Fan showed them how to rest their heavy barrels on the earthen berms, drastically increasing their accuracy while making them nearly impossible to hit with return arrow fire.
However, amidst this massive modern military revolution, Lie Fan absolutely did not forget their roots. He knew that guns took time to reload, and rain could ruin black powder.
He strictly enforced that they must keep up their grueling physical exercises and brutal martial arts training. When their shoulders were bruised from the recoil and their ears rang from the gunfire, they were not allowed to rest. They were immediately ordered to fix their heavy, newly designed iron bayonets to the ends of their muskets.
"The gun is a tool, but you are the weapon!" Lie Fan passionately reminded them, marching through the ranks as they engaged in brutal, hand to hand bayonet drills against woven straw targets. He demanded they practice transitioning from ranged bombardments directly into bloody melee combat. They sparred with heavy Dao swords, practiced brutal close quarters grappling, and drilled charge tactics.
He demanded them to be equally lethal in both eras of warfare. If the enemy somehow managed to survive the wall of lead and close the distance, they would not find panicked gunners, they would find the most terrifying, physically dominant close quarters butchers the Hengyuan Dynasty had ever produced.
While this deafening, muddy military revolution was forging the future back home, thousands of miles away across the treacherous ocean, a completely different kind of tension gripped the pacified war camps of Honshu.
The central plains had been subdued, the eastern coalition annihilated, and the bureaucratic chains of the empire were being securely fastened around the throat of the island. But the war was not over.
Inside the massive, heavily fortified command pavilion situated in the conquered city of Owari, a massive war council was called. The air inside the tent was thick with the smoke of burning braziers and the heavy weight of impending bloodshed.
Zhang Liao stood at the head of the massive, carved wooden tactical map. Gathered around him were the greatest minds of the era: the four peerless strategists, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, Sima Yi, and Jia Kui, and the four veteran admirals of the fleet, Zhou Yu, Gan Ning, Jiang Qin, and Huang Zu.
They were originally gathered to finalize the logistical push into Shikoku, but the agenda had been violently disrupted.
As they were successfully consolidating the recently conquered Eastern and Northeastern Honshu, the swift, far ranging forward naval scouts under Gan Ning's command had returned with astonishing, deeply troubling geographical information.
Gan Ning, smelling of sea salt and dried blood, slammed a hastily drawn, heavily updated nautical map onto the table.
"We sailed past the freezing coasts of Mutsu," Gan Ning growled, his eyes wide with a manic energy. "The island does not end where the natives claimed it did. Across a treacherous, freezing strait to the far north, there is another landmass. It is massive. A sprawling, unexplored island of deep snow and thick ice. The northern natives call it Hokkaido, or Ezo."
The council stared at the map in stunned silence. The scale of the archipelago was larger than any mainland scholar had ever theorized.
"Is it populated?" Sima Yi asked sharply, his predatory instincts instantly evaluating the new territory.
"The scouts saw massive campfires burning in the dense pine forests," Zhou Yu answered, his handsome face set in a grim line. "They saw men clad entirely in heavy furs, hunting massive bears. It is a savage land, completely untouched by the agriculture of the south. But it is vast, and it sits directly above our newly conquered northern borders."
The revelation threw the grand strategy into chaos. Standing around their tactical maps, the greatest military minds of the Hengyuan Dynasty entered into a fierce, highly contentious debate to decide the absolute next course of action.
The council was immediately, violently split.
"We stick to the Emperor's original mandate!" Sima Yi argued coldly, tapping his finger directly onto the island of Shikoku. "Queen Himiko and the Yamatai Kingdom are an active organized political threat. We know they are pulling their forces into the deep mountains, preparing for a guerrilla war. If we leave them alone, they will fester like a disease. We must aggressively attack and completely neutralize Shikoku first. We can quietly send spies to collect information about this mysterious Hokkaido while we crush the shaman queen."
"I agree with Sima Yi," Guo Jia nodded his head while leaning against the table. "Yamatai is the last vestige of political legitimacy for these islanders. As long as Himiko breathes, the conquered peasants of Honshu will hold out hope. We cut off the snake's head. Hokkaido is just a frozen rock filled with savages. They are no threat to our consolidated borders."
But Zhang Liao shook his head, his heavy brow furrowed in deep, tactical concern. "Never leave an unknown enemy at your back. If we commit our massive armies and our fleets to a grueling, drawn out jungle war in Shikoku, our northern flank in Mutsu is exposed."
"The Deputy Grand General is right," Jia Kui interjected, his mind focused entirely on logistics and border security. "We have just conquered a massive territory. Our supply lines stretch from Kyushu all the way to the freezing north. If these Ezo savages in Hokkaido realize our armies are tied up in the south, they could launch massive coastal raids across the strait, pillaging our new iron mines in Mutsu. We should pivot and ruthlessly attack Hokkaido first."
