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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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The snow was instantly turned into a boiling, black slush of mud and blood. The unearthly shrieking of the rockets, combined with the sudden, fiery explosions, shattered the nerves of the nomadic warhorses instantly. Entire squadrons of elite riders were violently bucked from their saddles as their mounts went completely mad with terror, trampling their own riders in a desperate, blind panic. But the Hwachas were only the opening chorus.
A split second later, the thunderous Cannons opened fire.
The massive Cannons, lined up wheel to wheel across the frozen ridges, unleashed a synchronized volley that literally shattered the earth.
The concussive shockwave was so immense it physically knocked the breath out of the lungs of the nomadic warriors standing hundreds of yards away. A wall of blinding white smoke and roaring orange flame erupted from the Han lines.
The deafening, apocalyptic boom echoed across the steppes, a sound so violently loud that it permanently deafened the nomadic horses and riders caught near the front lines. Blood poured from the ears of the beasts as they collapsed in pure, sensory overload.
The heavy, solid iron cannonballs tore across the battlefield at supersonic speeds. When they struck the elite cavalry formations of the steppes, the result was a horrific, sickening display of overwhelming kinetic force.
The cannons tore through their elite cavalry formations like wet paper. Men and horses were instantly pulverized, reduced to red mist and shattered bone as the iron balls bounced and plowed through ten, twenty, thirty ranks of tightly packed riders before finally burying themselves in the frozen dirt.
Unable to comprehend this unprecedented level of destruction, the nomadic defenses entirely crumbled within the first five minutes of the engagement.
The steppes had bred the finest light cavalry in human history, men who could shoot the eye out of a flying eagle while riding at a full gallop. But you cannot shoot an arrow at a cannonball. You cannot outflank a storm of explosive rockets.
The psychological and physical shock of facing modern, industrialized firepower completely broke the spirit of the warriors. The warlords screamed orders, desperately trying to rally their men to mount a traditional hit and run charge, but their voices were entirely drowned out by the endless, earth shaking thunder of the Hengyuan artillery.
And then, before the smoke could even clear, the true slaughter began.
The massive war drums of the Hengyuan Dynasty beat a frantic, aggressive rhythm, and the Imperial Army completely steamrolled them. They capitalized flawlessly on the perfect element of a surprise attack and their overwhelmingly superior firepower.
At the center of the formation, Lie Fan kicked his monstrous steed, Pangu, into a heavy gallop. He charged straight into the chaotic, bleeding mass of the Xianbei and Xiongnu forces, his legendary halberd swinging with devastating, unstoppable force. Every sweep of his blade cleaved through armor, flesh, and bone, sending the broken bodies of tribal champions crashing into the red snow.
Right beside him, Lu Lingqi unleashed the pent up fury of her bloodline. Her halberd was a blur of dark steel, matching her husband's lethal rhythm perfectly. Behind her, the Soaring Valkyries slammed into the disorganized nomadic lines with terrifying discipline.
The female elite battalion fought with a cold, mechanical precision, their spears thrusting in perfect unison, skewering the panicked riders who tried to break past the Emperor's vanguard.
Flanked by the silent, emotionless killing machines of the Yellow Ghost Bodyguards, Lie Fan's central column operated like an enormous, impenetrable meat grinder, chewing up the fractured remnants of the tribal forces and spitting them out into the frozen mud.
This initial, brutal attack was a huge, resounding success not just in the center, but across all three massive fronts.
Far to the west, in the arid, freezing deserts of Liang Province, Marshal Taishi Ci unleashed his own brand of devastation. Leading a massive army of battle hardened desert cavalry and heavy infantry, Taishi Ci slammed into the western flank of the Xiongnu. The nomads, already reeling from their own internal civil war, were completely unequipped to handle the sheer, disciplined ferocity of the Liang Province veterans.
Taishi Ci rode at the absolute front, his twin halberds weaving a beautiful, bloody tapestry of death. His cavalry did not bother to engage in prolonged skirmishes, they drove hard, using heavy shock tactics to shatter the disorganized Xiongnu camps, cutting down fleeing riders and burning their winter supply tents to the ground.
The thunder of Taishi Ci's mobile field cannons echoed across the dunes, breaking the morale of any warlord foolish enough to attempt a counterattack.
On the eastern front, amidst the snowy, mountainous passes of You Province, the legendary veteran Huang Zhong proved that age had absolutely not dulled the terrifying edge of his martial prowess.
