If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead and more, be sure to check out my Patreon!!!
Go to https://www.patreon.com/Tang12
____________________________
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.
On the platform, silence reigned, broken only by the ringing in their ears. Jia Xu's face was calculating. Mi Zhu was mentally writing off the cost of the failed prototype. Liu Ye was imagining the four successful impacts on a city gate or a dense formation.
Huang Chengyan let out a slow breath, his eyes on the wreckage. "Grain inconsistency in the powder… leading to a pressure spike the alloy couldn't contain. Or a flaw in the seam we missed." He turned to his daughter. "Well what do you think Yueying?"
Yueying wasn't looking at the failure. Her eyes were fixed on the four successful impacts, then darted to the smoking muzzles of the surviving cannons. She was already pulling a small notebook and a charcoal stick from a pocket in her dress.
"Prototype Four had the cleanest report and the least recoil shudder," she said, her voice quick with analysis. "Its alloy and wall thickness are the optimal balance. But Prototype Five, with the thickest walls, its ball traveled maybe fifty paces farther. A trade off between durability and weight. We need to measure the barrel heat… the expansion…" She was talking more to herself than to them, already lost in the next puzzle.
Huang Chengyan watched her, and for the first time, a genuine, unguarded smile touched his soot stained face. The failure was data. The success was a milestone. And his daughter, fever or not, was already building the next step.
Jia Xu calculating expression have turned into a smile that was thin and dangerous. "So," he murmured, "this is what the future sounds like."
Liu Ye hearing that turned away from the cannons, his expression already shifting from analysis to application. "His Majesty will want a full report," he said. "Production feasibility. Resource requirements. Timeframes."
Mi Zhu hearing that was already calculating the cost of the productions. "Production scale will be expensive. Iron and gunpowder supply must increase by—"
"We will make it work," Liu Ye said to assure Mi Zhu.
Huang Chengyan meanwhile bowed at this time. "We will provide all of the reports, everything needed for His Majesty."
As scribes scrambled to finalize their notes, Huang Yueying felt the familiar lightheadedness creep back in as she was talking and thinking to herself. She immediately steadied herself against the railing, breathing slowly.
Jia Xu noticed.
"You should rest now," he said gently. "You've earned it."
She gave a small, tired smile. "Just a little longer."
Beyond the compound walls, in this secluded valley, far from the roar of Hongnong, Hengyuan'd new technological future was being forged in fire, intellect, and an unwavering, curious will.
The booms that had just echoed through the mountains was not just the sound of a new weapon, it was the sound of a dynasty thinking decades ahead.
On the other hand, to the west of the compound, beneath the walls of Hongnong at Hengyuan's encampment, Lie Fan stood on a rise overlooking his camp, watching the sunrise bleed gold into the smoke.
Reports came in steadily through scouts and Oriole Agents.
Wei soldiers in Jianmen Pass was holding but barely under Fa Zheng's army attack, Wei morale was cracking due to the pincer attack, and lastly the supplies in Hongnong were dwindling for Wei.
Lie Fan's smile lingered long after the Oriole agent finished his report.
It was not the sharp, predatory grin his enemies imagined, nor the cold mask his own soldiers sometimes mistook for detachment. It was quieter than that, contained, reflective, almost patient. The smile of a man watching a long equation finally balance.
Wei was cracking.
Not collapsing yet. Not shattering in some spectacular moment of fire and screaming steel. But cracking all the same, hairline fractures spreading through stone that had once seemed unbreakable. Jianmen Pass bled men and morale. Hongnong starved by degrees. Cao Cao's grip tightened even as the ground slipped beneath his feet.
A sandcastle, Lie Fan thought, remembering the image that had come to him unbidden. Carefully shaped, imposing at a distance, yet helpless before the tide. And he was no longer a single wave. He was the sea.
Another figure stepped forward, this one indistinguishable from an ordinary foot soldier at first glance. His armor bore the same dents, his boots the same dust. But his eyes were sharper, his movements more controlled.
He knelt and offered a sealed letter with both hands. "Your Majesty," the agent said quietly, "a report from the Imperial Workshop and Research Compound."
Lie Fan's eyebrow arched slightly. He took the letter, broke the seal, and his eyes scanned the dense, technical script. For a moment, his expression froze in genuine surprise.
Then, like the sun breaking through cloud, it transformed into a brilliant, triumphant smile that carved years from his battle worn face.
The cannons. They had not only been tested, they had succeeded. The numbers, the observations, the cold data spoke of a weapon that could shatter not just walls, but paradigms. He saw it instantly, the future of warfare reshaped.
No longer just scaling ladders and battering rams. This was the power to reach out and strike with the fist of a god from a thousand paces. This was the foundation stone upon which a thousand other advancements would be built.
