If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead and more, be sure to check out my P-Tang12!!!
______________________________
(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
...
"We have successfully cast a heavy, pressurized boiler that does not rupture under extreme heat. The mechanical stability is currently holding firm. The expanding steam forces a heavy iron piston upward through a greased, airtight cylinder, and as the steam is vented and condenses, the pressure drops, violently pulling the piston back down. It is a continuous, rhythmic heartbeat of pure mechanical power. We currently have a stationary prototype the size of a small carriage that can continuously lift weights that would normally break the backs of fifty strong men."
Huang Chengyan, stroking his long, white beard, then smoothly took over the conversation, explaining the highly anticipated Water Dragon application in great depth.
"Applying that foundational up and down motion of the piston, we have connected it to a massive, reinforced lever mechanism," the venerable elder explained, his eyes shining with the joy of creation. "This is the Water Dragon. It is a colossal, steam powered pumping engine. In domestic applications, we can station these near the major rivers to pump millions of gallons of water uphill, completely revolutionizing our irrigation networks for the northern migration."
Huang Yue Ying, her brilliant mind always bridging the gap between domestic utility and military necessity, chimed in seamlessly to conclude the Water Dragon report. "But its true potential lies on the ocean, Your Majesty. We are currently scaling the Water Dragon down to fit within the deep hulls of your newly designed, massive naval warships. If a ship takes on water from a storm or a hull breach, the steam pump can violently expel the seawater faster than a hundred sailors with buckets ever could. It will make our eastern invasion fleet practically unsinkable against the harsh ocean tides."
This was quickly followed by an explosive, highly classified progress report by Liu Ye on the Fierce Fire Oil Cabinet, a terrifying weapon designed specifically for the impending naval warfare.
"The traditional fire oil projectors relied on men manually pumping the bellows, which limited their range and exposed our engineers to enemy arrows," Liu Ye detailed, pulling out a small wooden model of the weapon. "We have entirely revamped the design. By utilizing airtight copper valves, compressed air chambers, and a highly refined, viscous distillation of the black earth oil, we have created enhanced deployment systems. The new Fierce Fire Oil Cabinets can project a continuous, localized stream of unquenchable, sticky liquid fire over incredibly long distances. Mounted on the prows of our warships, they will incinerate any wooden vessel that dares to approach our fleet, burning them down to the waterline in a matter of minutes."
Hearing the detailed and mathematically flawless report, Lie Fan nodded his head, thoroughly satisfied with their unparalleled ingenuity. The pieces were all falling perfectly into place. The steam engines would handle the logistics and the survival of the ships, while the upgraded chemical fire weapons would ensure absolute naval dominance.
Before they could ask for their next assignment, assuming the meeting was drawing to a close, Lie Fan held up his hand.
"Your work on the heavy machinery is flawless. You have mastered the macro scale of warfare and logistics," Lie Fan said, his voice dropping into a quiet, incredibly intense register. "But today, I am going to ask you to look at the micro scale."
Lie Fan reached down into the hidden, locked compartment of his heavy wooden desk. He dramatically took out several newly drawn, highly detailed schematics on thick, pristine parchment. The ink already old, but it can be seen that the lines drawn with absolute precision by his own hand.
He laid the complex blueprints out on the center of the ebony table, ensuring that Zhuge Liang, Liu Ye, Yue Ying, and Huang Chengyan could all see them perfectly.
The drawings depicted something entirely alien to the engineers of this era. They were schematics of a "blunderbuss" and a "flintlock pistol."
"Look closely," Lie Fan commanded softly.
He meticulously explained the internal mechanisms of these bizarre, beautifully drawn tools of death. He pointed to the flared muzzle of the blunderbuss and the sleek, compact barrel of the pistol. But the true genius lay in the intricate, interlocking metal parts located at the rear of the weapons.
