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Any native warrior who raised a weapon, regardless of which faction they belonged to, was systematically cut down. Within mere hours, the chaotic resistance was completely suffocated. The surviving natives, exhausted, bleeding, and utterly broken in spirit, dropped their weapons and fell to their knees in the bloody mud, surrendering to the mechanical might of the Black Dragon. The impenetrable mountain fortress of Yamatai was completely secured.
While the brutal pacification of the fortress was taking place high above, a completely different, deeply tense, and highly psychological scene was unfolding thousands of feet below.
The brightly lit, sprawling main command pavilion sat securely in the center of the Hengyuan encampment. The interior was a stark contrast to the muddy, blood soaked realities of the mountain above. It was warm, impeccably organized, and smelled faintly of expensive mainland tea and burning sandalwood. Massive topographical maps dominated the central tables, surrounded by heavy wooden folding chairs.
Inside, the four strategists, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, Sima Yi, and Jia Kui, waited with cold, clinical anticipation.
The heavy canvas flaps of the pavilion were thrown open, and four elite Oriole Agents entered silently, flanked by heavily armored Ghost Bodyguards. Between them, they half carried, half dragged their newly acquired, highly valuable prisoner, Queen Himiko.
The agents forced her to her knees in the center of the pavilion, the heavy silk ropes still binding her wrists tightly behind her back. With a swift, practiced motion, the lead agent reached down and removed the suffocating black canvas hood, followed immediately by the rough cloth gag.
Himiko gasped, her lungs greedily pulling in the warm, incense laced air of the tent. She threw her head back, her long, disheveled raven hair cascading down her back, and glared up at her captors.
For a brief, fleeting fraction of a second, the four brilliant minds of the Hengyuan Dynasty were actually momentarily surprised by her physical appearance.
The intelligence reports, the terrified whispers of the natives, and the sheer, devastating alchemical traps she had engineered had painted a mental picture of a terrifying, ancient crone, a withered, mystical hag steeped in dark magic and centuries of tribal lore.
The legendary reputation of the "Shaman Queen" that had spread across the archipelago suggested a creature more monster than woman.
But as she knelt before them under the bright light of the oil lamps, they saw that she was actually incredibly young. She could not have been more than in her early twenties.
Furthermore, despite the dirt smudged across her cheek and the exhaustion lining her features, her raw, natural beauty was absolutely breathtaking. She possessed high, aristocratic cheekbones, flawless, pale skin that contrasted sharply with her dark hair, and piercing, fiercely intelligent eyes that burned with an undeniable aura of regal authority. Her beauty was so profound and striking that it was easily on par with the Empress, Ying Yue, and the four concubines of their Emperor Lie Fan.
However, that momentary surprise evaporated as quickly as a drop of water on a hot iron stove.
The four strategists were the absolute apex of mainland intellect. They were absolutely not the kind of ordinary, weak willed men to ever be bewitched, distracted, or softened by superficial things like physical beauty or regal tragedy. They had orchestrated the deaths of millions, toppled ancient dynasties, and rewritten the map of the world.
Their hearts were forged of cold iron, entirely, ruthlessly dedicated to the absolute supremacy of the Hengyuan Dynasty. To them, the beautiful young woman kneeling on the carpets was not a damsel to be pitied, she was a highly dangerous, but at the same time an incredibly valuable strategic asset that needed to be dismantled and understood.
Quickly dismissing their momentary surprise, they immediately took their seats around her and began to ruthlessly interrogate Himiko.
Jia Kui gestured to the guards, who dragged in a terrified, trembling man. He was a fluent Goguryeo-Wa translator, a merchant who had spent decades sailing the straits. He fell to his knees beside the Queen, sweating profusely, terrified of the cold eyed mainland strategists and equally terrified of the captured deity beside him.
He was explicitly ordered to perfectly translate Yamatai's ancient language to ensure absolutely no nuance, no matter how small, was lost.
At first, Himiko showed an incredible, fiery stubbornness and sheer, unadulterated defiance. The loss of her fortress and her capture had not immediately broken her regal pride.
