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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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The students and junior scholars, recognizing the Emperor's carriage and the terrifying presence of the Yellow Ghost Bodyguards, immediately dropped to their knees along the gravel paths, bowing their heads in profound submission. Lie Fan stepped out of the carriage, flanked by his three ministers, and walked purposefully through the vibrant, manicured courtyards of the academy, heading straight for the secluded quarters at the rear of the complex.
Entering into the quiet, incredibly serene, incense filled teachers' room at the academy, the heavy scent of premium aged sandalwood and old parchment immediately washed over them. Sitting around a massive, low wooden table were the architects of the empire's morality.
The five revered scholars, Sima Hui, Pang Degong, Lu Zhi, Cai Yong, and Zhuge Xuan, immediately stood up from their wooden chairs the moment the heavy doors opened. They respectfully greeted Lie Fan with deep, highly formalized bows, their hands clasped firmly in front of them.
Lie Fan warmly returned the greeting with a bright, genuine smile. He stepped forward and quickly told them to sit down, waving his hand dismissively to break the heavy tension in the room. He firmly stated that there was no need for too much strict formality behind closed doors between men who were actively forging the future of human civilization.
"We are not in the throne room holding a grand assembly, my venerable teachers," Lie Fan said, his voice smooth and reassuring as he took his seat at the head of the table, gesturing for Lu Su, Chen Qun, and Xu Shu to sit beside him. "We are here to review the foundation of our people's soul. Please, be at ease."
Wasting no time on pleasantries or tea ceremonies, Lie Fan's demeanor shifted to one of intense, razor sharp focus. He immediately asked them to show him the final result of their intense overnight revision.
The five state elders exchanged a look of profound, exhausted pride. They had not slept a single wink. Their robes were slightly rumpled, and their inkstones were completely dry from hours of furious, relentless writing and philosophical debate. Sima Hui and Cai Yong immediately brought forward the heavy, tightly bound bamboo scrolls and premium silk ledgers, carefully placing them on the table, and handed Lie Fan the meticulous revision that they have carefully made.
Lie Fan unrolled the first heavy scroll, his dark, calculating eyes scanning the incredibly elegant, forceful calligraphy that lined the silk. The room fell into a heavy, expectant silence, broken only by the soft rustle of the Emperor turning the pages.
As Lie Fan read through the bamboo slips, his mind rapidly processing the profound depth of their work, the elders respectfully broke the silence and began to explain their intricate, highly sophisticated philosophical adjustments.
"Your Imperial Majesty," Cai Yong began, his voice raspy from a night of endless debate. "When you first presented this concept of 'Nationalism' to us, we saw the blinding light of total unity, but we also saw the terrifying shadows it could cast. If the people believe the Nation belongs to them, they might one day believe they have the right to dictate its course against the will of the throne. We have eradicated that shadow."
Pang Degong leaned forward, detailing how they expertly sealed any ideological loopholes to ensure that these powerful nationalistic beliefs wouldn't ever become a dangerous double-edged sword for Lie Fan and the future absolute authority of the Hengyuan Dynasty.
"We have redefined the very anatomical structure of the 'Nation' within the text, Your Majesty," Pang Degong explained, his finger tracing a specific column of text Lie Fan was currently reading. "We have written that the unified people, the land, and the culture make up the physical body of the Nation. They are the flesh, the bone, and the blood. However, a body without a mind is merely a thrashing, mindless corpse. We have philosophically enshrined the Emperor,nthe Dragon Throne itself, as the absolute, irreplaceable mind and soul of the Nation."
Sima Hui, the Water Mirror, picked up the explanation, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying, flawless logic. "Therefore, to love the Nation is to unconditionally obey its mind. To rebel against the Emperor is not a political disagreement, it is framed as an act of horrific self mutilation against the body of the Nation itself. A man cannot claim to love his own body while attempting to sever his own head. By tying the abstract concept of patriotism directly and inextricably to the physical existence of the Hengyuan bloodline, we have made rebellion against your descendants synonymous with the destruction of the people themselves."
