Reborn In The Three Kingdoms

If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead and more, be sure to check out my P-Tang12!!!

______________________________

(A/N: Don’t forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)

...

As the war council broke into smaller, highly focused logistical discussions, Yue Jin, Li Dian, Xu Huang, and Gao Lan finally allowed themselves to relax slightly. They looked at Yu Jin, Zhang He, and Pang De, a quiet, profound sense of camaraderie passing between them. They were no longer prisoners. They were no longer defeated men.

​As the heavy oak doors of the central command hall swung shut, concluding the highest level strategic council the western theater had ever witnessed, the abstract theories of war immediately gave way to the monumental, grinding physical reality of military logistics.

The sun began its slow descent behind the jagged, purple peaks of the western mountain ranges, casting a blood red hue over the sprawling, endless sea of canvas tents that surrounded the fortress city of Chang’An.

​The strategy had been set. Now, it had to be flawlessly executed.

​Chen Deng, Fa Zheng, Zang Hong, and Meng Da stepped out of the palace and immediately dispersed into the chaotic, sprawling military encampments. As the supreme army strategists, they possessed minds that operated like the intricate gears of a massive, flawlessly oiled clockpiece.

They did not retreat to their comfortable quarters to rest, they waded directly into the dust and the noise of the staging grounds to oversee the preparations personally.

​Chen Deng walked the lines of the heavy infantry, his sharp, aristocratic eyes catching even the most minute discrepancies in their formations. He cross referenced the deployment ledgers with the quartermasters, ensuring that the specific staggering of the marching columns proposed by Yu Jin was communicated down to the lowest squad sergeants.

Fa Zheng moved among the cavalry units, his ruthless, calculating gaze evaluating the fitness of the warhorses, confirming that the mounts designated for Guan Yu and Zhang Fei’s frontal assault had been properly shod with heavy iron to withstand the rocky mountain passes.

​Zang Hong and Meng Da took charge of the heavy siege equipment and the vital supply trains. They oversaw thousands of engineers and laborers as they loaded massive, reinforced wagons with bundles of arrows, barrels of black powder, and the heavy iron shells for the cannons.

They ensured that every axle was freshly greased and every draft ox was healthy. There could be no broken wheels or snapped axles when they were marching into the treacherous, unforgiving terrain of Liang Province. Every single army group, every specialized detachment, and every vanguard column was double checked to guarantee they would follow the grand strategy flawlessly.

​Meanwhile, the generals understood that a brilliant strategy was entirely useless if the men executing it were too weak to hold their shields.

​As dusk settled over the Wei River valley and the temperature began to drop, the orders were bellowed across the encampments, Double rations tonight.

​The army needed energy, and they needed it in abundance. Massive, roaring campfires were lit by the tens of thousands, transforming the plains around Chang’an into a sea of flickering, brilliant stars. The rich, heavy scent of roasting pork, salted venison, and thick, hearty grain stews filled the cold mountain air. Barrels of clean, boiled water, a strict, non negotiable mandate from the Emperor’s hygiene edicts, were rolled out to the men.

The soldiers of Hengyuan ate and drank merrily, their voices raised in raucous laughter and boisterous songs of past victories. They knew that tomorrow they would march into the teeth of the enemy, and they embraced the feast with the aggressive, vibrant hunger of men who lived on the edge of the blade.

​Nowhere was this need for sustenance more critical than within the newly designated encampment of the twenty thousand elite Central Army soldiers.

​Under the command of Yue Jin, Li Dian, Xu Huang, Gao Lan, Yu Jin, Zhang He, and Pang De, these men had just endured a grueling, month-long forced march from the eastern capital of Xiapi. They had arrived in Chang’An with barely half a day to rest their blistered feet before being thrust into the vanguard of a massive invasion.

Their muscles ached, their bones were weary, but as the double rations of thick meat stew and steamed buns were distributed, the sheer, calorie dense heat of the food began to revive their spirits.

​The seven former Wei generals recognized that this night was their only true opportunity to forge an unbreakable bond with the men they were about to lead into the slaughter. They did not retreat to the opulent commander’s tents to eat in isolated luxury. Instead, they took their wooden bowls and walked directly into the dirt and the smoke of the common campfires.

​They used this fleeting chance to get even closer to the rank and file, assimilating themselves with the soldiers under their command so that they could operate together with perfect, seamless cohesion.

​Yue Jin, his fierce eyes softened by the warmth of the fire, sat cross legged next to a group of young spearmen. He tore off a piece of a steamed bun, sharing his own rations while he listened to them talk about their families in Xu Province.

He laughed at their crude jokes, his gravelly voice putting the nervous recruits at ease. He showed them the scars on his forearms, telling them exactly how to angle their shields when the enemy cavalry charged, transforming from a distant, terrifying legend into a flesh and blood brother in arms.

​Xu Huang walked the lines of the heavy axemen, his own massive weapon resting casually on his shoulder. He did not speak much, but he stopped at dozens of campfires, personally inspecting the edges of the soldiers’ weapons.

When he found a blade that was dull, he sat down on a log, took out his own whetstone, and showed the soldier the exact, rhythmic motion required to achieve a razor-sharp edge. His quiet, profound dedication to the martial craft earned him the immediate, awed respect of every man who watched him.

​Gao Lan moved among the logistics and supply squads, quietly ensuring that the men had wrapped their feet in dry cloth to prevent frostbite in the high mountain passes. He checked their armor straps, adjusting a loose buckle here, tightening a leather pauldron there. He was the solid, reliable anchor, and his quiet, fatherly care made the soldiers feel profoundly secure.

