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Clothed entirely in thick, white bear skins and seal pelts that perfectly camouflaged them against the blizzards, the native hunters launched terrifying, ghost like guerrilla ambushes. The Hengyuan soldiers would be marching slowly through chest deep snowbanks when suddenly, the snow itself would explode.
Tribal warriors, who had buried themselves for hours waiting for the column to pass, would erupt from beneath the deep snowbanks. They didn't engage in prolonged melee. They fired their heavy, recurved yew bows at terrifyingly close range.
The Hengyuan armor was thick, but the native hunters aimed for the exposed joints, the necks, and the faces of the soldiers. And their arrows were dipped in nightmare. The bone tips were heavily coated in a highly lethal, fast acting neurotoxin extracted from the wild monkshood root. A single, superficial scratch, a wound that a seasoned mainland veteran would usually brush off with a laugh, was an absolute death sentence.
Within minutes of being grazed, a Hengyuan soldier's lips would turn blue. They would begin to convulse violently in the snow, foaming at the mouth as the paralytic toxin aggressively attacked their nervous system, stopping their hearts completely before the medics could even reach them.
After unleashing a devastating area volley of these poisoned arrows, the tribal hunters would instantly drop to their bellies and melt seamlessly back into the blinding white blizzards, vanishing like phantoms before the Hengyuan repeating crossbowmen could even lock their sights.
In the eastern wetlands, the situation was even more harrowing. The hidden bogs, masked by thin layers of ice and fresh snow, swallowed heavily armored cavalrymen whole. The elder shamans of the Wetland tribes used the howling winds to mask their movements, picking off the stragglers and the logistics crews with terrifying efficiency. The Hengyuan supply lines were constantly bled, their sentries found frozen to trees the next morning with obsidian daggers driven through their throats.
The psychological toll on the Hengyuan ranks was immense. They were fighting an invisible enemy in a land that was actively trying to freeze the blood in their veins.
However, despite the horrifying environmental casualties, the agonizing frostbite, and the relentless, toxic tribal ambushes, the Hengyuan army was an unbreakable force of nature. They were not fragile conscripts; they were the absolute elite of the Black Dragon, forged in the fires of discipline and bound by an unyielding, fanatical loyalty to Emperor Lie Fan.
Inside the central command pavilion, which was currently pitched in the heart of a frozen pine forest, Supreme Commander Zhang Liao and the three strategists huddled around a massive iron brazier. Their maps were weighed down with stones to keep the freezing wind from tearing them away.
"We are bleeding out in the snow," Guo Jia rasped as he let out a cough for the cold, his pale face reflecting the glow of the coals. "They use the blizzards as their shields and the forests as their fortresses. Our infantry cannot fight what they cannot see."
"Then we strip them of their shield," Sima Yi stated, his voice a cold, terrifying blade that cut through the howling wind outside. His dark eyes burned with a ruthless, absolute strategic clarity. "We stop trying to fight a conventional infantry war against ghosts. If they hide in the forests, we remove the forests. If they hide under the snow, we melt the snow."
Xi Zhicai's eyes widened slightly as he grasped the horrific, brilliant scale of Sima Yi's proposition. "A scorched earth campaign. But in the dead of winter."
"Exactly," Zhang Liao growled, his massive fist slamming onto the table. "Bring up the heavy siege trains. Bring up every single barrel of alchemical fire we have in the reserves. We will burn this frozen hell to the bedrock."
The climax of the battle for Hokkaido was not a clash of two grand armies, it was an epic, apocalyptic display of fire destruction against the raw forces of nature.
Zhang Liao and the strategists ruthlessly adapted to the cold. They completely restructured their marching columns. The heavy infantry formed massive, impenetrable squares around the artillery trains, moving at a slow, relentless crawl.
Whenever the forward scouts detected a potential ambush site, or whenever an arrow flew from the dense tree lines, the Hengyuan army did not send men into the woods to pursue. They halted.
The sky darkening Hwachas, mounted on heavy, reinforced sleds to glide over the snow, were wheeled forward. The massive Fire Oil Cabinets, their brass nozzles gleaming in the gray light, were primed and pressurized.
With a deafening, coordinated roar, the Hengyuan artillery unleashed absolute hell upon the landscape. They utilized their advanced weaponry not just to kill the enemy warriors, but to literally alter the geography of the battlefield.
