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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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Lie Fan had deliberately ignored them during the campaign against Wei, viewing them as a secondary threat that could be dealt with later. But now, with the board wiped clean, they required his absolute, undivided attention.
Furthermore, they had stubbornly refused to send emissaries to the capital. They had offered no tribute, and they had extended no acknowledgment of the Hengyuan Dynasty's supreme mandate over the earth. It was an insult that a unified empire could not tolerate.
'That must be it,' Lie Fan realized, a cold, calculating light returning to his eyes. 'That is why Wenhe is waiting for me in the study. The Oriole network has been operating in Liang Province for quite some time now against them. They are ready to report on the shadows we have cast over the northwest.'
With his strategic focus entirely renewed, Lie Fan felt the lethargy of the morning vanish. The execution was the past; Liang Province was the future.
He rose from the water, the hot droplets cascading down his scarred, muscular chest. He stepped out of the tub, taking a thick, warm linen towel from the nearby rack, and quickly, vigorously dried himself. The physical act of cleansing felt incredibly symbolic.
He was washing away the blood of the old warlord era, preparing himself to govern the new one.
He dressed quickly in the comfortable, yet impeccably tailored indoor robes that the maids had laid out for him, a simple, elegant combination of dark blue silk with silver threading at the cuffs.
Refreshed, clean, and carrying a new, lethal purpose, Lie Fan stepped out of the bathing chambers and strode purposefully down the quiet, sunlit corridors toward his private administrative study.
As he walked, two towering figures detached themselves from the shadows of the hallway and fell into a perfect, silent step behind him.
They were two of his elite Yellow Ghost Bodyguards, their heavy armor replaced by dark, unassuming palace tunics, but their lethal vigilance remained entirely undiminished. They moved like phantoms, an ever present shield for their sovereign.
Lie Fan reached the heavy rosewood doors of his study. The two bodyguards took up their positions flanking the entrance, their hands resting on the hilts of their concealed swords. Lie Fan pushed the doors open and stepped inside.
The study was a massive, beautiful room lined with towering shelves of bamboo records, ancient strategic texts, and meticulously drawn maps of the continent. The afternoon sun streamed through the latticed windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
Standing near the large mahogany desk in the center of the room was Chancellor Jia Xu.
But Jia Xu was not alone.
Standing beside the spymaster, gently waving his signature white feather fan, was Zhuge Liang, the brilliant Minister of Personnel.
Lie Fan halted just inside the doorway, his eyebrows rising in genuine surprise. He had explicitly expected a private intelligence briefing from his spymaster; the presence of the man in charge of bureaucratic appointments was a highly unusual deviation from protocol.
"Wenhe. Kongming," Lie Fan greeted the both of them, his voice calm and resonant as he walked toward his desk. "This is an unexpected gathering. I expected shadows, but it seems I have also drawn the light of our administration."
The two incredibly powerful advisors immediately turned to face their Emperor, bringing their hands together and bowing deeply.
"We greet His Imperial Majesty," they chorused respectfully.
Lie Fan walked around the massive mahogany desk and took his seat in the high backed wooden chair, gesturing for the two men to take the smaller, comfortable chairs positioned opposite him.
Once they were seated, Lie Fan leaned back, resting his hands on the armrests, and looked directly at Zhuge Liang.
"I confess I am curious, Kongming," Lie Fan began, getting straight to the point. "Only the Chancellor requested an audience with me following the dismissal in the antechamber. Why have you accompanied him to my study?"
Zhuge Liang closed his feather fan with a soft snap, placing it gently in his lap. His serene, youthful face was etched with a profound, highly analytical seriousness.
"I beg Your Majesty's forgiveness for the intrusion," Zhuge Liang spoke, his melodious voice carrying the weight of a massive administrative dilemma. "But the matter I bring before you is of paramount importance to the immediate military and political structure of our dynasty. I wished to ask Your Majesty's direct opinion on a highly sensitive issue regarding the events in the subterranean prisons this morning."
Lie Fan's eyes narrowed slightly in understanding. "You speak of the Wei generals."
"I do, Your Majesty," Zhuge Liang nodded deeply. "We have successfully recruited the seven generals, Yue Jin, Li Dian, Yu Jin, Zhang He, Xu Huang, Pang De, and Gao Lan. As the Minister of Personnel, it is my absolute duty to assign them appropriate ranks, units, and territorial postings. They are undeniably top tier generals, and they are incredibly capable in their own right. They could secure our borders for a generation."