​Yu Jin maintained his strict, unyielding aura of discipline, but he directed it entirely toward the betterment of the troops. He inspected the perimeter watches, ensuring the men were alert, but he also made sure the sentries were rotated quickly so they could get back to the fires and eat their hot meals. The men quickly realized that Yu Jin’s strictness was not born of cruelty, but of a desperate, professional desire to keep them all alive.

​Zhang He moved gracefully among the cavalry units, offering nuanced, incredibly detailed advice on how to navigate warhorses across loose shale and steep, rocky inclines. Li Dian sat with the squad sergeants, using a stick to draw out the staggered marching formations in the dirt, making absolutely sure that the lower level officers understood the tactical necessity of their relentless tempo.

​And Pang De, the desert wolf, sat by a roaring fire, surrounded by hundreds of captivated soldiers. He spoke to them of Liang Province. He told them about the biting, blinding sandstorms, the treacherous, hidden ravines, and the stubborn, prideful nature of the northwestern warlords. He stripped away their fear of the unknown, replacing it with hard, actionable knowledge.

​By the time the fires burned down to glowing red embers, the twenty thousand men of the Central Army no longer viewed their commanders as the defeated ghosts of Wei.

They viewed them as their generals. The assimilation was a complete, flawless success. They were bound by the shared dirt, the shared food, and the shared anticipation of the coming dawn.

​With their bellies full and their spirits completely unified, the orders to sleep were given. The massive encampment grew quiet. For a few short hours, the hundreds of thousands of men lay in the dark, resting their bodies upon the cold earth, gathering the strength required to tear the heavens apart.

​The quiet did not last long.

​Hours before the sun even considered cresting the eastern horizon, the deep, resonating blast of war horns shattered the absolute stillness of the pre dawn air.

​The awakening of the Hengyuan military machine was a terrifying, magnificent spectacle. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers rose from their bedrolls in the pitch black darkness.

The camps immediately exploded into a flurry of highly organized, disciplined motion. The clinking of heavy iron chainmail, the snapping of leather straps, and the sharp scraping of whetstones against steel filled the Wei River valley with a deafening, metallic symphony.

​The siege equipment and the massive supply trains had been perfectly prepared the night before. The draft oxen were immediately hitched to the wagons, stamping their heavy hooves in the freezing dirt. The artillery crews primed the cannons, running their hands over the cold iron barrels, checking the fuses and the powder charges by the light of flickering torches.

​As the sky to the east began to bleed from pitch black into a deep, bruised purple, the massive army formed its ranks.

​Column upon column, regiment upon regiment, they arrayed themselves across the plains outside Chang’An. It was an ocean of dark armor and sharp steel, a physical manifestation of the Emperor’s absolute will. The breath of hundreds of thousands of men and horses plumed into the freezing air like the smoke of a massive, dormant volcano waiting to erupt.

​Riding to the very front of the vanguard, silhouetted against the nascent light of dawn, were the two supreme Marshals, Huang Zhong and Zhang Ren.

​Huang Zhong sat astride his massive, fiery roan warhorse. He wore his heaviest, most ornate battle armor, the polished metal gleaming in the torchlight. His great white beard blew wildly in the bitter mountain wind, and his terrifying longbow was slung across his back. Beside him, Zhang Ren sat with perfect, stoic stillness, a monument of unyielding martial discipline.

​Huang Zhong spurred his horse, pacing slowly back and forth across the front line of the vanguard. He looked out over the endless sea of soldiers, from the veteran heavy infantry to the newly assimilated Central Army troops standing proudly under the command of the seven generals.

​The old tiger drew his sword, the steel singing as it left the scabbard. He raised it high into the air, the tip catching the very first, brilliant ray of the rising sun.

​”Soldiers of Hengyuan!” Huang Zhong bellowed, his voice projecting with an impossible, supernatural volume, echoing off the high stone walls of Chang’An and rolling across the plains like a peal of thunder.

​The entire, sprawling army fell into absolute, breathless silence.

​”Look to the west!” Huang Zhong roared, pointing his gleaming blade toward the jagged, imposing peaks of Liang Province. ”Look at the mountains that hide the cowards and the thieves! For too long, the League of Northwestern Lords has sat upon those rocks, refusing to bow to the true mandate! They think their treacherous passes and their high walls will save them from the judgment of the heavens! They think they can defy the era of peace that our Emperor has bled to build!”

​Huang Zhong pulled his horse up, the massive beast rearing slightly, its hooves striking the dirt as the old marshal’s voice reached a fever pitch.

​”But today, we show them the truth! Today, we do not just bring them war! We bring them the absolute, inescapable wrath of the unified earth! We bring them the Black Dragon!”

​He swept his sword across the horizon, his eyes burning with the fierce, unquenchable fire of a lifelong warrior. ”You are the greatest army this continent has ever seen! You are the iron wall of the dynasty! You will march into those mountains, you will shatter their gates, you will break their pride, and you will not stop until the banners of Hengyuan fly over every single peak in the northwest!”

​Huang Zhong rose in his stirrups, his chest heaving, his voice tearing from his throat in a final, earth-shattering crescendo.

​”For the glory of the new world! For the peace of our families! For the Emperor!”

​The response was instantaneous and physically deafening.

​It started as a low rumble deep within the ranks, a visceral vibration in the chest of every man present, before exploding outward into a roaring, apocalyptic cheer that shook the very foundations of the earth.

Hundreds of thousands of weapons were thrust into the sky, a forest of steel catching the morning light.

”LONG LIVE YOUR MAJESTY! LONG LIVE THE HENGYUAN DYNASTY!”

”LONG LIVE YOUR MAJESTY! LONG LIVE THE HENGYUAN DYNASTY!”

The chant echoed with terrifying, fanatical devotion, a tidal wave of sound that rolled over the mountains and warned the warlords of the northwest that their doom had finally arrived.

______________________________

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