"This is not a traditional fire lance that requires a burning slow match to ignite," Lie Fan explained, tracing the drawing of the flintlock mechanism with his fingertip. "A slow match is highly vulnerable to rain, wind, and human error. This design is entirely self-contained and instantaneous."
He pointed to the trigger. "When the soldier pulls this lever, it violently releases a heavy, spring loaded hammer. Secured within the jaws of this hammer is a sharp piece of flint." He moved his finger to a hinged piece of steel covering a small pan. "The flint forcefully strikes this angled piece of high carbon steel, the frizzen. The friction creates an immediate, shower of intense sparks. The strike simultaneously pushes the steel cover back, exposing a tiny pan filled with fine gunpowder."
Lie Fan looked up, meeting their wide, incredibly focused eyes. "The sparks ignite the powder in the pan. The flash travels through a tiny touch hole drilled directly into the side of the iron barrel, instantly detonating the main charge of black powder packed behind the lead projectile. The gunpowder combustion happens in a fraction of a heartbeat, violently expelling the lead ball with enough kinetic force to shatter heavy cavalry armor at fifty paces."
He then detailed exactly how he originally came up with the revolutionary concept of these handheld firearms, framing it in a way their mechanical minds could perfectly digest.
He explained that he had spent hours observing the massive Black Dragon Cannons, watching the artillerymen frantically rushing to light the fuses with torches while under enemy fire. He wanted to miniaturize that devastating power, removing the external fire source and placing the entire detonation process under the absolute, mechanical control of a single soldier's index finger.
Seeing these incredibly advanced, flawlessly logical weapon designs, everyone in the room was completely surprised and mesmerized by the sheer, terrifying genius of it. The silence in the study was profound, broken only by the sound of rapid, shallow breathing as their brilliant minds raced to comprehend the mechanical reality of what lay before them.
Studying the intricate drawings closely, her eyes darting between the spring tension formulas and the barrel thickness ratios, Huang Yue Ying's eyes widened in sudden, profound realization.
"By the heavens..." Yue Ying whispered, her voice trembling slightly as she looked up at the Emperor. She astutely pointed out exactly what this invention represented. "The containment... the explosive propellant... the solid projectile. Your Majesty, this mechanism is essentially like a miniature, highly portable version of our heavy artillery cannons. But instead of requiring a carriage and a team of five horses, it can be held in the hands of a single man!"
Lie Fan nodded his head, highly praising her quick and accurate understanding. "Exactly, Yue Ying. You see the truth of it instantly. It is portable thunder."
Liu Ye, a man who had spent his entire adult life analyzing the shifting geometry of battlefields, immediately analyzing the massive world altering tactical implications of the blueprints. He practically leaned over the table, his hands shaking with adrenaline.
"This... this changes absolutely everything," Liu Ye excitedly stated, his eyes wide with visionary fervor. "This incredible invention will exponentially revolutionize the battlefield forever, Your Majesty!"
Liu Ye began to rapidly gesture, painting a picture of future warfare in the air. "To train a master archer takes ten years of back breaking labor. To train a heavy cavalryman takes a lifetime of wealth and horsemanship. But this? If we standardize the manufacturing of these 'blunderbusses', we can take a common farmer from the fields, drill him for a few weeks on how to load the powder and pull the trigger, and he will suddenly possess the lethal, armor piercing capability to strike down an elite Yuezhi cataphract!"
He looked at Lie Fan, his voice filled with a deep, passionate reverence. "It could easily save the lives of countless Hengyuan soldiers during sieges and open warfare, Your Majesty. An impenetrable wall of fire and lead, delivered by ordinary men. It is the ultimate equalizer."
Lie Fan smiled warmly at that astute observation. He looked at Liu Ye, Zhuge Liang, and the others.