Thousands of explosive, rocket propelled arrows shrieked into the dense, ancient timber forests. The Fire Oil Cabinets vomited long, sweeping arcs of unquenchable, sticky liquid fire directly into the snow-choked ravines and the thick underbrush.
The results were catastrophic and awe inspiring. The extreme, arctic cold clashed violently with the sheer, blinding heat of the mainland alchemy. Entire sections of the primeval pine forests erupted into towering infernos, the resin-rich trees burning like massive torches against the gray sky. The heat was so intense that the deep, freezing snowbanks instantly flash-melted, turning the pristine white landscape into a roaring, boiling quagmire of mud and ash.
The hidden tribal settlements, the semi subterranean pit houses dug along the freezing rivers, were systematically located by the dense smoke of their own hearths and utterly incinerated. The blazing liquid fire poured down into their underground homes, turning their insulated sanctuaries into agonizing ovens.
The fiercely independent native hunters, stripped of their freezing cover, flushed out of the burning snowbanks, and choking on the thick, toxic black smoke of the burning forests, were finally forced out into the open.
And waiting for them in the open was the absolute, unyielding discipline of the Hengyuan heavy infantry.
As the tribal warriors stumbled blindly from the burning treelines, their bear skins singed and their lungs burning, the Hengyuan repeating crossbowmen unleashed walls of iron-tipped bolts. The armored halberdiers marched relentlessly through the howling blizzards and the boiling mud, their faces devoid of pity, cutting down the surviving natives with mechanical, sweeping strikes. They endured the freezing hell and the roaring heat of the fires through sheer, fanatical discipline.
The tribes of Hokkaido could not comprehend this level of destruction. They could fight the cold, and they could fight men, but they could not fight an empire that possessed the power to set the winter itself on fire.
Slowly but surely, the brutal, one sided war of attrition ground to its inevitable, bloody conclusion. The Ishikari confederations were slaughtered along their boiling rivers. The Wetland animists saw their sacred bogs turned into scorched craters. The terrifying Ice Clans of the far north, pushed to the absolute edge of the freezing sea, were completely broken by the apocalyptic firepower, their bone spears proving utterly useless against the heavy iron grapeshot of the advancing field cannons.
The native tribes were either starved out as their winter food caches were burned, incinerated in the forests, or completely, psychologically broken by the sheer, unfathomable might of the invaders. Those who survived threw their bows into the ash and fell to their knees in the bloody, soot-stained snow, surrendering to the demons of the south.
The epic, grueling battle for the north officially ended. The entirety of Hokkaido, the massive, untamed geographical behemoth, was fully, permanently conquered.
At the northernmost tip of the island, standing on a sheer cliff overlooking the turbulent, ice-choked waters of the Sea of Okhotsk, Supreme Commander Zhang Liao dismounted his exhausted warhorse. He walked to the edge of the precipice, the freezing ocean spray coating his dark armor in a thin layer of rime.
With a heavy, resonant grunt of exertion, Zhang Liao drove the thick, iron shod wooden pole of the grand Hengyuan banner deep into the freezing, blood stained snow. The heavy silk flag, bearing the terrifying visage of the Black Dragon, caught the fierce northern wind, snapping violently as it looked out over the endless ice.
Immediately after the slaughter ceased and the fires died down, leaving a scarred, blackened landscape in their wake, the meticulous, brilliant process of political and military consolidation was efficiently executed by the strategists.
Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, and Sima Yi did not let the army rest. They utilized the massive influx of raw timber from the burned forests to establish massive, permanent winter fortresses across the Ishikari plains and along the rugged eastern coasts. These brutalist, heavily insulated citadels were designed to project imperial power and survive the harshest blizzards, garrisoned by thousands of mainland troops rotated constantly to prevent mutiny from the cold.
The surviving, terrified northern tribes were officially tied into the imperial tributary system. They were stripped of their weapons and forced to pay exorbitant seasonal tributes of rare furs, sea lion oil, and mined obsidian to the newly installed imperial magistrates. The fractured, independent spirit of the Epi-Jōmon hunters was crushed beneath the heavy, bureaucratic boot of the mainland administration.
