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Meanwhile, Hundreds of li to the south, in the heart of the pacified but still watchful Yi Province, Zhang Song worked in a pool of lamplight. The administrative halls of Chengdu were silent but for the scratch of his brush and the rustle of scrolls.
Reports from prefectures, inventories of grain shipments north, manifests for arrow production, he processed them all with a mind that could remember every character, every number. The civilians in the city below slept, some dreaming of the recent wars, others of the fragile new peace.
None knew that the quiet man in the palace was the steady hand on the tiller, ensuring the river of resources flowed uninterrupted to the armies that would decide if that peace would last or shatter into a new era of conquest.
His work was unglamorous, utterly essential, and a profound declaration of loyalty to the distant emperor whose vision he served.
Meanwhile, in a world removed from the dust and blood of sieges, to the northeast, at the capital of Hengyuan, Xiapi, a different kind of intensity thrived.
The morning mist had not yet burned away when the gates of Xiapi opened to a small, tightly controlled column of riders. They moved without banners, without the clangor of an official procession, their cloaks muted, their pace steady rather than proud.
To an outside observer, they might have looked like merchants or minor officials on provincial business. Only those who knew where to look, and what to listen for, would have understood the significance of their destination.
Several kilometers to the northeast of Xiapi, where the terrain began to fold upward into rough hills and forested ridges, a narrow road split from the main thoroughfare.
It wound through scrub and stone, past old watchtowers long abandoned, until it vanished into a stretch of dense woodland. There, concealed behind layers of natural cover and carefully constructed false slopes, lay the Imperial Workshop and Research Compound.
Once, Lie Fan's greatest minds had labored in Huai'an, far from prying eyes but inconveniently distant from the center of power. That arrangement no longer suited the times.
The war had sharpened every calculation. Safety, secrecy, and accessibility had become paramount.
Thus, the entire operation, alchemists, engineers, metallurgists, tinkerers, blacksmiths, scholars, and their accumulated knowledge, had been quietly uprooted and replanted here, closer to Xiapi, closer to the heart of the Hengyuan state, and close enough that Lie Fan himself could arrive within a day if necessity demanded it.
The compound did not announce itself with walls or towers. Instead, it hid behind the illusion of emptiness. From a distance, one would see nothing but broken stone, trees, and uneven ground.
Only when one passed a precise sequence of markers, rocks placed just so, trees cut at subtle angles, did concealed gates slide open, revealing the true depth of the complex carved into the mountainside.
Inside, the air was alive.
Hammers rang against anvils. Bellows roared. The hiss of quenched metal echoed through stone corridors. The smell was a sharp blend of coal smoke, oil, molten metal, and strange alchemical compounds that stung the nose and clung to the back of the throat.
This was not a place of comfort or ceremony. It was a place of creation, danger, and relentless experimentation.
In a broad, sunken testing field carved from the mountain rock, the air was thick with the scent of coal, hot metal, and a tangy, acrid chemical smell.
Standing on an observation platform of reinforced timber and stone were four men, Jia Xu, Mi Zhu, Liu Ye, and Huang Chengyan.
Before them, arrayed in a precise row like strange, squat metal idols, were five cannon prototypes. They were squat, ugly things, nothing like the elegant bronze bells or ritual vessels artisans once prized.
These were instruments of violence given physical form, thick barrels mounted on reinforced wooden frames, iron bands hugging their length like clenched fists. Each one differed slightly from the others.
Some were darker, the metal bearing a rougher grain. Others had a faint sheen, polished to better reveal stress fractures. Their barrel walls varied in thickness, subtly but deliberately so.
Beside each cannon lay finished cannonballs, solid spheres of iron, heavy enough that two men were required to lift each one. They rested in the dust like dormant planets, silent and ominous.
Huang Chengyan, his face smudged with soot and etched with the deep lines of a man who conversed more with fire and metal than with people, consulted a wax tablet covered in dense, meticulous notes.
"These five represent our most promising results so far," Huang Chengyan said, his voice carrying easily over the ambient noise.
He gestured with a short iron rod, pointing at each barrel in turn. "We followed His Majesty's guidance, refined metal, increased carbon content incrementally, and reinforced the barrel walls beyond traditional casting norms."
He paused before the third cannon. "This one uses a higher carbon iron alloy, folded and recast multiple times. Stronger, but potentially more brittle."
He moved to the fifth. "This one sacrifices some tensile strength for sheer mass. Thicker walls, slower cooling, more conservative mixture."
Liu Ye nodded slowly. "And the powder?"
"Adjusted as well," Huang Chengyan replied. "Grain size, compression, mixture ratios. Today's test will tell us which combination gives us power without catastrophic failure."
He nodded to a foreman below. The foreman barked orders. Soldiers, clad in heavy leather aprons and wearing protective eyewear made of smoked quartz, stepped forward.