"You are demons," she spat in her native tongue, the translator frantically echoing her words in the mainland dialect. She glared directly at Sima Yi, who sat across from her, his face an unreadable mask. She leaned forward and spat a glob of bloody saliva directly onto the plush carpets just inches from Sima Yi's polished leather boots.
"You think you have won because you dragged me from my mountain?" Himiko sneered, her voice dripping with venom. "I refuse to answer your questions! I will not tell you the locations of my treasures, nor the depths of my mines! The spirits of this island will curse your bloodlines. The earth itself will open up and swallow your iron armies, and my alchemical secrets will go with me to the grave!"
Sima Yi did not blink. He slowly pulled a clean silk handkerchief from his robes, leaned down, and wiped the spit from the floor, his eyes never leaving hers.
"Spirits do not stop cannonballs, little queen," Sima Yi replied, his voice soft, calm, and chillingly devoid of emotion. "And graves are easily dug."
The strategists were the ultimate masters of psychological warfare, especially since they have the likes of Jia Xu and Cheng Yu on their side. They had no need for the crude implements of the torturer, they knew that the most excruciating pain was inflicted not upon the flesh, but upon the mind. They didn't torture her physically. Instead, they began to systematically dismantle her world.
Sima Yi and Guo Jia took turns, their voices overlapping in a cold, relentless rhythm, detailing exactly what would happen to her people.
"You believe your silence is a shield," Guo Jia coughed lightly, leaning forward on his elbows. "It is not. It is an anvil. If you refuse to speak, if you refuse to offer your mind to our Emperor, then your people have no value to us."
"We will not simply occupy your island," Sima Yi continued smoothly, his dark eyes boring into her soul. "We will systematically erase it. We will execute every male taller than a wagon wheel. We will take your women and children and put them in chains in the bowels of our deep sea galleys. The absolute destruction, the slaughter, and the permanent enslavement of the entire Yamatai population will be your legacy."
"No," Himiko whispered, her defiance faltering for a fraction of a second, "my warriors will fight you in every valley. They will never surrender."
At that precise moment, Jia Kui stood up. He walked over to a heavy wooden chest brought in by the vanguard commanders. He reached inside and pulled out a massive, torn piece of fabric.
With a cold, dramatic flair, Jia Kui walked over and threw the severed, blood soaked banner of her elite royal guard directly at her feet. It landed with a heavy, wet thud on the carpet.
"Your warriors are currently butchering each other in your own courtyard over the right to surrender to us," Jia Kui stated calmly, offering the physical proof that her fortress had already fallen. "Your mountain is ours. Your army is broken. Your gods are silent. You are the only thing standing between your people and absolute genocide. Will you let them burn for your pride?"
The sight of the bloody banner, the undeniable, physical proof of her total defeat, was the final, crushing blow. The immense weight of her responsibility, the realization that her stubbornness would not save her secrets but would only result in the horrific slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent subjects who worshipped her, finally pushed her past her emotional breaking point.
Her fierce, impenetrable facade completely shattered.
The Shaman Queen's shoulders slumped. She lowered her head, her dark hair falling to obscure her face, as thick, hot tears welled in her eyes and fell silently onto the blood stained banner at her knees. She wept not for herself, but for the end of her world.
With her spirit thoroughly broken, the interrogation cracked wide open.
Through her defeated, trembling whispers, relayed by the terrified translator, the interrogation deeply revealed the fascinating, highly guarded history and the true nature of Yamatai's terrifying reputation.
"It... it is not magic," Himiko whispered, her voice hollow, devoid of the regal thunder it once held. "There are no earth spirits that heed my call. The magic I used to burn your soldiers... it is a highly guarded mixtures form my ancestors."
The four strategists leaned in, their intellectual curiosity suddenly piqued to a razor's edge.
She explained, in painstaking detail, how the revered, god like title and position of the "Shaman Queen" was actually not strictly a hereditary bloodline right, as may of the scholars had always assumed.
"It is a trial of the mind," she revealed, staring blankly at the floor. "The position is fiercely competed for. It is handed down only to the woman of the clans who can actively show the absolute best, most brilliant skill and intellect. We are chosen for our high level of knowledge in the complex usage of alchemy."