With Hokkaido finally, brutally subjugated, the grand, apocalyptic vision of the Emperor was realized.
The entirety of the Wa archipelago, from the tropical, humid southern shores of Kyushu, through the wealthy, rice laden plains of Honshu, across the mystical, mountainous jungles of Shikoku, all the way up to the absolute, freezing northern tips of Ezo, was finally, completely conquered.
The blood feuds of the ancient clans, the mystical reigns of the Shaman Queens, and the fierce independence of the northern tribes were all violently erased, replaced by a single, unified grid of imperial taxation, iron wagonways, and standing armies. The fractured islands were permanently consolidated under the absolute, eternal rule of the Hengyuan Dynasty.
Standing beside the banner on the northern cliff, Sima Yi pulled his thick fur cloak tighter around his shoulders, looking out over the frozen sea. He turned to Zhang Liao and the other strategists, his breath pluming in the freezing air, a rare, genuine smile of absolute triumph gracing his cold features.
"The earth ends here," Sima Yi stated quietly, the wind carrying his words across the ice. "And so does our conquest. We have given the Emperor the Eastern archipelago. Now, we return to the capital, and we watch how he intends to use its to his advantage yet again."
The freezing winds of Hokkaido still carried the metallic tang of blood and the suffocating scent of scorched timber, but the true conquest of the north was no longer being waged with black powder and iron. It was being waged with ink, parchment, and a cruelty far more insidious than any blade.
Right over the blood stained snow of the Ishikari plains, the strict, uncompromising consolidation of Hokkaido was immediately implemented. Inside a hastily erected, heavily insulated command longhouse, the three peerless strategists, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, and Sima Yi, sat behind a long wooden table. They did not see a frozen wasteland, they saw a bureaucratic ledger waiting to be balanced.
Rather than expending the exhausting manpower required to independently police a dozen fractured, culturally distinct clans spread across thousands of miles of hostile terrain, the strategists brilliantly orchestrated a ruthless, unprecedented bureaucratic assimilation.
The surviving chieftains, elder shamans, and war leaders of the north were dragged into the longhouse in heavy iron chains. The wealthy traders of the Oshima Peninsula, the brutal ambushers of the Ishikari plains, the mystical Wetland animists, and the feral survivalists of the Ice Clans were forced to kneel shoulder to shoulder in the mud.
Sima Yi stood before them, a heavy silk scroll in his hands. With a cold, imperious voice translated by terrified interpreters, he decreed the absolute dissolution of their ancient bloodlines.
"You are no longer Oshima. You are no longer Ishikari or Ice Clans," Sima Yi declared, his dark eyes sweeping over the kneeling, battered leaders. "By the decree of the Dragon Throne, your tribal names are hereby erased from the earth. From this day until the end of time, you are all officially classified under one single united identity and banner, the Ezo Tributary."
The strategists forcefully merged them. They mandated that the survivors be relocated and consolidated into massive, heavily guarded winter encampments built around the new Hengyuan fortresses. By systematically stripping them of their individual tribal identities, their sacred hunting grounds, and their ancestral names, it became exponentially easier for the Hengyuan garrisons to legally and militarily control them.
They were issued the same coarse mainland tunics, assigned identical rations, and forced to abide by a single, monolithic set of imperial laws.
Furthermore, this was a masterful, deeply cynical stroke of psychological warfare.
The strategists intimately knew the deep seated hatreds that divided these people. By forcefully merging ancient blood-rivals, forcing the inland ambushers to share fire and grain with the coastal fishermen they had warred against for centuries, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, and Sima Yi intentionally laid the groundwork for perpetual chaos.
Almost immediately, the engineered infighting began. Deprived of their ancestral hierarchies and crammed into the same freezing camps, the natives constantly engaged in bitter, violent internal conflicts over the meager resources, firewood, and the new, artificial leadership roles imposed upon them. Fistfights and bloody brawls erupted daily in the mud.
Standing on the wooden battlements of their new fortress, looking down at the squabbling, divided natives, Guo Jia coughed lightly into his fur lined collar and shared a dark, predatory smile with his colleagues.
"Let them hate each other," Guo Jia murmured, watching an Oshima trader throttle an Ice Clan hunter over a stolen fish. "Let them bleed each other over scraps of wood. This engineered infighting will keep their warriors entirely distracted. It prevents them from ever uniting or even thinking of rebelling against our garrisons."