Leading the Northern Command, Huang Zhong struck directly into the heart of the Wuhuan territories. The Wuhuan, who had just been opportunistically attacking the backs of the Xiongnu and Xianbei, suddenly found themselves trapped against the mountains by a disciplined, unstoppable wall of Han steel.
Huang Zhong deployed his devastating volley archers and his own batteries of Hwachas. The sky rained fire upon the Wuhuan encampments. When the Wuhuan elite cavalry attempted a desperate, final charge to break the Han lines, Huang Zhong himself stepped forward.
The old master drew his massive, custom forged war bow, a weapon so heavy it required the strength of three normal men to string. With impossible, terrifying precision, he unleashed thick, armor piercing shafts that ripped through the Wuhuan chieftains at impossible distances, completely decapitating their chain of command before the lines even clashed.
Deprived of their leaders and shattered by the artillery, the Wuhuan forces collapsed entirely, throwing down their weapons or fleeing blindly into the deep snow.
Across the entire, massive northern theater, Lie Fan, Taishi Ci, and Huang Zhong executed the grand strategy with flawless, terrifying perfection.
As a direct result of this overwhelming, synchronized blitzkrieg, a massive chunk of each tribe's traditional grazing lands and territories was quickly taken over and firmly secured by the imperial forces.
The Hengyuan Dynasty did not just raid and retreat; they came to occupy. As the vanguard pushed the bleeding remnants of the tribes further north, the engineering corps and the logistical quartermasters immediately moved in behind them.
Following the strict, pragmatic orders Lie Fan had given in the command tent, the imperial forces successfully captured the sturdy, permanent winter fortifications that the Xianbei had previously built using Han supplies. These heavy timber and stone forts, designed to withstand the brutal northern winters, were taken entirely intact.
The Hengyuan banners were immediately hoisted over the battlements, and the forts were rapidly converted into heavily armed forward operating bases. The wagonways supply lines were extended, funneling endless streams of grain, powder, and reinforcements directly into the newly conquered territories.
The steppes were being fundamentally, permanently annexed.
The toll on the nomadic confederations was apocalyptic. After suffering catastrophic, huge losses due to the sudden, overwhelming, and technologically superior attack of the Han people, the battered, broken remnants of the Xianbei, Xiongnu, and Wuhuan forces were forced to frantically retreat deep into the northern plains.
They fled in absolute terror, leaving behind tens of thousands of dead warriors, their precious winter herds, and their ancestral grazing lands. The snow was painted crimson for hundreds of miles. The pride of the horse lords, the arrogant belief that the Han people were merely soft farmers hiding behind a stone wall, had been completely, violently eradicated in a single morning of fire and thunder.
Deep in the unforgiving, freezing expanse of the far northern tundra, far beyond the reach of the Han artillery, the surviving elements of the once mighty tribes finally halted their desperate retreat.
The wind howled brutally through the hastily erected, tattered leather tents of the survivors. Inside the largest, darkest tent, the atmosphere was thick with a suffocating, terrifying despair.
Realizing with absolute, horrifying clarity that they were facing an apocalyptic threat that could wipe them all out from the pages of history, the surviving chieftains and warlords of each fractured tribe hastily regrouped.
Men who had been trying to slit each other's throats just forty eight hours prior now sat across from one another around a smoking dung fire.
There were battle scarred Xiongnu warlords with their armor shattered by shrapnel, proud Xianbei chieftains missing limbs from cannon fire, and terrified Wuhuan leaders who had seen their entire vanguard erased by explosive arrows.
They gathered in this frozen, desperate camp to urgently discuss on how to handle this unprecedented, disastrous matter. The arrogance was gone. The petty squabbles over grazing rights and stolen horses seemed utterly, laughably insignificant in the face of the encroaching Han leviathan.
"They do not fight like men," a heavily bandaged Xiongnu warlord rasped, his voice shaking as he stared into the fire. "They fight with thunder trapped in iron tubes. They fight with fire that falls from the sky and turns the snow to ash. Our arrows bounce off their black armor. Our horses go deaf and mad."
"We thought the Han were weak. We thought they were divided," a Xianbei chieftain muttered, his fists clenching tightly. "But this... this is not the Han we knew. This is a unified monster. They have endless men, and they have captured our winter forts. If we do not stop them, they will push us all the way to the frozen oceans. Our people will starve and freeze before the spring."
A heavy, bitter silence fell over the gathered leaders. They looked at the faces of their blood enemies across the fire. The hatred between the tribes was centuries old, written in generations of spilled blood. But the fear of the Black Dragon was stronger.
