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It was hell. A calculated, continuous hell. The Wei soldiers, already reeling from the news of their captured princes and the surrender of Hanzhong, now lived in a world of permanent, deafening violence. There was no assault to fight, no enemy to grapple with, just the impersonal, omnipresent fury of superior technology.
Men clutched their ears, their nerves frayed to breaking. Sleep was impossible. The constant shockwaves and concussions left many nauseous, trembling.
The bombardment didn't stop, it simply became the overture. As the cannons fell silent just long enough for the smoke to clear, the deep war drums of Hengyuan took up the rhythm.
From the vast encampment, the army surged forward. At its head, unmistakable in his dark armor, was Lie Fan. He did not lead from a distant hill; he led from the front, his halberd a beacon.
The 'Climbing Tigers', the sturdy, shielded assault ladders, were rushed forward under covering fire from archers and the now silent but menacing cannons.
Lie Fan was among the first up, his two Yellow Ghosts, Chao Bo, Chao Bai, and Huang Chao creating a moving fortress around him as he ascended.
Zhang Liao, Huang Zhong, Taishi Ci, Dian Wei, Ji Ling, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and many more of his champions swarmed up other ladders, a wave of concentrated martial excellence the battered Wei defense was ill equipped to handle.
The fighting on the walls was fierce but lopsided. Many Wei soldiers fought with the desperate courage of the cornered, but their will had been systematically pulverized.
The memory of the cannons was a ghost in their muscles, making them flinch at shadows. The knowledge that their southern flank had collapsed sapped their belief in the point of it all. And facing them were not just soldiers, but legends.
Lie Fan was a whirlwind of destruction, his halberd clearing sections of the parapet. Where resistance coalesced, one of his generals would materialize, Huang Zhong's unerring glaive, Zhang Liao's crushing strength, Taishi Ci's flurry of strikes, and shatter it.
From a command post far behind the main wall, Cao Cao watched through a viewing slit, his face ashen. His own remaining generals, the Xiahou brothers, Zhang He, Xu Huang, Gao Lan, stood beside him, their fists clenched. They yearned to be on the wall, to match strength with strength.
"Your Majesty, let us go!" Xiahou Dun growled, his voice raw. "We can hold them! We can push them back!"
Cao Cao shook his head, a gesture of profound, bitter resignation. "No. You will not go. I have lost Cao Hong, Cao Ren, Li Dian, Yue Jin, and Xu Chu to that man's personal prowess. I will not gift him any more of you. Your duty is here, to command, to organize the retreat when… if… it becomes necessary. We are not fighting for this wall anymore. We are fighting for time to get to Chang'An."
It was the admission they all feared but knew was true. The defense of Tong Pass was no longer about victory, it was about a managed, survivable defeat. The siege had become a grinding, bloody extraction.
The thunder of the cannons had not just cracked stone, it had broken the spine of the Wei defense before the first Hengyuan soldier ever set foot on the wall.
The final act was playing out, and Cao Cao was now reduced to directing a tragedy from the wings, counting the cost of each lost hour and each fallen soldier, knowing that the southern avalanche was drawing ever closer to his home.
By nightfall, Hengyuan soldiers under Lie Fan lead retreated from several sections of the outer wall they have taken control off.
And the next day, it began again.
And the next.
A full week.
Each sunrise brought more fire. Each sunset revealed more damage. The silence between bombardments was worse than the noise, a quiet filled with dread, with the knowledge that the next wave was coming.
Cao Cao remained in the rear, issuing orders through messengers, watching reports pile up like bodies. He could not counterattack. He could not break the siege.
He could only endure.
By the seventh day, Tong Pass no longer looked like a fortress. It looked like a wounded beast, its hide torn open, its bones showing through shattered stone.
The Wei soldiers were ghosts of themselves, eyes hollow, hands trembling, flinching at every loud sound.
And from the Hengyuan camp, laughter sometimes carried on the wind. Not mockery. Relief. Hope.
The contrast was unbearable.
The 2 days truce soon arrived not with relief, but with a strange, aching quiet.
After seven days of unbroken thunder, the silence on the eighth morning felt unreal, as if the world itself had lost a sense. No cannons roared. No hwachas screamed. The walls of Tong Pass stood, broken, cracked, wounded, but standing, and for the first time in a week, no new scars were being carved into them.
It was the last day of the year.
In the Hengyuan encampment, Lie Fan rose before dawn. He had slept little, not from fear or exhaustion, but from habit. War had trained his body to wake before the sun, to measure time in watches and shifts rather than hours.
He stepped out of his command tent and breathed in the cold air. The vast camp stretched before him like a city of canvas and firelight. Even at rest, it pulsed with quiet energy. Men moved deliberately, not in panic, not in desperation, but with purpose.
He summoned the quartermasters.
"Double the rations today," he ordered. "Every man. No exceptions."
