Reborn In The Three Kingdoms

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(A/N: Don’t forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)

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The armies of Hengyuan, bolstered by the traitorous forces of their former brethren, were swarming through the mountains like a plague of locusts made of iron and fire. Panic, absolute and suffocating, seized the three remaining lords. Their armies were surprised, scattered, and actively being butchered. Their allies were traitors. Their mountains were burning. The endgame of the northwest had arrived, and it was entirely bathed in blood.

​What followed the catastrophic betrayal of Yan Xing and Cheng Li was not a series of battles, but an unmitigated, continent-shaking rout. The armies of Lu Kan, Mang Xing, and Yang Qiu, which had spent the last several weeks desperately holding the treacherous, narrow mountain passes of Liang Province, suddenly found themselves caught in a terrifying, inescapable vise of iron, fire, and absolute treachery.

​The physical and psychological toll of fighting a two-front war against both an invincible empire and their own former brethren was completely devastating.

The defensive lines, meticulously constructed over years to repel eastern invaders, were entirely useless when the daggers were plunged directly into their backs. In the northern, southern, and central valleys, the loyalist soldiers of the remaining three lords were pushed back aggressively, losing their hard won ground at a staggering, uncontrollable rate.

​Panic, the most infectious and lethal disease on any battlefield, spread through the ranks like a wildfire in dry brush. Commanders lost communication with their lieutenants.

Supply lines were severed, not by Hengyuan saboteurs, but by the desert cavalry of Yan Xing and Cheng Li, who knew the hidden mountain routes just as intimately as the men they were slaughtering.

​High upon a ridge overlooking the sprawling, chaotic slaughter of the central valley, the command pavilion of the Hengyuan strategists buzzed with relentless, cold efficiency.

​Chen Deng and Fa Zheng stood side by side, their eyes scanning the massive clouds of dust rising from the basin below.

The rhythmic, earth shaking booms of the Black Dragon Cannons and the terrifying, sky darkening volleys of the heavy trebuchets continued to pound the retreating enemy formations into the dust.

​Fa Zheng’s lips curled into a sharp, predatory smile. He watched through a spyglass as a massive column of Yang Qiu’s infantry completely disintegrated under a coordinated pincer attack from Zhang Fei’s heavy cavalry and a wave of Cheng Li’s traitorous spearmen.

​”The spine is snapped,” Fa Zheng declared, his voice carrying the chilling, absolute certainty of a master executioner. He lowered the spyglass, turning to his aristocratic counterpart. ”Lu Kan, Mang Xing, and Yang Qiu have lost total cohesion. Their command structure is in shambles, their men are throwing down their weapons and fleeing into the hills, and their remaining loyalist generals are fighting blind. They cannot mount a single, coordinated defense anymore.”

​Chen Deng nodded slowly, his eyes reflecting the blazing fires of the burning watchtowers below. ”The pressure we applied, combined with the Chancellor’s flawless poison, has yielded the perfect harvest. The League is a corpse thrashing in the mud.”

​”Then it is time to sever the head entirely,” Fa Zheng urged, his eyes burning with the ruthless desire to end the campaign immediately. ”We must unleash the full, unbridled might of the Hengyuan armies. Let Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Huang Zhong off the leash entirely. Issue the general order for an all out, unrelenting pursuit.”

​”We will unleash them, Fa Zheng, but we do not abandon our discipline,” Chen Deng agreed, though he held up a hand to temper the aggressive enthusiasm with standard Hengyuan pragmatism.

”The enemy is broken, yes. But a cornered rat will still bite, and the terrain of Liang Province remains treacherous. We will order the general advance at maximum speed, but standard cautions must be sounded and strictly adhered to. The vanguards are not to outrun their supply lines, and scouts must secure the high ridges before the heavy infantry enters any blind ravines. We will crush them at a blisteringly fast rate, but we will not bleed for land that is already falling into our hands.”

​Fa Zheng nodded in agreement, recognizing the flawless logic. He immediately turned to the waiting relay officers. ”Sound the general advance! No quarter for armed combatants, but secure the passes with absolute caution. Run them out of the province!”

​As the massive war drums of the Hengyuan command echoed across the valleys, signaling the total unleashing of the imperial armies, a specific contingent of twenty thousand soldiers moved with a terrifying, mechanical perfection that set them apart from the rest of the host.