She described generations of women passing down secret, empirical knowledge. She detailed the highly dangerous, scientific processes of extracting pure sulfur from the active volcanic vents, the painstaking distillation of natural gases, and the exact, mathematical ratios required to create volatile, devastating chemical reactions from the raw minerals of the earth. She was not a conduit for the gods, she was the apex of an isolated, brilliant scientific lineage.
Hearing this, an electrifying silence fell over the pavilion.
The four strategists looked at each other, completely astounded and deeply, immensely satisfied. The pieces of the puzzle clicked together flawlessly. They realized she was not a delusional religious fanatic commanding a cult, she was a brilliant educated chemist who had used the veil of mysticism to control a primitive society and defend her borders.
Sima Yi's cold smile returned, this time filled with a dark, triumphant respect.
Lie Fan did not need another conquered warlord to execute. He needed brilliant minds to fuel his industrial revolution. And sitting on the floor before them, bound in silk and weeping for her lost kingdom, was perhaps the greatest, most intuitive alchemical genius in the known world. She was exactly what the Black Dragon required.
Slowly, the morning sun that rose over the jagged peaks of Shikoku did not bring warmth, it brought only the harsh, illuminating light of a conquered world. The once impenetrable Yamatai mountain fortress, a sprawling marvel of cedar and stone, now sat scarred by black powder and stained with the blood of its own divided defenders.
The air was thick with the scent of wet ash, extinguished torches, and the crushing, absolute silence of a civilization that had finally ceased to struggle.
With the catastrophic, one-sided victory against Yamatai officially secured, the massive, systematic consolidation of the entire island of Shikoku rapidly began. Zhang Liao and the four peerless strategists knew that military occupation was only the first, crude step of conquest. To forge a lasting province for the Hengyuan Dynasty, the spirit of the people had to be subjugated just as thoroughly as their armies. To ensure the transition was as bloodless and efficient as possible, the ultimate symbol of the island's resistance had to be dismantled before their very eyes.
In the vast, muddy expanse of the fortress's central courtyard, tens of thousands of surviving native warriors, minor chieftains, and commoners were herded together by walls of heavily armored Hengyuan halberdiers. They knelt in the dirt, exhausted, shivering in the mountain chill, and looking up at the shattered main balcony of the palace with hollow, terrified eyes.
From the dark interior of the palace, she emerged.
The woman who stood before them was no longer the divine Shaman Queen. By the strict, uncompromising decree of the Hengyuan Empire, she had been entirely stripped of her royal sovereignty, her mystical garments, and her divine titles. She was now officially be called "Lady Himiko."
She wore a simple, unadorned gown of pure white mainland silk, a stark contrast to the elaborate, beaded regalia she had worn just a day prior. Her raven hair was unbound, blowing gently in the freezing wind. But it was her eyes that truly broke the hearts of her people.
The fierce, terrifying intellect and the burning, regal defiance that had defined her rule had been completely extinguished. Utterly broken psychologically by the ruthless, devastating interrogation and the undeniable, apocalyptic strategic brilliance of the four mainland strategists, Lady Himiko looked out over the sea of her subjugated masses with the vacant, sorrowful gaze of a ghost.
A profound, agonizing wail rose from the kneeling crowds as they saw their living goddess reduced to a mortal prisoner.
Flanked by an squad of heavy infantries, Lady Himiko stepped to the edge of the balcony. She did not need the booming acoustics of a war horn; the sheer, heartbreaking gravity of her presence demanded absolute silence.
"Children of the rising sun," Lady Himiko began, her voice trembling slightly before she forced it to stabilize, projecting her words across the courtyard. "The era of our isolation is over. The gods of the earth and the spirits of the mountain have spoken, and they have bowed to the thunder of the west."
Tears welled in her piercing eyes, tracking slowly down her pale cheeks, but she did not wipe them away. She had a final, agonizing duty to perform to save them from total annihilation.