Gan Ning slammed his fist on the table. "The northern waters are treacherous, filled with ice and sudden storms! My ships can navigate it, but landing a massive army there will be a nightmare. Let me take the fleet to Shikoku and burn Himiko's coastal shrines to ash!"
"And what if the Ezo possess a navy?" Huang Zu countered. "What if they are a unified tribal confederation? We cannot leave the northern straits unguarded."
Xi Zhicai rubbed his temples, staring at the vast distances on the map. "If we pivot north to Hokkaido, we secure the absolute northern borders forever. We turn the entire island of Honshu into an impenetrable fortress. We can send Oriole spies into Shikoku to map Himiko's defenses and locate her hidden mountain camps while we pacify the northern ice."
"But doing so gives Himiko weeks, perhaps a couple of months, to heavily fortify her mountains," Zhou Yu pointed out, his tactical mind calculating the attrition rates. "The longer we wait, the more traps she sets, the deeper she hides her supplies. Taking Shikoku later will cost us ten times the blood."
The command tent echoed with the fierce, brilliant arguments of men who held the fate of millions in their hands. Sima Yi and Guo Jia relentlessly pushed for the immediate political decapitation of Yamatai to crush the island's spirit. Zhang Liao, Xi Zhicai, and Jia Kui argued for absolute geographical security, wanting to secure the unknown northern flank of Hokkaido before committing to a messy, prolonged siege in the southern jungles.
The fires in the braziers burned low as the debate raged on into the night. The Hengyuan Dynasty stood at a monumental crossroads. To the south lay a desperate, mystical Queen waiting in the shadows of her mountains. To the north lay a freezing, uncharted wilderness filled with unknown savages. The decision they made in this tent would dictate the flow of blood and iron for the rest of the eastern expansion, and neither path promised an easy victory.
The fierce intellectual debate inside the grand command pavilion continued to rage for another hour, the air growing thick with the smoke of the braziers and the heavy, palpable tension of men trying to shape the destiny of the world. The admirals and strategists passionately weighed the catastrophic risks of a two front war, their voices echoing against the heavy canvas walls.
Zhou Yu, his handsome face illuminated by the flickering light, vehemently argued against dividing the naval fleets. "If we send a vanguard to blockade Hokkaido while simultaneously launching a massive amphibious invasion of Shikoku, we stretch our supply lines across treacherous, unpredictable waters. A single northern typhoon could shatter our blockading fleet, leaving Mutsu entirely exposed to the Ezo savages."
"And if we ignore Shikoku," Jia Kui countered, his pragmatic mind focused on the maps, "we allow Queen Himiko to dig her claws so deeply into the mountains that rooting her out will take years. We will bleed thousands of men into the mud of her jungles while the Ezo quietly build their strength in the north."
The arguments circled, brilliant and terrifying, each scenario carrying the potential for thousands of casualties. The Hengyuan Dynasty had never faced a geographical dilemma of this scale. They were attempting to swallow an entire archipelago whole, and the sheer logistical nightmare of managing freezing northern straits and humid southern jungles simultaneously was beginning to show its cracks.
Before long, however, the cacophony of the debate was completely silenced. Sima Yi, who had been standing quietly at the edge of the map table, listening with his hands tucked into his dark robes, finally stepped forward.
When the officially recognized head of the strategists moved, the room naturally fell quiet. Sima Yi's dark, predatory eyes scanned the faces of his peers, his gaze cold, calculating, and utterly devoid of hesitation.
"We are analyzing this as a problem of geography," Sima Yi began, his voice smooth, soft, and chillingly precise. "But it is not a problem of geography. It is a problem of ideology."
He reached out a long, pale finger and tapped the wooden marker representing the Yamatai Kingdom on Shikoku.
"The Ezo of Hokkaido are savages. They hunt bears and wear furs. They have no grand mythos, no divine right, and no connection to the millions of peasants we have just subjugated in Honshu and Kyushu. A frozen savage cannot inspire a rebellion in the central plains."
He then dragged his finger across the map, tracing the invisible lines of faith that connected the archipelago.
"Queen Himiko, however, is a living goddess to these people. She is the Shaman Queen. As long as she sits on her throne in Shikoku, drawing breath and performing her rites, every single conquered warlord, every disarmed samurai, and every grieving mother in Honshu will look toward the east and harbor a secret, dangerous hope. Yamatai is the spiritual anchor of this entire civilization. If we pivot north and leave her alive, we tell the conquered masses that the Black Dragon is afraid of their goddess."
Sima Yi looked directly at Zhang Liao. "We must absolutely, without question, launch the massive amphibious attack on Shikoku first. We must completely and publicly eliminate the immediate threat of Yamatai. We must drag their living goddess from her mountain and show the world she bleeds mortal blood. Only then will the spirit of Wa truly break."
Guo Jia nodded slowly, a dark smile playing on his lips. "And what of Hokkaido?"