"I stood in the snows of the north and watched eighty thousand of our brothers bleed to death in the mud, hacking at heavily armored barbarians with halberds," Lie Fan said, his voice quiet and deeply emotional. "I will not let the blood of our people be spent so cheaply ever again. If we must wage war against Yamato, or whatever empires lie across the western deserts, I want our men killing the enemy before the enemy can even swing a sword."
However, as the room buzzed with the intoxicating thrill of this technological leap, Lie Fan's expression soon turned serious. The warm smile faded, replaced by the stern, uncompromising mask of the supreme military commander.
He leaned heavily against the ebony table, projecting an aura of strict, martial authority. "Do not let the brilliance of this invention blind you to the brutal realities of war," Lie Fan warned them, his voice sharp and commanding. "These weapons are revolutionary, but they are not magic. Black powder is temperamental. The flint mechanisms can break under the stress of a long campaign. And if a sudden monsoon hits the battlefield, soaking the flash pans, these weapons will become nothing more than expensive, heavy iron clubs."
He firmly emphasized the core philosophy that had built his invincible army. "Close quarters combat, flawless weapon skill, and unbreakable martial discipline are still the absolute staple of our military doctrine. If a soldier relies solely on this weapon and forgets how to hold a shield wall, he will be slaughtered the moment a cavalry charge manages to close the distance during a reload."
Lie Fan tapped the blueprint of the blunderbuss with a heavy, armored finger.
"Muscle, steel, and courage will never be obsolete," Lie Fan declared, ensuring his advisors understood the long term vision. "And they will remain our primary doctrine while these complex new weapons are slowly being manufactured. The metallurgy required for these small, high pressure barrels must be flawless. They must be rigorously tested for safety, lest they explode in the hands of our own men."
He rolled the schematics up carefully, handing the sealed tubes directly to Liu Ye and Huang Chengyan.
"They will be gradually distributed across the vast imperial army over the coming years, starting with specialized, elite units," Lie Fan concluded, his eyes burning with the unquenchable fire of a conqueror who had just secured his legacy. "Go to the forges. Build the prototypes. Guard these designs with your very lives."
Hearing the Emperor's grand, terrifyingly ambitious vision for the future of warfare, the heavy silence in the study was finally broken by a collective, deeply reverent exhalation.
The four brilliant minds, Zhuge Liang, Liu Ye, Huang Yue Ying, and the venerable Huang Chengyan,nunderstood the sheer magnitude of the trust that had just been placed in their hands. These were not merely blueprints for new weapons, they were the architectural drafts of an entirely new era of human dominance.
They respectfully bowed their heads, their expressions reflecting a mixture of profound awe and intense, immediate focus. Moving in perfect, silent unison, they solemnly vowed to complete these crucial firearm assignments alongside their other demanding engineering projects as soon as humanly possible.
They understood that the fires of the imperial forges would need to burn hotter and longer than ever before. Before another word could dilute the absolute gravity of the moment, they took their respectful leave from the study.
They backed away slowly, bowing once more at the threshold, and exited into the corridors, their minds already frantically calculating metallurgical ratios, spring tensions, and the logistics of mass producing portable thunder.
Left entirely alone in the quiet, incense filled room, the aura of the supreme military commander slowly faded from Lie Fan's shoulders, immediately replaced by the crushing, invisible weight of the absolute sovereign. The grand strategies and technological leaps were exhilarating, but the daily reality of ruling the largest empire in human history was a relentless, grueling grind.
Lie Fan let out a long, heavy sigh and walked toward his massive desk. He sat down heavily in his high backed wooden chair and immediately went to do his arduous daily administrative work.
Before him sat a truly staggering sight, massive, towering piles of bamboo scrolls, silk ledgers, and parchment reports sent from all over the land. These were the voices of thousands of officials, magistrates, tax collectors, and regional governors who desperately needed his imperial approval or rejection.
There were petitions regarding a flooded river in the southern Jing Province, complex trade disputes from the Silk Road merchants in the far west, detailed agricultural yields from the newly irrigated fields of the central plains, and the frantic, logistical requests from the quartermasters currently managing the integration of the massive northern refugee camps.