When they finally finished their in depth, masterful explanation, Lie Fan sat back, genuinely surprised and deeply impressed by how great and foolproof their revision actually was. He read the passages again, letting the sheer, terrifying brilliance of their psychological manipulation wash over him.
It masterfully erased how this intense, burning patriotism could potentially backfire in the distant future for his Dynasty. The elders had brilliantly structured the wording so that it completely eliminated the risk of the ideology ever leading to an overthrow of the current imperial regime. They had taken the dangerous, volatile fire of mass populism and safely locked it inside the impenetrable iron forge of imperial autocracy.
Furthermore, Lie Fan noted with immense satisfaction, it cleverly suffocated any possibility of giving birth to radical, rebellious thoughts like democracy, a republic, or other decentralized ideologies that the current era hasn't seen much in action yet, at least not in these eastern parts of the world. The texts explicitly attacked the concept of a leaderless state or a government ruled by the whims of the uneducated masses.
Lu Zhi had written a brilliant, scathing martial metaphor within the doctrine, comparing a decentralized government to an army with a thousand generals and no soldiers, a chaotic, screaming rabble destined to be slaughtered by the first organized threat it faced.
The ideology made the very idea of a republic sound not like freedom, but like a terrifying, apocalyptic descent into madness and civil war, ensuring that any scholar who ever dared to suggest such a system in the future would be viewed by the common people not as a visionary, but as a dangerous, treasonous lunatic trying to destroy their beloved Nation.
Greatly relieved and profoundly satisfied with their flawless execution of his vision, Lie Fan gave high, sincere, and incredibly warm praise to the five elders for their unmatched wisdom.
"You have not just written a doctrine, my venerable teachers," Lie Fan proclaimed, his voice echoing with absolute finality. "You have forged the unbreakable chains that will hold this empire together for ten thousand years. Your names will be etched into the very foundation of our eternal peace."
He then rolled the heavy scrolls back up, turned around, and handed them directly to Lu Su, Chen Qun, and Xu Shu. He asked for their honest political opinion on the revised texts. "You have heard the philosophical theory. Now, tell me how this will survive the harsh, cynical reality of the imperial court and the provincial bureaucracies."
The three ministers took the scrolls, reading through the elegant calligraphy with the razor sharp, pragmatic eyes of men who actually ran the gears of the state. As they read, their expressions shifted from intense focus to sheer, unadulterated administrative awe.
After reading it themselves, the three ministers absolutely loved the idea and supported it immensely. They saw not just a philosophy, but the ultimate tool for absolute social control.
Chen Qun, the rigid master of the legal code, was the first to speak, his voice trembling slightly with bureaucratic excitement. "Your Majesty, this is flawless. From a legal standpoint, it gives us the ultimate moral high ground to prosecute any form of regional dissent. If a provincial governor tries to prioritize his local economy over the imperial grain tax, we no longer just accuse him of embezzlement, we accuse him of starving the 'Nation.' It turns the local populace against him before we even have to send the army."
Lu Su, the dignified Minister of Rites, passionately pointed out the immense cultural benefits. "And culturally, Your Majesty, this overarching Nationalism ideology could also easily become the ultimate, indisputable umbrella for the numerous, often conflicting schools of thoughts and ideologies currently present in the realm. For centuries, the Confucianists, the Legalists, and the Taoists have warred over the minds of the people."
Lu Su tapped the scroll excitedly. "But this... this absorbs them all. It satisfies the Legalist desire for absolute state authority. It satisfies the Confucian demand for familial duty, simply extending the concept of the family to encompass the entire unified population under the Emperor as the ultimate patriarch. It perfectly unifies them all under one banner, completely nullifying their ancient rivalries, while allowing the imperial court to be the ones who easily controlled it."
