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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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Sima Tong leaned over and picked up the pouch. He opened it, pouring the one hundred and fifty dull copper coins onto the desk. For boys who had grown up watching merchants trade chests of pure silver and gold ingots within their family halls, the meager pile of copper was a stark, undeniable physical manifestation of their new reality. They were at the very bottom of the imperial ladder.
"We survived the first day," Sima Jin rasped, his voice rough from the dust of the archives. He looked at his younger brothers, his stoic facade cracking just enough to show a fierce, unyielding pride. "We did not break."
"It is a psychological conditioning," Sima Tong murmured, his analytical mind recognizing the grand design behind their suffering. He stared at the copper coins. "The Emperor is tearing down the arrogance of our birth. He is forcing us to understand the microscopic, agonizing labor that keeps this empire alive, so that when we eventually advise the Crown Prince, we will never take a single grain of rice or a single foot of paved road for granted."
Sima Min sat up slowly, wiping his eyes. He looked at his blistered feet, and then at the small pile of coins. "It hurts," the youngest brother admitted softly. "But... I delivered the dispatches. The ministers read the papers I carried. I actually helped the empire today."
A quiet, profound sense of accomplishment settled over the small, spartan room. The luxury of the Sima manor was gone, but in its place, the raw, indestructible foundation of true service was being poured.
Unbeknownst to the three brothers, they were not alone in their reflections.
High above the servant quarters, standing on a secluded, shadowed balcony that overlooked the inner courtyards, Lie Fan stood silently in the cool night air.
Beside him stood an Oriole operative, dressed in the dark, non descript garb of a palace guard.
"Report," Lie Fan commanded softly, his dark eyes fixed on the distant, dimly lit window of the Sima brothers' quarters.
"Sima Jin hauled over two tons of archival ledgers today, Your Majesty. He refused water breaks and did not speak to the other clerks," the operative whispered. "Sima Tong cross-referenced the entire Bing Province logistical chain. He found three minor discrepancies that the senior scribes had missed. Sima Min ran a total of twelve miles delivering messages between the ministries. He collapsed once near the eastern gate, but stood back up and completed his route."
Lie Fan listened to the report, a slow, predatory, and deeply satisfied smile touching his lips in the darkness.
"And their communication?" Lie Fan asked.
"Absolute silence, Your Majesty," the operative confirmed. "No letters were drafted. No attempts were made to contact the Minister of War. They have accepted their isolation."
Lie Fan nodded, waving his hand to dismiss the shadow agent.
The Emperor turned back to face the sprawling, magnificent expanse of his capital city. The fires of the northern war were being stoked, the iron tracks were being laid, and the brilliant, dangerous future of the Sima clan was currently sleeping on hard wooden beds, earning copper coins with their sweat and their blood.
The test had only just begun, and the crucible would only grow hotter in the months to come. But as Lie Fan looked out over his unified world, he knew that when the hammer finally finished striking the anvil, he would possess three of the sharpest, most flawlessly loyal blades in human history to place in the hands of his son.
Days passed, blurring into weeks, as the three Sima brothers continued their grueling, unforgiving test under Lie Fan's watchful, omnipresent eyes. The initial shock of their severe demotion had faded, replaced by a numb, grinding reality of endless physical and mental labor.
Sima Jin's hands, once smooth and manicured, were now thick with hard, yellowed calluses from hauling thousands of pounds of rotting bamboo slips and heavy wooden crates out of the subterranean archive vaults.
Sima Tong's eyesight had grown incredibly sharp, his analytical mind weaponized to spot a missing grain of rice in a ledger of a million bushels, his youth overshadowed by the dark circles of sleep deprivation.
And little Sima Min, the thirteen year old dreamer, no longer ran with the frantic, uncoordinated panic of a child. His blistered feet had hardened into tough leather, his stride evening out into the relentless, tireless lope of a veteran courier who knew the sprawling layout of the imperial palace better than the architects who had designed it.
They did not break. They did not send secret letters home. They lived on their meager copper coins, eating the simple, unseasoned rice and boiled vegetables served in the servants' quarters. Lie Fan watched them from the shadows, reading the daily reports provided by his Oriole agents with profound satisfaction.
The arrogance of their aristocratic birth was being systematically burned away, leaving behind a raw, indestructible foundation of absolute dedication to the state. The Sima brothers were transforming from privileged nobles into the very iron gears that kept the Hengyuan Dynasty turning.
But while the Emperor meticulously forged the minds of his future advisors in the quiet shadows of the archives, a massive, earth shaking event was culminating in the sunlit world beyond the palace walls.
The imperial army had finally been fully, flawlessly prepared.