"We do not ignore it," Sima Yi answered flawlessly. "The northern borders facing Hokkaido will be heavily fortified. We leave a seasoned vanguard force entrenched in Mutsu, supported by heavy artillery. Meanwhile, we send the Oriole Agents and Gan Ning's swiftest, most expendable naval scouts to quietly cross the northern straits. They will secretly gather vital geographic information about the frozen north, mapping the coastlines and assessing the Ezo threat. We lock the northern door, and we burn down the southern house."
The brilliant, irrefutable logic of his argument completely silenced the room. It was the perfect synthesis of psychological warfare and military pragmatism.
Zhang Liao, his heavy armor clinking as he shifted his weight, stared at the map for a long, agonizing moment. Then, he looked up and met Sima Yi's gaze.
"The head strategist speaks with the Emperor's wisdom," Zhang Liao declared, his deep voice carrying the absolute weight of imperial authority. He immediately stepped up, firmly placing his gauntleted hand over the island of Shikoku. "I back this strategy. The northern border will be locked down. The absolute entirety of our offensive might will pivot south. We march on Yamatai."
With those words, the final decision was set in stone. The fate of Queen Himiko was sealed.
Two days later, with the decision officially made and the logistical preparations finalized at terrifying speeds, the apocalyptic attack on the island of Shikoku finally began.
The early morning fog that usually blanketed the inland sea was brutally dispersed by the synchronized, deafening blast of thousands of bronze war horns. From the secured ports of southern Honshu and the eastern coasts of Kyushu, the greatest armada the world had ever seen set sail.
It was a massive, eerie scene of industrialized dominance. The mighty Hengyuan navy, consisting of towering, steam powered warships and thousands of flat bottomed transport galleys, moved across the water like a floating continent of black and gold. The army and the navy flawlessly coordinated with each other, perfectly executing the intricate, multi-layered tactical landings that had been meticulously prepared by the four peerless strategists.
As the towering warships approached the misty, jagged shores of Shikoku, their heavy iron cannons were loaded and primed, the gunners standing by with burning matches, fully expecting a desperate, bloody coastal defense. The heavily armored marines in the landing craft gripped their waterproofed flintlocks, their hearts pounding in anticipation of a slaughter on the sand.
However, as the transport boats ground into the beaches and the ramps were lowered, the invasion of the Shikoku coastline was met with absolutely no resistance.
Thousands of Hengyuan soldiers charged out of the surf, their boots hitting the wet sand, their weapons raised, screaming their battle cries... only to be met by the haunting, silent rustle of the wind through empty bamboo groves.
The beaches were completely abandoned. The coastal fishing villages were empty, their hearths cold, their nets left rotting on the racks. There were no barricades, no archers hidden in the tree lines, and no tribal warriors waiting to die for their queen.
Queen Himiko and the entire military might of the Yamatai Kingdom had wisely, terrifyingly retreated deep inland. They had completely surrendered the beaches without spilling a single drop of blood, actively choosing to pull the Hengyuan army away from the devastating support of their naval artillery and into the suffocating, treacherous interior of the island.
"Do not let your guard down!" Zhang Liao roared, riding his massive warhorse onto the beach, his eyes scanning the dense, ominous jungle canopy that loomed just beyond the sand. "She is drawing us in! Secure the perimeter!"
Not allowing the eerie silence to unnerve them, the Hengyuan army operated with cold, mechanical efficiency. They heavily secured the coastlines, establishing massive, fortified beachheads equipped with overlapping fields of repeating crossbows and portable field artillery. They quickly constructed wooden piers to establish their vital supply lines, ensuring that the millions of pounds of grain and black powder needed to sustain the invasion could flow freely from the mainland.
Through the vital, dangerous information gathered by the forward Oriole scouts who dared to venture into the thick jungle, Zhang Liao quickly mapped out the enemy's position. Yamatai had holed up in a massive, sprawling network of treacherous, impossibly dense mountain ranges in the center of the island, heavily fortifying their ancient capital of Makimuku behind deep ravines and towering ancient cedar forests.
With their supply lines secured, the Hengyuan army began their relentless march inland.
Moving like a massive, unstoppable iron python, hundreds of thousands of Hengyuan soldiers systematically maneuvered through the valleys and jungle paths. They chopped down ancient trees to widen the roads for their heavy artillery, their engineers building pontoon bridges over rushing rivers. They moved with a slow, suffocating inevitability, intending to completely encircle the treacherous mountain ranges and slowly crush the Yamatai kingdom to death.
For weeks, the march was a grueling battle against the environment itself. The humidity was oppressive, the insects were relentless, and the dense canopy blocked out the sun. Yet, they saw no enemy. The silence of the Yamatai forces was beginning to wear on the nerves of the veteran soldiers. They were fighting ghosts.
But the ghosts were simply waiting for the perfect terrain. The grand encirclement eventually pushed the Hengyuan vanguard into the jagged, rising foothills of the central mountain range. The path narrowed significantly, forcing the massive columns of armored infantry and their accompanying field artillery to funnel through a series of steep, rocky mountain passes known to the natives as the Serpent's Throat.
______________________________
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