Slowly, agonizingly, they began to contemplate the unthinkable. They realized that their pride, their grudges, and their bitter infighting were a luxury they could no longer afford. If they continued to fight each other, the Emperor of the south would simply sweep up their corpses.
To survive this new nightmare, they needed to halt their bitter infighting entirely. They needed to do what Tanshihuai had done, but on a much larger, more desperate scale.
They needed to unite the fractured, bleeding remnants of the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, and the Wuhuan into a single, massive, desperate horde. It was no longer a war for glory or wealth, it was a desperate, final stand for their very existence.
The three great tribes of the Xianbei, the Xiongnu, and the Wuhuan each continued their urgent, desperate meetings. They were gathered in their respective, tattered leather command tents, huddling around smoking dung fires that provided little warmth against the encroaching winter and the absolute, paralyzing terror that had gripped their people. They needed to figure out a survival strategy, and they needed to do it before the sun rose again.
But survival required unity, and unity was a concept utterly alien to the steppes.
Their frantic, panicked efforts to forge an alliance were severely, fatally crippled by the deep seated disagreements and vicious power struggles inside their own tribes. In the Xiongnu camp, the death of their two Chanyu's had left a massive power vacuum.
Without a singular, dominant warlord to enforce obedience, three different sub chieftains were currently screaming at each other over the dying embers of their fire, each claiming the right to lead the survivors.
One argued for a desperate, suicidal counter charge against the Han artillery, another demanded they abandon their women and children to flee further north into the Siberian forests, and the third insisted they beg the Xianbei for shelter.
The situation in the Xianbei and Wuhuan camps was no better. The death of Kuitou had fractured the newly formed Xianbei confederation back into dozens of squabbling families. Every discussion dissolved into drawn swords and screamed insults.
However, the internal fragmentation was only half the poison killing them. The true disease that prevented them from forming any sort of united front against the Han invaders was their bitter, blood soaked hatred against the other big tribes.
"Unite with the Xiongnu?" an elder Xianbei chieftain spat, his face twisted in absolute disgust as he addressed his surviving commanders. "They murdered Kuitou in the snow! They burned our winter pastures before the Han even arrived! I would rather let the southern Emperor take my head than ride under the same banner as a Xiongnu dog!"
Across the plains, the Wuhuan leaders shared the exact same venomous sentiment. They had opportunistically stabbed the Xiongnu and Xianbei in the back just weeks prior, attempting to steal their grazing lands. They knew perfectly well that if they rode into a joint encampment to propose an alliance, the Xiongnu and Xianbei would likely slaughter them all out of sheer vengeance before the Han artillery even fired a single shot.
The hatred between the tribes was centuries old, written in generations of stolen horses, abducted women, and slaughtered sons. It was a genetic, ingrained hatred that completely overrode their logical survival instincts.
They were bleeding to death from a hundred different wounds, yet they refused to stop slashing at each other. They were facing an apocalyptic leviathan of iron and gunpowder, yet their pride and their blood feuds chained them to the frozen dirt, ensuring their absolute, total destruction.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles to the south, the atmosphere was a stark, magnificent contrast.
After the massive, unprecedented initial success of the invasion, Lie Fan made a brilliant, highly calculated tactical decision. He did not let the intoxicating adrenaline of the slaughter push his armies into overextending their supply lines. He smartly ordered for all three imperial armies across the sprawling, continent spanning frontlines to temporarily halt their aggressive advance.
The war horns blew a different, steady rhythm, signaling the millions of men to hold their ground.
Lie Fan knew that an army, no matter how fanatically loyal or technologically superior, was a living, breathing organism that required sustenance and rest.
The soldiers needed to recuperate their energy and their physical strength. The heavy infantry had marched for months, the cataphracts had charged through heavy snow and explosive mud, the artillery crews were deafened and covered in thick, black soot.
More importantly, the Hengyuan Dynasty needed time for digesting the vast, sprawling chunks of territory they had just violently conquered.
The logistical machine of the empire immediately shifted from an offensive posture to a posture of absolute occupation. The sturdy, permanent winter fortifications they had captured intact from the Xianbei were rapidly transformed.
Hengyuan engineers reinforced the timber gates with thick iron plating. As the imperial soldiers rested around massive, roaring bonfires, drinking hot broth and celebrating the absolute, crushing victory of the initial assault, the sheer scale of their conquest became apparent. They had not just captured empty grass. They had captured people.
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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