​These were the elite Central Army troops, and they were commanded by a group of men who had everything to prove: the seven former Wei Generals.

​Yue Jin, Li Dian, Xu Huang, Gao Lan, Yu Jin, Zhang He, and Pang De had assimilated flawlessly with their new soldiers. The camaraderie forged over the campfires on the eve of battle had translated into an unbreakable, lethal synergy in the mud.

For these seven commanders, this campaign was not just about securing territory, it was about washing away the stigma of their surrender in a baptism of absolute martial glory. They needed to show Emperor Lie Fan that the men he had spared were worth their weight in gold.

​And they led their twenty thousand soldiers splendidly.

​In the eastern corridors of Liang Province, Yu Jin maintained a standard of military discipline that bordered on the fanatical.

As the enemy routed, it was tempting for soldiers to break formation and chase down stragglers for individual glory or loot. Yu Jin absolutely forbade it. He kept his heavy infantry locked in tight, impenetrable shield walls, advancing like a relentless, suffocating glacier.

Any enemy counterattack that attempted to exploit a gap in the Hengyuan lines crashed against Yu Jin’s formation and shattered into nothingness. His flawless, zero casualty advances earned him massive commendations from the army inspectors.

​Yue Jin and Li Dian operated as a terrifying, perfectly balanced pair. Li Dian, the scholar general, continuously analyzed the shifting, chaotic topography of the retreating enemy, identifying hidden goat paths and dry riverbeds. He would then vector Yue Jin’s rapid assault infantry through these hidden arteries.

Yue Jin, a man of aggressive, unyielding forward momentum, would suddenly appear on the flanks of retreating warlord columns, devastating them before they even realized they were being outmaneuvered.

​Gao Lan acted as the immovable anchor for the entire twenty thousand man division. While the others pushed forward, Gao Lan fortified the newly captured supply depots and mountain checkpoints in record time.

His logistical brilliance ensured that, no matter how fast Xu Huang or Pang De pushed the vanguard, they never lacked for arrows, grain, or fresh water. He was the unsung hero of the advance, gaining quiet, profound merit from Chen Deng for his flawless securing of the rear.

​Zhang He was a phantom on the battlefield. Utilizing his deep understanding of deceptive warfare, he routinely baited desperate pockets of Mang Xing’s loyalists into beautifully constructed traps.

He would feign a chaotic retreat, drawing the enemy out from their fortified caves, only to have his hidden archers rain death upon them from the surrounding cliffs. His adaptable, shifting tactics completely dismantled the defensive strategies of the warlords.

​But it was Xu Huang and Pang De who reaped the most visceral, terrifying glory.

​Xu Huang, wielding his massive battle axe, was a force of pure, unstoppable destruction. When the retreating forces of Lu Kan attempted to bottleneck the Hengyuan advance by sealing a massive, iron reinforced wooden gate in the narrow Jiange Pass, it was Xu Huang who stepped forward.

Ignoring the rain of arrows bouncing off his heavy armor, he waded into the frontline, his axe swinging in massive, devastating arcs. He literally chopped the fortified gate to splinters under the sheer, terrifying power of his blows, opening the path for the Hengyuan infantry to flood the pass.

​And Pang De, operating in the harsh, arid environment of his youth, was a nightmare made flesh for the enemy. He led the White Horse Vanguard through blinding dust storms and freezing night marches, moving with a speed that defied military logic.

He continually outpaced the retreating armies of Yang Qiu, appearing ahead of them, blocking their escape routes, and forcing them to surrender by the thousands.

​Merit after merit, commendation after commendation, the names of the seven generals filled the dispatch reports sent back to the capital. They were no longer the disgraced ghosts of Wei; they were the razor sharp fangs of the Black Dragon.

​Under the overwhelming, combined pressure of the unleashed Hengyuan armies and the ruthless betrayal of their own allies, the entire map of Liang Province rapidly shifted colors.

​The ancient, stone walled citadels fell one by one. The fertile river valleys were secured, the mountain passes were garrisoned, and the vital arteries of the Silk Road were firmly placed under the absolute control of the Hengyuan Dynasty. The resistance of the northwestern warlords had been completely pulverized.

​However, Lu Kan, Mang Xing, and Yang Qiu were not entirely dead yet.