The officers stiffened in surprise, then bowed. One hesitated. "Your Majesty… about the new year wine—"
Lie Fan nodded. "A small amount. Enough to warm the chest, not cloud the mind."
He did not need to explain himself. Everyone in his army knew his stance on alcohol during war. Drink dulled reflexes, loosened discipline, bred accidents. He had banned it strictly during every campaign and siege.
But this was different.
There was a truce. Two days. A rare pause carved out of months of blood and smoke. And more than that, it was the turning of the year.
"Our soldiers haven't been home in months," he continued quietly. "Some haven't seen their families in years. They deserve this."
The quartermasters bowed deeply and hurried off.
As the orders spread, the effect was immediate.
At first, it was disbelief. Then murmurs. Then cheers.
The Hengyuan army roared.
Hundreds of thousands of voices rose as one, a thunder not of violence but of joy, relief, and pent-up emotion finally given release. The sound rolled across the plains, climbed the broken slopes, and slammed into the battered walls of Tong Pass like a living thing.
On the battlements, Wei soldiers flinched.
Some gripped their spears tighter, instinctively bracing for another bombardment that did not come. Others stared out at the distant camp, confusion etched into hollow faces. Cheers? Music?
After a week of hell, the sound felt almost obscene.
Inside the Hengyuan encampment, preparation began in earnest.
Lie Fan did not delegate this.
He walked the camp personally, inspecting the kitchens, watching the army cooks at work. Huge cauldrons of soup simmered, rich with vegetables and meat. Long tables were set with flour and fillings as dumplings were shaped by practiced hands.
Chickens and pigs turned slowly over open fires, their skins crisping, fat dripping and hissing as it hit the coals. Woks rang with the sound of stir fried greens and spices.
The smell alone lifted spirits.
Lie Fan sampled the broth, nodded approvingly. "Good. Add more ginger."
He watched soldiers laugh as they worked, sleeves rolled up, faces relaxed for the first time in days. He saw men trading stories, talking about home, about wives and children, about parents they hoped were still alive.
This, this was why morale mattered.
This was why wars were not won by steel alone.
By midday, the camp felt transformed. Lanterns were hung. Fires burned brighter. Music began tentatively at first, then with growing confidence as flutes and drums filled the air with rhythm and warmth.
Across the battlefield, within Tong Pass, the contrast was painful.
Cao Cao had given the order as well.
"Prepare a meal," he told his officers. "The best we can manage."
The Wei cooks worked with what they had. Rice, thin soup, some preserved meat. No abundance. No indulgence. Supplies were stretched thin, rationed carefully after weeks of siege.
The smells drifted through the fortress, but they did little to stir appetite.
Men sat in rows, bowls in hand, eating mechanically. Some barely touched their food. Others stared at nothing, jaws working without awareness. The trauma of the bombardment lingered in their bones. Every sudden noise made them flinch. Every vibration in the stone sent hearts racing.
There was no cheering.
No laughter.
No music.
Just a heavy, oppressive quiet broken only by murmurs and the crackle of cooking fires.
Xun Yu reported all of this to Cao Cao as evening approached.
"The Hengyuan camp is celebrating openly," he said softly. "Their cheers reached the walls. Music as well."
Cao Cao closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
"Of course they are," he murmured.
Cao Cao stared at the map of Tong Pass, now annotated with so many cracks and breaches it looked like a spider's web. He did not need the reports about the smells or the sounds.
He could feel it in the oppressive quiet of his own ranks. He sighed, a long, weary exhalation that seemed to come from the soles of his feet.
The weight of the week, the ceaseless bombardment that was less an attack and more a natural disaster, the demigod like prowess of Lie Fan's champions on the walls, the grinding, bloody attrition, pressed down on him.
"Ensure the men are fed as well as we can manage," he said finally, his voice quieter than usual.
"Tonight, I will dine not here, but among them. In the central courtyard. Have the braziers lit. Let them see their lord shares their meal and their vigil."
He looked up, meeting Xun Yu's intelligent, weary eyes. "Perhaps a shared bowl of soup, a word from their Emperor, can kindle a small flame where the cannons have left only ash. We must remind them what they defend. Not just stones, but a kingdom. A home."
Xun Yu bowed deeply, his heart heavy. He knew the power of Cao Cao's presence, the electric charisma that could turn despair into defiance.
But he also knew that the trauma inflicted by Lie Fan's new weapons was of a different kind. It wasn't just fear of death, it was the helplessness of being erased by a force you could not fight, could not even comprehend.
The memory of Hongnong's wall crumbling like sand under that thunderous fire was a ghost in every soldier's mind.
How did one rally against a earthquake? "It will be done, Your Majesty," he said, because there was nothing else to say.
The grand strategies, the clever traps, the feints and maneuvers, all had been rendered obsolete by the sheer, brutal physics of Lie Fan's cannons. Now, it was down to the raw materials of human spirit.
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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