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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.
As dusk deepened into night, the two camps became opposing visions of the same hour. In Hengyuan, hundreds of thousands of soldiers found places to sit, on logs, on mats, on the ground itself, clustering around fires that painted their faces in warm, dancing gold.
The music started, simple but spirited, the rhythmic beat of drums that now spelled joy, not attack, and the high, clear notes of flutes weaving melodies of home and future triumph.
Laughter rang out, genuine and unforced. Jokes were told, stories of home shared, toasts made with the tiny, precious cups of wine, each sip savored like nectar.
At the heart of it all, Lie Fan stood. He was not on a high podium, but among them, elevated only by a simple wooden platform. In his hand was a cup. The firelight caught the dark planes of his armor and the sharp gleam in his eyes.
A hush fell, not of fear, but of rapt attention, spreading outwards in a wave until the entire, vast encampment was silent but for the crackle of the fires.
"Brothers!" His voice, trained to carry across battlefields, rang clear in the cold night air. "You look around you. You see the faces of the men who stood with you when the world shook with our fire. You see the men who scaled walls that thought themselves impregnable. You see the family we have forged in iron and blood."
He paused, letting his gaze sweep over the sea of upturned faces. "For seven days, we have shown Cao Cao what the future sounds like. It is not the whisper of court intrigues. It is the thunder of justice! It is the roar of a unified land!" A cheer began to build, but he held up a hand, quelling it, wanting them to hear every word.
"Today marks the end of the year. We put aside our swords, not in weakness, but in strength. We feast, not in gluttony, but in gratitude, for our lives, for our comrades, for the destiny we grasp with our own hands!"
He raised his cup higher. "We toast the new year! A year that will not find us here, in this camp, but in the halls of Chang'An! A year that will see the dawn of a true and lasting peace, forged by your courage!"
Now he let the cheers erupt, riding the wave of their energy. "The truce lasts two days! Use tomorrow to rest, to heal, to remember this feeling! For the day after tomorrow, when the sun rises…"
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a fierce, carrying promise, "…we do not just attack. We unleash. We will take what is left of Tong Pass, and we will shatter it! We will open the road to Chang'An, and we will end this war, once and for all! For Hengyuan! For unity! For tomorrow!"
The explosion of sound that followed was cataclysmic. It was a visceral, collective shout of affirmation that tore at the sky.
"LONG LIVE HENGYUAN DYNASTY!"
"LONG LIVE YOUR MAJESTY!"
"LONG LIVE HENGYUAN DYNASTY!"
"LONG LIVE YOUR MAJESTY!"
The roar repeated, rhythmic, powerful, a tidal wave of confidence that once more rolled across the distance and broke against the walls of Tong Pass.
Inside those walls, in a central courtyard where braziers fought valiantly against the gloom and the chilling wind, Cao Cao was standing before his assembled officers and a great mass of his soldiers.
He had just begun to speak, trying to weave a spell of resilience, when the Hengyuan roar arrived. It was like a physical blow to the fragile atmosphere he was trying to build. Men flinched. Eyes that had begun to glimmer with a faint reflection of the firelight dimmed, darting nervously towards the west.
Cao Cao did not flinch. He stopped his speech mid sentence, his sharp eyes taking in the ripple of fear. Instead of ignoring it, he leaned into it. He let the enemy's cheer die away, let the uncomfortable silence settle like dust.
"You hear them," he said, his voice not booming like Lie Fan's, but sharp, penetrating, like a blade point.
"They feast. They celebrate. They think victory is a cup of wine already drunk." He took a slow, deliberate step forward, his demeanor one of intense, focused energy. "They have their thunder. They have their full bellies. They have their captured prince."
A painful murmur went through the crowd at the mention of the Crown Prince. Despair threatened to surface. But Cao Cao was a master of turning poison into medicine.
"My son," he said, and the personal pronoun, the raw ownership, hushed them. "Your Crown Prince. He allowed himself to be captured. Do you know why?"
He let the question hang. "Not because he was weak. Not because he was defeated. He saw his younger brother, your comrade, surrounded. He saw a path to draw the enemy away. And he took it. He traded his freedom for a soldier's life. He traded his safety for your brother's."
He was painting a new picture now, over the bleak canvas of their minds. "They hold him in a cage, thinking they hold our shame. But they are wrong. They hold our proof! Proof that the blood of Wei is not the blood of conquerors who feast while their enemies starve! It is the blood of sacrifice! It is the blood of brothers! He did not fall in battle, he chose to stand in the way of the blade meant for another!"