​Recognizing that holding the lowlands of Liang Province was a geographic impossibility against the endless tide of imperial soldiers, the three desperately battered lords made a final, agonizing decision. They gathered the shattered, bleeding remnants of their loyalist armies, perhaps no more than thirty thousand men combined, and initiated a brutal, grueling retreat out of the province entirely.

​They were pushed relentlessly westward, abandoning their ancestral homes, burning their own granaries to deny the enemy supplies, and fleeing toward the only geographic feature in the region capable of halting the Hengyuan war machine.

​They fled up into the freezing, breathless heights of the Qinghai Plateau.

​Known as the roof of the world, the Qinghai Plateau was an immense, naturally fortified expanse of high altitude steppes, jagged glaciers, and freezing, oxygen deprived air. It was a harsh, unforgiving environment that crippled massive armies.

The heavy armor of the Hengyuan infantry would become a freezing death trap, and the massive supply trains required to feed hundreds of thousands of men could not traverse the narrow, sheer cliff-side paths leading up to the plateau.

The three lords of the league, desperate and terrified, poured their remaining strength into fortifying the few viable entry points to the plateau.

They built crude stone walls across the icy ravines, stockpiled whatever meager rations they had salvaged, and prepared to make their final, freezing stand. They could no longer project power or threaten the empire, but they could bleed any army stupid enough to follow them into the clouds.

Down in the newly conquered, heavily fortified capital city of Liang Province, the Hengyuan high command had established its operational headquarters.

The grand hall of the citadel, which just weeks ago had belonged to an independent warlord, was now draped in the imposing black banners of the Hengyuan Dynasty. The transition of power was absolute.

Sitting behind a wide, polished mahogany table at the head of the hall were Chen Deng and Fa Zheng. The two brilliant strategists were reviewing the latest topographical maps of the Qinghai Plateau, analyzing the terrifying logistical hurdles presented by the high altitude.

”They have crawled into an eagle’s nest,” Fa Zheng noted, tapping a long wooden pointer against a particularly sheer cliff face marked on the map. ”If we send Guan Yu’s heavy cavalry up there, the horses’ lungs will burst before they even see the enemy, and our men will freeze to death in their armor. It is a natural fortress.”

”Indeed,” Chen Deng agreed smoothly, his aristocratic face calm. ”Which is exactly why we will not fight the mountain. We will let the men who know the mountain fight it for us.”

Chen Deng gestured to the heavy wooden doors at the far end of the hall. ”Bring them in.”

The heavy oak doors were hauled open by imperial guards. Walking into the grand hall, stripped of their sovereign titles but dressed in the fine silk robes of newly appointed imperial governors, were the two men who had handed Liang Province to the Emperor on a silver platter.

Yan Xing and Cheng Li.

The moment the two men crossed the threshold and saw each other, the temperature in the room seemed to plummet.

Yan Xing’s hands immediately balled into tight fists, his jaw clenching so hard the muscles jumped in his cheeks. He glared at Cheng Li with an absolute, venomous hatred, his eyes burning with the memory of the betrayal. Cheng Li returned the glare with equal, unmasked ferocity, his lip curling into a silent, contemptuous snarl.

They were standing barely five feet apart, but the invisible chasm of paranoia and hatred expertly dug by Chancellor Jia Xu completely separated them. They despised each other, each viewing the other as the cowardly, backstabbing snake who had ruined the League.

However, they were no longer independent warlords, they were servants of the throne. Suppressing their urge to draw hidden daggers and murder each other on the spot, the two men forcefully tore their gazes away from one another and faced the two Hengyuan strategists.

In perfect, albeit stiff, synchronization, Yan Xing and Cheng Li brought their hands together, cupping them respectfully, and bowed deeply from the waist.

”We greet the exalted strategists of His Imperial Majesty,” they chorused, their voices tight with forced humility.

Chen Deng and Fa Zheng remained seated, projecting the absolute, effortless authority of the winning side. They returned the greeting with brief, polite nods of their heads.

”Lords Yan Xing and Cheng Li,” Chen Deng began, his voice smooth as polished jade, dripping with a diplomatic courtesy that barely concealed his underlying command. ”Welcome. We have summoned you here to formally commend you. You have both done a truly magnificent job. By choosing the path of wisdom and siding with the Hengyuan Dynasty, you have saved tens of thousands of lives and secured a prosperous, peaceful future for your commanderies. The Emperor is deeply pleased with your swift integration.”

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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