Zhuge Liang leaned forward slightly, his eyes filled with genuine, pragmatic caution. "However, Your Majesty, we cannot ignore the historical reality. They are still men of the dynasty we just dismantled. Many of them, like Yue Jin and Li Dian, have been serving Cao Cao for decades."
"They grew up in his camps. They ate his grain. Even though they knelt to you in the dark, their true, foundational loyalty remains highly questionable. If I station them together, or give them command of heavily fortified border passes, they could easily turn their cloaks the moment they feel the wind shift against us."
Lie Fan listened to the entirely valid, incredibly cautious HR assessment of his brilliant minister. It was exactly the kind of paranoid, structural thinking that made Zhuge Liang so invaluable to the state.
A slow, confident smile spread across Lie Fan's face. He rested his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers together.
"Your caution is the shield of this empire, Kongming," Lie Fan praised him warmly. "But on this specific matter, you are looking at the embers and fearing a forest fire. I assure you, they will never betray the Hengyuan Dynasty."
Zhuge Liang tilted his head slightly. "Your Majesty seems absolutely certain."
"I am," Lie Fan affirmed, his voice carrying the absolute, unshakeable logic of a supreme strategist. "Ask yourself this, Kongming. If they were to betray us, what banner would they fly? Whose name would they shout as they marched against my capital?"
Lie Fan gestured toward the window, toward the eastern hills where the burial preparations were already underway.
"A rebellion requires a figurehead. It requires a claim to the mandate. The Cao Clan is extinct," Lie Fan stated brutally, the reality of the morning's execution serving as the ultimate political deterrent.
"There are absolutely no male members of Cao Cao's bloodline left alive for them to rally behind. There is no prince waiting in the shadows. If they rebel, they do not rebel as loyalists restoring a fallen king, they rebel as mere bandits, as masterless men seeking personal power. And men like Yu Jin and Li Dian despise bandits more than anything on this earth."
Lie Fan looked at Zhuge Liang, his eyes gleaming with profound insight into human nature. "Furthermore, they are not fools. Specifically look at men like Zhang He and Gao Lan. They are brilliant, pragmatic survivors. They have already survived the fall of Yuan Shao, and now they have survived the fall of Cao Cao. They understand the absolute trajectory of power. They know that the Hengyuan Dynasty cannot be defeated. They bent the knee because they want to live, they want glory, and they want to be part of a winning legacy."
Lie Fan lowered his hands, delivering his final directive on the matter.
"Do not sideline them out of fear, Kongming," Lie Fan ordered. "Integrate them. Split them up, yes. Assign them Hengyuan loyalists as their deputies to keep a watchful eye on their ledgers, but put them into units and territorial positions that allow the Dynasty to benefit the most from their specific, magnificent talents. Send Zhang He to map the western mountains. Send Xu Huang to the northern plains. Let them bleed for their new titles, and they will soon forget the old ones."
Zhuge Liang's eyes widened slightly as he absorbed the flawless, psychological mastery of the Emperor's logic. The eradication of the Cao bloodline had not just been a matter of vengeance, it had been the essential, horrific surgery required to guarantee the loyalty of the surviving Wei military apparatus. Without a king to serve, the generals were permanently untethered from the past.
"Your Majesty's wisdom pierces through the fog," Zhuge Liang bowed his head in profound respect. "I understand completely. I shall draft their deployments and integrate them into our vanguard units immediately, maximizing their utility for the state."
But Zhuge Liang was not entirely finished. He raised his head once more, pivoting seamlessly from the military to the civil sector.
"If that is the case for the swords of Wei, Your Majesty," Zhuge Liang inquired, his eyes sharp, "how about the brushes? How about Cao Cao's civil advisors?"
Lie Fan's brow furrowed slightly. The sheer chaos of the executions had temporarily pushed the brilliant scholars of the Wei court from his immediate schedule.
"The likes of Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Cheng Yu, and Jia Kui," Zhuge Liang continued, naming the terrifyingly brilliant minds that had governed the central plains.
"You have not gone to meet them in the detention pavilions yet. If they could be persuaded to pledge their allegiance to Your Majesty with the same success as the generals, the benefits would be astronomical. It would massively accelerate the stabilization of the bureaucracy. Their expertise would be invaluable for managing the future frontier provinces, and their diplomatic acumen could handle our new vassals and tributaries flawlessly."