For hours, the only sound in the imperial study was the scratching of Lie Fan's calligraphy brush and the soft unrolling of silk. He worked with a terrifying, mechanical efficiency. He read through complex legal disputes, spotting the hidden corruptions of greedy local lords with a single glance, and ruthlessly slashed his red ink across their petitions in absolute rejection.
He approved the reallocation of millions of silver taels for the construction of new granaries, and he signed the execution warrants for bandits who dared to prey on the newly established steam wagonways. He was the singular heartbeat of a continent, pumping administrative lifeblood to every distant corner of his domain.
However, amidst reading the endless bureaucratic reports and managing the mundane realities of governance, Lie Fan deliberately carved out a portion of this quiet time to focus on an entirely different, infinitely more profound kind of architecture.
He set aside the tax ledgers, pulled a fresh, pristine roll of the finest imperial silk toward him, and picked up a specialized, fine tipped brush. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, organizing the vast, complex sociological theories he had brought with him from a distant future. When he opened his eyes, they burned with the cold, calculating fire of a man who intended to rewrite the very nature of human identity.
Lie Fan began to personally write down the foundational texts for a powerful, sweeping new "Nationalism ideology."
This was not a simple code of laws, nor was it a religious text. It was a profound, highly engineered doctrine meant to completely change the current fragmented societal mindset and unite the Hengyuan Dynasty even more tightly than iron or gunpowder ever could.
He looked at the reality of his vast empire. It was an incredibly diverse, sprawling monolith, already full of many different ethnics, from the Han majority of the central plains to the Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Wuhuan of the northern steppes, from the Shanyue tribes of the deep southern jungles to the Qiang and Di riders of the western mountains.
It was an empire boiling with conflicting ancient ideologies, varying local traditions, and diverse, deeply entrenched religions. Historically, such sprawling empires eventually collapsed under the weight of their own internal divisions, fracturing along ethnic and cultural fault lines the moment the central military authority showed a hint of weakness.
Lie Fan was determined to ensure that his empire would never suffer that fate. To do so, he knew he had to replace their disparate, localized loyalties with a single, overwhelming, and unshakeable psychological anchor.
His brush flew across the silk, drafting the tenets of a unifying doctrine that would firmly establish Hengyuan as the absolute center of their identity. He wrote that the blood of the clan and the tribe was secondary to the blood of the State.
He eloquently argued that the heavens did not merely mandate a ruler, but they mandated the Empire itself as the ultimate sanctuary of civilization. Whether a man was born in a freezing yurt in the north or a bamboo hut in the south, the doctrine dictated that his highest loyalty, his ultimate devotion, and his very reason for existence must lie with the State and the Emperor above all else.
Lie Fan crafted the text to be deeply emotional yet brutally logical. He wove the concept of shared prosperity and shared defense into the ideology. The farmer's plow was protected by the soldier's weapons, the soldier's belly was filled by the farmer's grain. All were equally vital cogs in the majestic, unstoppable machine of Hengyuan.
By elevating the concept of "The Nation" to a sacred, almost divine status, he was effectively ensuring that an attack on the Emperor was not just treason, but an attack on the very identity and survival of every single citizen. It was a masterpiece of sociological engineering, designed to forge a billion fragmented souls into a single, unbreakable blade.
After that intense session of philosophical creation, several days passed by peacefully in the capital. The cherry blossoms bloomed, the weather warmed, and the city of Xiapi reveled in the golden age of peace that their Emperor had violently secured.
But within the walls of the palace, the political landscape was about to experience huge shift. The time had come for the monumental announcement of the newly created ministries and the specialized department. This was not a quiet reorganization done behind closed doors, it was a grand display of imperial evolution. The announcement was, of course, officially made through Jia Xu, acting in his capacity as the supreme Chancellor.
______________________________
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