With this tool, his engineers, his thinkers, people like the brilliant, feverish Huang Yueying, would leap forward on their own. They had been given fire, soon they could probably discover the steam engine, the precision screw, things he could only hint at. The path to a truly modern empire had just been blasted wide open.
He folded the letter carefully, tucking it into his armor as if it were a sacred text. His voice, when he spoke to the agent, was low and charged with intent. "Maintain surveillance. Relay to the Chancellor, I wanted a full scale production is to begin immediately. No delays. I want these instruments here, at Hongnong, as soon as the first batch is viable." The agent bowed again, a phantom disappearing back into the morning mist.
Lie Fan's step was lighter as he entered the command tent. Inside, the air was thick with the familiar scent of stale ink, sweat, and simmering frustration. Sima Yi, Chen Deng, Zang Hong, Xu Shu, and Pang Tong were huddled over the massive map of Hongnong, its surface a spiderweb of failed assault lines, mined tunnels, and countersiege works.
The discussion was circular, voices tinged with the weariness of a six month stalemate. Every clever tactic had been met, every stratagem countered by the brilliant, desperate minds inside the city.
"The eastern mining operation is stalled again. They flooded the secondary shaft."
"The plague in the southern quarter is under control, but it cost us two hundred men to quarantine it."
"Their night sorties are smaller but more effective. They're targeting the siege engine ropes."
Lie Fan listened, a silent pillar at the head of the table. He offered no grand pronouncements, no sweeping new strategies. When asked for his opinion, his responses were brief, practical, focusing on morale, logistics, and the grinding, unglamorous work of maintaining pressure.
"Rotate the frontline divisions more frequently. Ensure the hot meals reach the trenches. Double the watch on the engineers' workshops." His calm was a counterpoint to their tension. He was playing a longer game, and now, with the letter burning a hole against his chest, he knew the board was about to be flipped.
Then from there, three weeks passed by. They were weeks of incremental, bloody progress. Lie Fan led from the front when it mattered, his presence on the wall a constant goad and a guarantee. Slowly, foot by brutal foot, the Hengyuan army expanded its footholds on the outer defenses. The walls of Hongnong, once a clean, defiant line, became a ragged, contested border.
And in a stunning coup during a night assault designed to probe a weakened section, a coordinated strike by Taishi Ci, Dain Wei, Ji Ling, and a squad of elite elites resulted in the capture of two more of Cao Cao's eike, Li Dian and Yue Jin.
Their loss was a body blow to the Wei defense, stripping away not just martial skill but institutional knowledge and the trust of their troops. They were deposited, bound and fuming, in the same secure tent as Cao Hong and Cao Ren.
Lie Fan's orders remained unchanged, treat them with the respect their prowess demanded. They were given adequate food, water, and medical care, living in a limbo of comfortable captivity that was perhaps more maddening than chains. The tent was becoming a gallery of Wei's fading glory.
To the south, the news was even more catastrophic for Cao Cao, though he did not yet grasp the full scale of the disaster. Fa Zheng, having shattered the will of Jianmen Pass's defenders, took the fortress not with a final, apocalyptic assault, but by accepting a negotiated surrender after the Wei commander received the grim news from Hongnong that no relief was coming.
The Hengyuan banner now flew over the mighty pass. True to his plan, Fa Zheng did not rush headlong. He let his army rest and recuperate within the secure walls for a week, a luxury that solidified their strength and resolve.
Then, with methodical precision, they advanced, taking the smaller passes that led to Hanzhong, and finally investing Hanzhong itself. The pattern repeated, overwhelming, coordinated force, followed by consolidation, administration, and the steady extension of imperial control.
Wudu was next on the list. The southern jaw of the vise was not just closing; it was methodically chewing through the territory behind it.
And then, the new ingredient arrived.
It was a morning like any other, the air tense with the promise of another day of grinding siegework. But in the center of the main encampment, a cleared space had been prepared.
Lie Fan stood there, not in his full armor, but in a commanding robe, surrounded by his inner circle, Sima Yi, Chen Deng, Zang Hong, Xu Shu, and Pang Tong.
Beside him, having been summoned for this moment, was Crown Prince Muchen, flanked by his tutors Zhuge Jin and Lu Zhi. The boy's face had lost its last traces of softness, replaced by a watchful, sober maturity. He had seen the cost. Now he was about to see the new currency of power.
Into this arena rolled five objects, covered in heavy tarpaulins and drawn on specially reinforced wagons.
They were accompanied by Liu Ye and Huang Chengyan, both men looking haggard from the frantic, non stop journey from the mountain compound, but their eyes blazed with a fervor that transcended fatigue. With them came a squad of engineers and soldiers, their hands carefully away from the covered shapes, their demeanor a mix of reverence and barely contained excitement.
______________________________
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