With careful, reverent movements, they began loading the cannonballs, ramming them home with long poles. The clunk of iron on iron was a solemn sound. Other soldiers stood ready with long, burning torches, their flames flickering in the mountain air.
The tension on the platform was academic but keen. Jia Xu's eyes missed nothing, calculating not just the success of the test, but the logistical chain of producing such weapons.
Mi Zhu mentally assessed the cost of the materials, the manpower. Liu Ye imagined their deployment on a battlefield, the psychological shock they would cause.
Huang Chengyan raised his hand, ready to give the final order. "Begin with the firing," Huang Chengyan called.
Just as the torchbearers stepped forward, a clear voice cut through the noise.
"Wait!"
The voice was young, female, and brooked no argument. It cut through the focused silence, causing heads to turn. A young woman was striding across the testing ground toward the platform, moving with a speed and purpose that sent junior technicians scattering out of her way.
She was in her late teens, with a cascade of light brown hair tied back practically but escaping in wisps around a face that was intelligent, strong willed, and slightly flushed.
Her skin had the light tan of someone who spent time outdoors, not in a shaded courtyard, and her simple, sturdy work-dress was stained with unusual dyes and what looked like charcoal smudges.
Huang Chengyan's stern expression melted into one of exasperated fondness. He lowered his hand. "Yueying! What are you doing here? You should be resting! You had a fever just last night!"
Huang Yueying reached the base of the platform and looked up, her eyes, a striking, clear amber, fixed on the cannons, not on her father's concern. "Resting while this is happening? Impossible Father."
She placed her hands on her hips. "The formula for Prototype Three's alloy, I recalibrated the manganese ratio based on the last fracture test. The barrel wall stress calculations for Five, they're my projections. If they're going to fire, I'm going to see it. A slight fever is nothing compared to a flawed data point."
From beside Huang Chengyan, Jia Xu let out a soft, dry chuckle. It was a rare sound from the 'Venomous Advisor'. "So this is the famous daughter, Master Huang? The one whose 'minor suggestions' reportedly redesigned the counterweight mechanism for the trebuchets?"
Huang Chengyan sighed, a sound of long-suffering pride. He bowed slightly to Jia Xu. "My apologies, Chancellor. Yes, this is Huang Yueying. Brilliant mind, stubborn as a mountain goat, and no concept of proper decorum. She has been tinkering and breaking things since she could walk."
Huang Yueying shot him a look. "And you have been stubborn even longer, Father." After saying that she climbed the steps to the platform, her eyes devouring the setup.
She cupped her hand and bowed respectfully to Jia Xu, Mi Zhu, and Liu Ye, but her attention was already back on the cannons. "The ignition powder for Two and Four is from the new batch from Hanzhong? The sulfur purity is higher, but the charcoal grain is inconsistent. It could affect the burn rate and initial pressure spike."
Liu Ye raised an eyebrow, impressed. "You monitor the supply chains as well?"
"How can you design the vessel if you don't know the quality of the wine?" she replied without looking at him, her brow furrowed as she visually inspected the seam on Prototype Three.
Mi Zhu watched the exchange with something like fascination. This was not how daughters of respected scholars typically behaved. Yet no one present could deny her confidence or her competence.
Meanwhile, Huang Chengyan, seeing the futility of sending her away, gestured to the foreman. "Prepare as we were." He then looked at his daughter, a glint of challenge in his eye. "You stay here. Behind the barrier. No closer."
Yueying gave a curt nod, her excitement now barely contained, the earlier fever forgotten in the face of imminent discovery.
The soldiers with the torches stepped forward. The foreman looked to Huang Chengyan, who took a final glance at his daughter's focused, eager face, and then chopped his hand down.
"FIRE!"
Five torches touched five fuse holes.
A hiss, swift and violent.
Then, the world exploded.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BA BOOOOOM!
The reports were not uniform. Four were deep, chest punching concussions that echoed off the mountain walls like the wrath of gods. The fifth, Prototype Two, was different.
Its boom was sharper, louder, and was followed instantly by a horrific metallic SHRIEK and a cloud of jagged, white hot shrapnel that scythed through the air where the cannon had been. The barrel had burst.
The sound waves hit the platform, making the wood tremble. Smoke, thick and sulphurous, billowed out, obscuring the view. They all flinched, ducking instinctively. When the smoke began to clear, the results were stark.
Four cannons stood, smoke curling from their muzzles. In the distance, four geysers of dirt and rock erupted as the cannonballs slammed into the earthen berm target a thousand paces away.
The impacts were terrifying, far more concentrated and violent than any trebuchet strike. Where Prototype Two had been was a twisted, blackened wreckage, a tragic sculpture of failure. The soldiers nearby were picking themselves up, shaken but protected by their distance and barriers.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 35 (202 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 9)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 966 (+20)
VIT: 623 (+20)
AGI: 623 (+10)
INT: 667
CHR: 98
WIS: 549
WILL: 432
ATR Points: 0