It was a flawless, cold blooded strategy. The northern tribes would remain entirely consumed by their own petty, manufactured civil wars until the heavy military consolidation of the island was fully completed. By the time the dust settled, they would no longer possess any physical power, unity, or weapons left to overthrow their permanent, unbreakable status as a subservient tributary of the Hengyuan Dynasty.
Weeks later, the brutal chill of the north faded into the temperate, vibrant embrace of the central plains. The grand, historic regrouping of the entire Hengyuan high command was finally at hand.
Zhang Liao, the three strategists, the four veteran admirals, Zhou Yu, Gan Ning, Jiang Qin, and Huang Zu, and the brilliant Jia Kui, who had successfully finished his initial, sweeping pacification duties at Shikoku, all triumphantly converged back in the lush, pacified lands of Honshu.
Here, amidst the fertile valleys and roaring rivers that had been secured by the blood of the central coalition, a massive, last minute island wide consolidation and military evaluation was meticulously conducted. The island was broken; now it had to be rebuilt in the Emperor's image.
Shortly after the high command's arrival, the defeated Governor Tarashihiko was formally invited to the center of Honshu. It was an invitation only in name, he was escorted under heavy armed guard, surrounded by hundreds of towering, silent Ghost Bodyguards.
When Governor Tarashihiko arrived at the designated location, a breathtakingly beautiful, sprawling valley surrounded by rolling green hills, he was struck dumb by the sheer magnitude of what he saw.
Massive wooden foundations were already being laid out across miles of the valley floor. Thousands of native laborers, guided by loud, exacting mainland engineers, were digging deep trenches, diverting river flows for aqueducts, and hauling massive, perfectly cut stone blocks. A grand new island capital was formally being birthed from the dirt, assigned and named "Kyoto" under Emperor Lie Fan's direct, visionary order.
Standing amidst the deafening noise of the construction, Tarashihiko felt incredibly small. He was led into a pristine, open air command pavilion overlooking the rising city. Waiting for him were the four strategists. They did not offer him tea. They did not offer him a seat.
Jia Kui unrolled a heavy scroll bearing the Imperial seal. The four strategists coldly and systematically laid out the terms of the special governorship position he had been mercifully granted by the Emperor.
"You will reign over this archipelago, Governor Tarashihiko," Jia Kui stated, his voice a flat, uncompromising bureaucratic drone. "But you will not rule it. You are the face. We are the spine."
Sima Yi stepped forward, his gaze pinning the former king to the spot. "You are strictly ordered to ensure a perfectly compliant, pro Hengyuan tributary government. You will ensure the silver flows to Xiapi. You will ensure the rice quotas are met. You will quell any whispers of dissent before they reach our ears. You will adopt our laws, our language, and our calendar."
Guo Jia leaned against a wooden pillar, twirling a jade pendant. "And in return for your unwavering obedience, His Majesty is exceedingly generous. As long as absolute loyalty is maintained without a single flaw throughout your rule, this prestigious puppet position will be passed to you and your family for generations to come. You will live in unimaginable luxury here in Kyoto. You will be a king in all the ways that do not matter."
Governor Tarashihiko looked at the four men, then looked out at the massive Hengyuan armies drilling in the distance, their flintlocks cracking like thunder. He looked at the foundation of Kyoto, a city built to cage him. He had absolutely no choice.
With pain of huge humiliation stinging his eyes, Governor Tarashihiko swallowed the last remnants of his ancient pride. He dropped to his knees, pressing his forehead deeply into the dirt of the pavilion, and accepted his gilded cage.
"I live only to serve the Dragon Throne," he whispered, formally sealing the fate of the Wa archipelago.
With the entirety of the archipelago finally pacified, the borders secured, and the puppet government officially established, the four strategists decided that it was time to finally head back to the mainland.
They needed to personally report their glorious, world altering victory to the Emperor himself. The grand fleet was assembled at the newly fortified docks of Osaka bay. The towering steamships belched black smoke, eager to return across the ocean strait. They did not return empty handed. Placed under the absolute, heavy protection of the best, most elite Hengyuan soldiers and the most heavily armored warships, they brought their greatest prizes.
______________________________
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