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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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Zhuge Liang nodded, his brilliant eyes reflecting a rare, genuine frustration. "They are men of immense intellect, Your Majesty, but that intellect has become a fortress that they refuse to unlock. I have sat across the Go board with Guo Jia and Xi Zhicai for hours on end, attempting to weave the logic of their surrender into the conversation. They will gladly discuss philosophy, they will analyze the poetry of the ancients, and they will even playfully critique our tax policies. But the moment the conversation turns toward them serving the Hengyuan Dynasty, the board goes cold."
Jia Xu leaned forward, his raspy voice cutting through the fragrant smoke. "They admitted that their cause is lost. They are not delusional. They know Cao Cao is dead and that his bloodline holds no power. But they remain stubbornly silent on the matter of shifting their loyalties. Even when it was Your Majesty who personally went out of his way to persuade them in the past, gracing them with a presence that would bring any other lord to their knees in gratitude, they merely bowed, thanked you for your mercy, and refused to speak a word of submission."
The Chancellor scowled deeply, clearly offended by the captives' refusal to yield to absolute pragmatism. "Cheng Yu and Tian Feng are the worst of them. They sit in their courtyards, staring at the sky, acting as though acknowledging our legitimacy would somehow poison their souls. It is a maddening, irrational waste of perfectly good minds."
Hearing this report of absolute, unyielding obstinacy, Lie Fan did not slam his fist on the table. He did not fly into a tyrant's rage at the insult to his authority.
Instead, Lie Fan chuckles lightly at this report.
The sound was rich, carrying a note of genuine, unfeigned amusement that momentarily startled the three ministers. He leaned back in his heavy wooden chair, shaking his head in mild amusement as he looked up at the ceiling of the study.
"They are truly a stubborn bunch of hard loyalists to the core," Lie Fan said, a faint, almost respectful smile playing on his lips. "You have to admire the sheer, blinding arrogance of it. The world has entirely burned down and been rebuilt around them, the rivers have changed their courses, and yet they sit in their gilded cage, holding onto the ghost of a dead warlord as if it is a shield that can protect them from the future. Cao Cao was a ruthless, manipulative bastard, but he certainly knew how to chain the hearts of brilliant men to his own."
He paused, letting the chuckle fade away. He understood their mentality perfectly. In an era defined by treacherous betrayals, where warlords switched sides as easily as they changed their robes, a retainer who refused to break his vows even after his master's total destruction was a rare, beautiful anomaly. It was a testament to a dying age of chivalry and absolute honor.
But Lie Fan was not a poet mourning the past, he was the architect of the future. The luxury of indulging their stubborn honor had run its course.
His smile faded into a heavy, profound sigh. The amusement was gone, instantly replaced by the cold, calculating, and relentless drive of the Emperor. He placed his hands flat on the ebony table, his dark eyes locking onto his three top advisors with an intensity that made the air in the room feel physically heavier.
Before he firmly stated his next course of action, he wanted them to understand exactly why he was refusing to simply execute these men or leave them to rot in obscurity.
"I will personally go and persuade them again," Lie Fan declared, his voice carrying the finality of an imperial edict.
Jia Xu frowned slightly, ever the protective shadow of the Emperor's dignity. "Your Majesty, is it truly wise to lower yourself to beg for the services of broken men? You have just conquered the northern hemisphere. Millions kneel when you speak. To go to them again might inflate their already monstrous pride. If they refuse to serve, let them wither away in silence, or give me the order, and I will ensure their silence becomes permanent."
"No, Wenhe," Lie Fan replied sharply, holding up a hand to stall the Chancellor's lethal pragmatism. He passionately explained to his ministers the absolute, unvarnished truth of what it took to run a civilization
"These kinds of peerless talents simply can't be wasted rotting in confinement," Lie Fan said, his voice rising with a fiery, pragmatic conviction. "You speak of my dignity, but what good is the dignity of an Emperor if the machinery of his empire grinds to a halt under its own massive weight? We are not a regional warlord's faction anymore. We are the masters of the known world. And conquering the world is incredibly simple compared to the nightmare of governing it."
Lie Fan stood up, pacing slowly behind his chair, his mind visualizing the staggering, overwhelming volume of administration that awaited them.