Lie Fan nodded his head slowly. Zhuge Liang was absolutely right. The Wei generals were the muscle, but the Wei advisors were the central nervous system. To absorb them would be to conquer a hundred cities without drawing a sword.
"You are correct, Kongming. Their minds are national treasures," Lie Fan agreed. "I have deliberately kept them separated from the military prisoners. I will be meeting with them personally tomorrow, immediately after I return from presiding over the burial of Cao Cao, his clan members, and the five Wei Generals. We will see if the ashes of their former lord make them more pliable, or more stubborn. Do not worry about them for now; focus on the military deployments."
"I shall do exactly that, Your Majesty," Zhuge Liang smiled, his primary administrative anxieties entirely alleviated by the Emperor's clear directives. "I thank Your Majesty for your precious time and your unparalleled insight."
Zhuge Liang stood up smoothly, bowing deeply, and moved to take his leave, allowing the Chancellor to finally step into the light.
As the study doors closed softly behind the Minister of Personnel, Lie Fan turned his full, undivided attention to the master of shadows sitting across from him.
"Now, Wenhe," Lie Fan said, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial register. "Kongming's concerns have been addressed. Let us return to the real reason you are here. Can you give me your report from the Oriole agents embedded in Liang Province?"
Jia Xu offered a thin, razor sharp smile. He reached into the wide, dark sleeve of his robes and produced a tightly rolled silk scroll, sealed with black wax.
"With pleasure, Your Imperial Majesty," Jia Xu murmured, offering the scroll across the mahogany desk with both hands.
Lie Fan took the scroll, breaking the wax seal with his thumb, and unrolled the pristine silk.
"As you commanded some time ago," Jia Xu began, gesturing gracefully for Lie Fan to read as he provided the verbal briefing, "the Oriole agents have utilize the trade caravans, the brothels, and the supply lines of the northwest. We have not utilized assassins or poison. The League of Northwestern Lords is a fragile alliance built entirely on mutual greed and paranoia. We simply provided the paranoia."
Jia Xu's eyes gleamed with the dark, twisted joy of an artist describing his masterpiece.
"The Oriole agents have made absolutely sure to cause catastrophic internal conflict inside the league," Jia Xu reported, his raspy voice filling the quiet study. "Through forged letters, whispered rumors in the ears of jealous concubines, and the deliberate, 'accidental' misdirection of grain shipments, we have turned them against one another. Yan Xing, Lu Kan, Cheng Li, Mang Xing, and Yang Qiu, the primary pillars of their coalition, have begun to grow incredibly suspicious of each other's motives."
Lie Fan's eyes scanned the elegant calligraphy on the scroll, reading detailed accounts of border skirmishes between supposedly allied warlords, and intercepted missives accusing one another of secret deals with the capital.
"They have entirely stopped sharing intelligence," Jia Xu continued. "They have separated into heavily armed, paranoid factions within their own territories. The grand coalition that threatened our western gates is currently too busy watching its own back to look toward Chang'An."
"This is brilliant work, Wenhe. Flawless sabotage," Lie Fan praised him, reading a specific paragraph that caught his eye. He looked up. "But the report says you have moved beyond mere sabotage. You have made direct contact."
Jia Xu nodded his head slowly, confirming the most sensitive part of the operation.
"Indeed, Your Majesty," Jia Xu said softly. "While the others bicker, the highest ranking Oriole operatives managed to secure highly classified, face to face talks with two of the leaders, Yan Xing and Cheng Li. We bypassed the threats and offered them gold, titles, and permanent governance of their respective commanderies if they turn their cloaks and shatter the league from the inside for us."
Lie Fan leaned forward, deeply intrigued. "And their response?"
"They are pragmatists, Your Majesty," Jia Xu smiled thinly. "They know the Black Dragon has swallowed the central plains. They know their league cannot stand against the full might of your unified armies. But they are proud men, afraid of losing their autonomy. They have not rejected the offer, but they have not accepted it either. They are currently sitting squarely on the fence, weighing the risks of betrayal against the certainty of annihilation."
Lie Fan continued to read the scroll, a cold, predatory smile slowly spreading across his face as the geopolitical map of the northwest crystallized in his mind. The warlords were fractured, paranoid, and hesitating. It was the absolute perfect moment to strike.
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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