According to the devastating strategic plan that had been meticulously crafted by the high command in the Grand Military Strategy Room, the largest, most technologically advanced, and most heavily armed military force in the history of the world was now coiled and ready to strike.
The outward expedition to the north, pushing far beyond the ancient, static defenses of the Great Wall, was no longer a theoretical concept on a sandbox table. It was a terrifying reality of flesh, steel, and gunpowder.
Hundreds of thousands of veteran soldiers, men who had survived the bloody crucible of the Warlord Era, had been mobilized without a single hitch.
The newly established exoanded wagonways directed north were already proving their apocalyptic worth, hauling thousands of tons of raw iron, heavy crossbow bolts, and the terrifying, black barreled field cannons to the northern staging grounds in a fraction of the time it would have taken traditional horse drawn carts.
The heavy shock cavalry of Liang Province, commanded by Ma Chao, had merged seamlessly with the elite cataphracts of the central plains. The foundries had worked day and night, their fires burning so hot they turned the night sky over Xiapi a dull, bruised purple, churning out standardized armor, razor sharp halberds, and waterproof explosive shells.
The beast of war was fully armed, and it was starving for the blood of the steppes.
To set these world altering events into official, unstoppable motion, Lie Fan decreed that a highly important Imperial Court Meeting would be held.
He was not a tyrant who ruled entirely in secret, he was a sovereign who understood the theatrical necessity of public declaration, the absolute requirement to bind the entire administrative apparatus of the empire to his singular, terrifying will.
On the morning of the assembly, the Grand Imperial Hall of Xiapi was a sea of shifting, nervous silk.
Every single civil and military official of note within the capital had been summoned. They stood in perfectly ordered rows, sorted by rank and department, the vivid colors of their official robes creating a breathtaking tapestry of bureaucratic power.
The air was thick with the scent of burning sandalwood incense and the palpable, heavy tension of impending history. Whispers fluttered through the ranks like disturbed leaves. The massive troop movements to the north were impossible to hide from the populace, and every man in the room knew that the Emperor was about to officially declare a war of unprecedented scale.
At the absolute head of the hall, elevated upon a massive, multi tiered dais of polished black jade, sat the Dragon Throne.
When the heavy bronze doors of the hall were pushed open and the imperial heralds struck their massive gongs, the entire assembly of thousands fell to their knees in perfect, synchronized submission, their foreheads pressed to the cold stone floor.
Lie Fan strode into the hall. He wore his supreme military raiment, a breathtaking combination of dark, flexible scale armor woven seamlessly with the heavy, black and gold embroidered silk of his imperial robes.
The Mian'guan crown rested upon his head, the heavy jade beads clicking softly with his purposeful, predatory stride. He did not look like a man about to ask for his court's permission, he looked like a god of war descending to dictate the fate of mortals.
He ascended the dais and took his seat upon the golden throne, his dark eyes sweeping over the prostrate sea of his government.
"Rise," Lie Fan's voice boomed, echoing off the high, gilded ceilings with effortless, crushing authority.
The officials rose to their feet, keeping their heads respectfully bowed.
Lie Fan did not waste time with flowery, poetic introductions. He leaned forward, resting his powerful hands on the carved armrests of the throne.
"For four hundred years, the Han Dynasty cowered behind the stones of the Great Wall," Lie Fan began, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register that demanded absolute silence. "They allowed the nomadic confederations of the north, the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Wuhuan, and many more, to dictate the safety of our borders. They paid them off with silk, with gold, and with the daughters of our nobility in humiliating treaties of appeasement. They treated the cancer with bandages, and in return, the steppes grew bold, testing our borders, waiting for a moment of weakness to sweep down and turn our farmlands into grazing pastures."
Lie Fan stood up, his presence expanding to fill the entire, cavernous hall.
"The Hengyuan Dynasty does not pay tribute to barbarians, and it does not hide behind stone walls," Lie Fan declared, his voice rising to a terrifying, passionate crescendo. "Today, I officially inform this court of a grand new military campaign. We are not launching a punitive raid. We are not marching to secure a temporary treaty. We are launching a massive, total expedition to the north, far beyond the Great Wall. We will strike the nomadic confederations in their winter pastures. We will burn their camps, scatter their herds, and shatter their capacity to ever wage war against this empire again. We march for absolute, permanent eradication!"
The declaration hit the massive hall like a physical shockwave.
Of course, his trusted Inner Council advisors, Chancellor Jia Xu, Minister of War Sima Yi, Grand Commandant Xun You, Minister of Revenue Mi Zhu, Minister of Personnel Zhuge Liang, and the others, were standing at the very front of the assembly, their faces masks of perfectly serene, unshakeable confidence.
They already knew about this matter entirely beforehand. They had been the ones to draft the apocalyptic logistics of the campaign, and they definitely, strongly supported the Emperor's bold, necessary attempt on this new expedition.