"Look at what we have just done today," Lie Fan continued, gesturing toward the main hall where the court had just been held. "We have just ordered the relocation of millions of impoverished citizens to the freezing north. Do you have any idea how many ledgers, how many supply trains, how many land surveys, and how many logistical nightmares that single edict will generate? We are building new wagonways, we are standardizing a national language, we are integrating hundreds of distinct ethnic groups, and we are preparing to build a navy capable of crossing the eastern oceans."
He stopped and looked deeply at Zhuge Liang, Lu Su, and Jia Xu.
"The three of you are brilliant. Part of the absolute finest minds this earth has ever produced," Lie Fan acknowledged, his voice softening with genuine respect. "But there are only how many the likes of you served me. There are only so many hours in a day. The imperial bureaucracy and civil administration is a massive, incredibly complex machine that is growing larger and hungrier by the second."
"It will continuously need all kinds of elite talents to keep it working smoothly. We need men who can look at a province's tax code and find the hidden rot. We need men who can manage the grain distributions for a million soldiers without a single kernel going missing. We need men who can out-think corrupt local magistrates before the corruption even begins."
Lie Fan placed his hands firmly on the back of his chair. "And those men sitting in that mansion are exactly what the empire needs. Tian Feng and Xun Yu's mastery of domestic policy is unparalleled. Xi Zhicai ande Guo Jia's ability to foresee the chaotic variables of war is terrifying. Jia Kui and Cheng Yu possess the exact kind of ruthless administrative efficiency that we need to bring the newly conquered territories to heel.
Their brilliant minds could definitely help the empire to reach an even greater height. I will not allow their genius to be buried simply because they are too proud to let go of the past. I will break their pride, and I will put them to work."
Hearing that profound, intensely pragmatic reasoning, the three advisors were momentarily silenced. They saw the absolute, terrifying scope of the Emperor's vision.
He did not care about personal slights or the egos of dead rivals, he only cared about the efficiency, the prosperity, and the eternal survival of the Hengyuan Dynasty. He viewed these captive geniuses not as enemies to be humiliated, but as highly specialized, incredibly valuable tools that were currently sitting unused in a locked chest.
Recognizing the undeniable truth in their sovereign's words, the three advisors respectfully nodded their heads. The frustration they felt toward the captives was immediately replaced by a renewed, focused determination to assist the Emperor in this psychological siege.
"We understand perfectly, Your Majesty," Zhuge Liang said, bowing his head in deep reverence. "The empire is a leviathan, and it requires the strongest minds to steer it. We will not let our personal frustrations blind us to their immense value."
Jia Xu also bowed, his dark eyes glittering with a renewed, calculating light. "If you are to go into the lion's den once more, then we will ensure the stage is set flawlessly. We will immediately prepare the security and logistics for the meeting, Your Majesty. We will ensure that the environment is completely controlled, and that they understand the absolute gravity of your visit."
Lie Fan nodded, satisfied that his inner circle was fully aligned with his intentions. "I want it to happen tomorrow morning," he stated, his tone brooking no argument. "Do not give them time to prepare their philosophical defenses. I will strike while the echoes of our northern victory are still ringing through the streets of the capital. I want to look them in the eyes and show them the future they are stubbornly refusing to be a part of."
With the schedule set and the administrative matters finally concluded for the day, Lie Fan waved his hand. "That will be all. You are dismissed. Go to your families, enjoy the banquets, and rest your minds. Tomorrow, we go to war on a different kind of battlefield."
The three ministers bowed deeply one last time and quietly exited the study, leaving the Emperor alone in the fragrant, smoke filled silence.
Finally, after an incredibly long, exhausting day of holding court, distributing unparalleled wealth, and mandating the greatest migration in history, the adrenaline that had sustained Lie Fan began to fade.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling the heavy, physical ache in his bones that had accumulated over months of sleeping on frozen ground.
Leaving the study behind, he walked slowly back to the private, warm sanctuary of the inner palace, finally going to take a proper, deep rest after the exhausting court session, seeking the comforting embrace of Ying Yue and the quiet peace of his bedchambers.
The very next day, the world awoke to a crisp, beautifully clear spring morning. As the morning sun rose over Xiapi, painting the towering stone walls and the golden roofs of the imperial palace in brilliant shades of orange and amber, the capital was already buzzing with life.