"I am no longer your queen," she declared, the words hanging heavily in the cold air. "My magic was but a shadow against the blazing sun of the mainland. I stand before you not as a deity, but as a woman who wishes to see her people live to see another harvest. Therefore, by the love I bear for you, I order all remaining holdouts across the valleys and the coasts to permanently lay down their weapons. You must cast aside your swords. You must accept the great Emperor Lie Fan of the Hengyuan Dynasty as your one, true sovereign. His laws are now our laws. His peace is now our peace."
She fell to her knees on the wooden planks of the balcony, bowing her head in a gesture of absolute, undeniable submission to the Black Dragon banners that fluttered above the courtyard.
"Live," she wept softly, her immense lingering spiritual influence washing over the crowd. "Do not throw your lives into the fires of pride. Live, and serve the Emperor."
The psychological impact of her public, tearful endorsement was immediate and absolute. The remaining Yamatai warlords in the crowd, men who would have gladly fought a twenty year guerrilla war in the dense jungles, wept openly and pressed their foreheads into the muddy earth.
If their goddess had yielded, what right did mortal men have to resist? Across the courtyard, the sharp, metallic clattering of hidden daggers and remaining bronze swords being thrown to the ground echoed like rainfall.
Because of her vital endorsement, the massive consolidation progress of Shikoku worked wonderfully and flawlessly. There were no uprisings in the outer fishing villages, there were no ambushes in the deep cedar forests.
To absolutely ensure the island's permanent integration into the empire, tens of thousands of heavily armored Hengyuan soldiers were permanently left behind to garrison the mountain forts and the vital coastal trading cities. This massive, unyielding occupation force was placed under the strict, uncompromising commands of several seasoned veteran Hengyuan generals.
More importantly, the brilliant strategist Jia Kui was officially appointed to stay behind. Clad in his pristine scholar's robes, Jia Kui wasted no time. He immediately began to meticulously oversee the political, cultural, and economic consolidation of Shikoku.
Within hours of Himiko's surrender, Jia Kui's scribes were already drafting new agricultural quotas, surveying the island's sulfur mines, mapping the geothermal vents for future industrial use, and establishing the foundational framework for Hengyuan taxation.
Meanwhile, having successfully conquered the eastern threat and decapitated the spiritual core of the archipelago, Supreme Commander Zhang Liao prepared to depart. He, along with the vast majority of the main army and the remaining three strategists, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, and Sima Yi, marched down the mountain to the secured coastlines.
They boarded the towering Vanguard warships, heavily escorted by the terrifying, unmatched might of the Hengyuan navy and the four grand admirals, Zhou Yu, Gan Ning, Jiang Qin, and Huang Zu.
As the massive iron anchors were raised and the steam engines roared to life, billowing thick black smoke into the pristine sky, the fleet headed back across the ocean strait. They left the pacified, mourning island of Shikoku behind, charting their course toward the consolidated lands of Honshu to prepare for the final, most mysterious phase of their continental conquest.
Weeks later, the climate had shifted drastically from the humid, sulfur scented jungles of Shikoku to the biting, bone chilling winds of the far north.
The Hengyuan army had established a massive, heavily fortified command encampment in the northernmost reaches of Honshu, near the shores of the freezing Tsugaru Strait. The sprawling main command pavilion was heavily insulated with thick furs and warmed by massive iron braziers burning high grade mainland coal, yet the aggressive chill of the northern autumn still managed to seep through the heavy canvas.
Inside the brightly lit pavilion, a highly detailed, deeply strategic scene was unfolding.
Zhang Liao stood at the head of a massive wooden table. Beside him stood the three strategic minds, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, and Sima Yi.
For weeks, they had been waiting. Now, the highly classified, lon awaited reports from the swift naval scouts and the deeply embedded Oriole Agents about the mysterious, freezing north island, known to the natives as Hokkaido, or Ezo, had finally arrived. Three Oriole Agents, their black silk uniforms crusted with sea salt and frost, knelt before the table. They unslung heavy, waterproofed leather satchels, reverently placing heavy bamboo scrolls and rough, hand drawn leather maps onto the table.
______________________________
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