His voice rose, cracking with a potent mix of paternal pride and imperial fury. "If your prince, who has known only silk and scholarship, can find such courage, such loyalty in his heart… what excuse do we have, we who are made of steel and scars?!"
He pointed a finger towards the west, towards the source of the cheering. "They laugh today. Let them. Their laughter is hollow, for it is built on terror and unnatural fire. Our resolve is quiet, for it is built on the love of the man beside you, on the soil of your home behind us, on the silent, unbreakable courage of a prince who chose captivity over cowardice!"
He snatched a bowl of the plain soup from a nearby table and raised it high. "This is not a feast. It is a sacrament! We do not eat to celebrate a year's end. We eat to fortify ourselves for the new beginning we will forge! When they come again, they will not see broken men flinching at shadows. They will see the sons of Wei! They will see the spirit of Cao Ang staring back at them from every one of your eyes! They will learn that walls can be broken, but will cannot! That princes can be captured, but pride cannot!"
The effect was not the deafening, joyous roar of the Hengyuan camp. It was something deeper, quieter, and perhaps more desperate. It was a low, gathering growl.
It was in the straightened backs, in the jaws that clenched, in the hands that tightened around invisible weapons. It was a spark, fanned from the ashes of their shame into a fragile, defiant flame.
They would not cheer. But they would, perhaps, stand and fight for one more hour, for one more day, because their king had turned their greatest shame into a banner.
That night, under the same cold, starry sky, two armies dwelled in two different worlds. One was a world of light, warmth, full bellies, and the vibrant, unshakable certainty of victory on the horizon.
The other was a world of shadows, scant warmth, gnawing hunger, and a hard, bitter resolve pulled from the very brink of despair. The feast and the frugal meal, the roaring cheer and the low growl, the promise of tomorrow's glory and the grim oath to make tomorrow cost, these were the final preparations for the battle to come.
The truce was a breath, a pause in the symphony of violence, but the musicians on both sides were tuning their instruments, one with confident joy, the other with somber, deadly resolution. The new year would dawn on a silence heavier than any bombardment, pregnant with the final, bloody act.
The celebration in the Hengyuan main camp was a bonfire of confidence, its light and noise a stark proclamation to the broken fortress across the way.
But hundreds of miles to the southwest, in the conquered city of Wudu, the atmosphere was one of brisk, efficient triumph.
Here, there was no need for grand speeches to counter the enemy's morale, the enemy here was already gone, their will shattered not by cannons, but by the relentless tide of bad news and the cold calculus of survival.
Fa Zheng, the sharp minded strategist, stood on the battlements of Wudu's governor's castle, looking out over a city now quiet under his control. The siege had been a masterclass in psychological pressure applied with surgical precision.
The news of Hanzhong's surrender, delivered not just by rumor, but by coordinated leaflets and shouted proclamations from Hengyuan lines, had been the poison.
Fa Zheng and Meng Da's ingenious deployment of forces, feinting strong attacks on one gate while Zhang Ren and Yan Yan's veteran troops exploited a hidden weakness in another, had been the blade.
The Wei commander, a capable but not inspirational man, had found himself leading soldiers who saw no future.
On the third day, as the Hengyuan scaling hooks once more bit into the stone, the mutiny had erupted from within. The gates were thrown open not by battering rams, but by desperate men choosing a uncertain captivity over certain, pointless death.
Now, the city was theirs. And Fa Zheng, ever practical, had ordered the granaries and storehouses opened. The Hengyuan Southern Army, having fought a swift but arduous campaign, was treated to double rations.
The smell of proper cooking, real rice, salted meats, even some local vegetables, filled their camp within the city walls. It was a feast of a different sort, not the anticipatory celebration of Lie Fan's host, but the satisfied consumption of a job well done, a tangible reward for victory seized.
In the governor's hall, a more subdued gathering was underway. Around a sturdy table laden with the best of Wudu's captured provisions sat the architects of the victory, Fa Zheng, Meng Da, Zhang Ren, Yan Yan, Meng Huo, Li Yan, Wu Lan, and Zhang Ni. They ate, they drank a little, but the conversation was never far from the war.
"The city is secure, the army is fed," Meng Da stated, wiping his mouth. "But we cannot grow roots here. Cao Cao's main force is pinned at Tong Pass by His Majesty. This is our moment to strike deeper."
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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