The celebrations from the previous night had barely died down, and the streets were filled with the sounds of merchants setting up their stalls, children playing with wooden swords, and the distant, rhythmic marching of the city watch.
But for Lie Fan, the day of rest was already over.
Dressed not in the heavy, twelve dragon ceremonial robes of the court, but in a far more practical, yet undeniably authoritative ensemble of dark, charcoal gray silk embroidered with subtle silver threads, Lie Fan confidently stepped out of the palace gates.
He did not take a massive, ostentatious royal carriage. Instead, he rode on horseback, flanked tightly by a highly concentrated, elite detachment of the Yellow Ghost Bodyguards, moving swiftly and quietly through the waking streets of the capital.
He confidently goes to the secluded, heavily guarded small mansion located deep within the affluent, highly secure inner rings of the city limits.
From the outside, the property did not look like a prison. It was a beautiful, sprawling estate surrounded by high, whitewashed stone walls topped with elegant gray tiles. The heavy wooden gates were carved with intricate designs of blooming lotuses, and the tops of weeping willow trees could be seen swaying gently over the walls.
But the illusion of a peaceful nobleman's retreat was instantly shattered by the terrifying, suffocating layers of security that surrounded it.
The streets leading up to the mansion were completely blocked off to the public by barricades of iron and timber. Every twenty paces, a heavily armored Hengyuan halberdier stood at absolute, unblinking attention.
On the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, the sharp eyes of elite crossbowmen constantly scanned the perimeter, their weapons loaded and ready to fire at a moment's notice.
And standing silently in the shadows of the mansion's massive wooden gates were the Imperial Guards, their hands resting lazily but lethally on the pommels of their broadswords.
This was the gilded cage.
It was a beautiful, luxurious, and entirely inescapable prison where the former Cao Cao advisors, the greatest minds of a fallen era, were all currently being put under strict house arrest together in the same mansion. They were allowed to walk the manicured gardens, they were served the finest foods and wines by mute servants, and they were permitted to converse with one another freely.
But they were entirely cut off from the outside world. No letters went in, no messages went out, and they were keenly aware that their every whisper was likely being recorded by Jia Xu's hidden operatives.
But the physical walls and the armed guards were only the secondary layer of their confinement. The true, unbreakable chains that kept these brilliant men from attempting to escape, or from deciding to end their own lives in a final act of defiant martyrdom, were entirely psychological.
While the advisors themselves lived together in this luxurious isolation, their respective families, their wives, their children, and their elderly parents, were of course being carefully put somewhere else.
Lie Fan was not a monster who tortured the innocent, but he was a supreme pragmatist who understood the mechanics of leverage.
The families of Xun Yu, Guo Jia, Tian Feng, and the others had been quietly relocated to beautiful, highly comfortable, but heavily isolated estates scattered far across different, heavily fortified provinces of the empire. They were provided with generous stipends, excellent tutors for their children, and every luxury they could desire.
But they were constantly under guard.
It was a silent, unwritten, but perfectly understood hostage situation designed to ensure the advisors' absolute compliance and safety. The captive geniuses knew that as long as they remained peacefully within their gilded cage in Xiapi, breathing the air and eating the food provided by the Emperor, their bloodlines would thrive in safety.
But they also possessed the terrifying intellect to know exactly what would happen to those distant, isolated estates if they ever tried to plot a rebellion, smuggle a message, or commit suicide to spite their captor.
The love for their families was the invisible leash that kept the wolves of Wei docile.
Lie Fan pulled his horse to a halt before the heavy wooden gates of the mansion. He dismounted smoothly, handing the reins to a waiting guard. He adjusted the cuffs of his dark silk robes, his face an impenetrable mask of absolute calm and supreme authority.
The captain of the guard, recognizing the Emperor, immediately dropped to one knee, frantically signaling for the massive gates to be unbarred. The heavy timber doors creaked open, revealing the pristine, quiet courtyards of the estate within.
Taking a deep breath of the crisp morning air, Lie Fan stepped over the threshold, leaving the armed escort behind, save for two silent Yellow Ghosts who trailed him like shadows. He was walking into a den of the most brilliant, stubborn, and bitter men in the world, intent on breaking their silence and forcing them to help him build the future.
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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