But behind them, in the ranks of the lesser ranking, traditionalist conservative officials, a wave of profound, terrified panic began to ripple.
These were men who had spent their lives studying the ancient texts, men who remembered the disastrous, treasury draining northern campaigns of Emperor Wu of Han centuries prior.
To them, marching a massive army deep into the freezing, unforgiving steppes just as winter approached was an act of suicidal hubris. It violated the ancient doctrines of warfare. It defied the traditional boundaries of the civilized world.
Unable to contain his terror for the empire's stability, a senior official from the Ministry of Rites, an elderly, deeply conservative scholar with a long, white beard, stepped out of his designated row. He fell to his knees in the center aisle, raising his hands in a gesture of desperate supplication.
"Your Imperial Majesty, please, reconsider!" the elderly official cried out, his voice trembling with genuine fear. "The steppes are a barren wasteland of ice and death! The ancient texts warn us of stretching our supply lines into the endless grass! To launch a campaign of this magnitude, right as the autumn turns to winter... the cost in silver, in grain, in the lives of our men to the cold alone will bankrupt the newly unified state! We have achieved peace! Why risk the entire foundation of the Hengyuan Dynasty on the frozen plains?!"
A murmur of agreement rippled through the ranks of the lesser officials. Several others looked as if they were about to step forward and join the protest, terrified that the Emperor's martial bloodlust would undo everything they had just built.
But before Lie Fan even had to open his mouth to respond, the absolute, terrifying loyalty of his inner circle activated.
Any protest or rejection from these lesser ranking conservative officials was immediately, violently squashed by the high ministers. They knew the Emperor's will was absolute, and they would not tolerate a single breath of dissent in his court.
Chancellor Jia Xu stepped forward, his dark robes gliding silently across the floor. He did not yell, but his raspy, cold voice cut through the murmurs like a poisoned dagger.
"Bankrupt the state, Sir?" Jia Xu sneered, his eyes locking onto the kneeling scholar with a look of pure, unadulterated menace. "Are you suggesting that the Emperor's vision is flawed? Are you implying that the Dragon Throne lacks the foresight to calculate its own ledgers? If you believe the state is too fragile to defend its own future, perhaps your faith in this dynasty is lacking. And a lack of faith in the Emperor's mandate is dangerously close to treason."
The elderly official choked on his words, his face draining of all color as the terrifying Chancellor casually threatened him with execution.
Before the man could recover, Minister of Revenue Mi Zhu stepped out, a wide, condescending smile plastered across his wealthy features.
"Cost in silver and grain?" Mi Zhu laughed aloud, the sound echoing mockingly in the grand hall. He looked at the trembling conservatives as if they were uneducated children. "You speak of the ancient Han campaigns as if we are still using their rusted plows and empty coffers! Have you not looked at my ledgers, Sir? Thanks to the many tradings, tributes, successful campaigns, and most importantly monopolies on the market, our treasury is overflowing with foreign gold! We could pave the road to the steppes in solid silver and still have enough left over to build a second capital!"
Grand Commandant Xun You delivered the final, crushing, logical blow. He stepped forward, his hands clasped behind his back, exuding the cold, mathematical certainty of a master tactician.
"The ancient texts you cling to were written by men who fought with bronze swords and wooden chariots," Xun You stated, his voice ringing with absolute, irrefutable authority. "They did not possess the new carriages we have to move thousands of tons of supplies. They did not possess the Black Dragon Cannons to shatter cavalry charges from a mile away. The nomadic tribes have not advanced in four hundred years, but we have ascended to the heavens. The winter is not our enemy, it is our weapon. It will freeze their rivers and trap their herds, while our men march with thick wool and endless grain."
The other Inner Council advisors also stood up and all of them acted like an impenetrable iron wall before the throne, crushing the conservative dissent with terrifying, overwhelming logic and political force. The lesser officials, realizing the absolute futility of their protest, immediately shrank back into their rows, bowing their heads in complete, terrified submission.
In their hearts, the high advisors knew very well why the older scholars were panicking. They understood the traditional limits of imperial power. But they also knew that their Emperor, Lie Fan, was a terrifying anomaly in the fabric of the universe.
To Jia Xu, Zhuge Liang, Xun You, and the others, it was glaringly obvious that Lie Fan was actually like a man running against time. He was constantly, relentlessly pushing forward, never resting, never allowing the empire to stagnate for even a single month.
No Emperor in the entirety of recorded history actually did these massive campaigns as much, and as incredibly fast, as him. He had unified the chaotic, warring central plains in record time, and before the blood had even dried on the southern conquests, he was already hurling his legions at the northern steppes. It was a pace of conquest that defied human endurance.
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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