Xu Shu nodded in deep, pragmatic agreement, looking at the elders with immense respect. "It gives the common peasant a reason to endure hardship, Your Majesty. When the river floods or the winter is harsh, they will no longer blame the heavens or the throne. They will see it as a shared trial for the Nation to overcome together. It weaponizes their very suffering into patriotic endurance."
Lie Fan nodded his head in deep, profound agreement with their incredibly astute words. He had known these three men would instantly see the boundless political utility of the doctrine. He stood up from his chair, his towering presence dominating the quiet teachers' room, and officially addressed the gathering of the greatest minds in history.
"The weapon has been forged by the scholars, but it must be wielded by the state," Lie Fan declared, his voice ringing with the undeniable authority of the Black Dragon. He looked specifically at Lu Su, Chen Qun, and Xu Shu, officially telling the three ministers that they will be working closely together with the five state elders from this day forward.
"This is no longer a philosophical debate; it is an imperial mandate," Lie Fan commanded. "Your joint mission is to effectively introduce this refined ideology into the very bloodstream of the empire. I want the curriculum of every village school, every provincial academy, and the grand capital university completely rewritten to center around these texts. I want the history books revised to reflect this eternal unity. And above all else, Chen Qun, I want this integrated directly into the government civil service exams."
He leaned forward, ensuring the absolute weight of his order was felt. "No scholar shall ever be granted a magistrate's post, no man shall ever wield administrative power in my dynasty, unless he can flawlessly recite and philosophically defend this doctrine. It must become the absolute national belief and the fundamental thought of every single citizen who breathes the air of Hengyuan."
Hearing that monumental, world altering decree, the three of them, Lu Su, Chen Qun, and Xu Shu, solemnly nodded their heads. They understood that they were being tasked with brainwashing a continent, but they also understood it was the only way to ensure the eternal peace they had all bled to achieve. They stood up, bowed deeply, bending at the waist in perfect unison, and accepted the heavy, historic order without a single moment of hesitation.
"It shall be the sole focus of our ministries, Your Imperial Majesty," Chen Qun vowed firmly. "The minds of the next generation belong to the Nation."
After that incredibly historic arrangement was done, cementing the psychological future of the empire, Lie Fan finally took his leave from the academy. He walked back through the courtyards, the kneeling students unaware that the very foundation of what they would be studying for the rest of their lives had just been radically transformed. He boarded his imperial carriage and returned to the sprawling, heavily fortified inner palace.
The high minded, intoxicating philosophical debates of the academy were over. As the heavy wooden doors of his private study closed behind him, Lie Fan was once again alone with the crushing, infinite weight of the world.
He walked up the short steps and sat alone on his massive, intricately carved golden dragon throne. The room was quiet, filled only with the soft crackle of the braziers and the towering, endless stacks of bamboo slips and silk reports that demanded his attention.
For the rest of the day, and long into the fading light of the evening, Lie Fan quietly spent his time doing the endless, exhausting, and deeply unglamorous bureaucracy works of an emperor.
He read through complex grain tax reports from the humid south, signed execution warrants for corrupt supply officers in the west, and carefully balanced the massive, draining budget required to fund the imperial workshops. It was a grinding, lonely task, completely devoid of the glory of the battlefield or the excitement of the forges, but it was the vital lifeblood that kept the massive machine of his dynasty functioning.
Yet, as his calloused hand moved the red ink brush across the ledgers, his dark, visionary eyes occasionally drifted toward the massive map of the world hung on the wall of his study.
He was a man who had already conquered the present, but his mind was firmly anchored in the future. While he managed the mundane details of the state, he was patiently waiting for the impending updates from the massive military, social, and technological projects he had recently launched across the continent.
He waited for Jia Xu's reports on the massive northern migration, anticipating the moment when the blood of the Han and the nomads would permanently mix in the snow. He waited for Huang Yue Ying's breathless updates on the steam engines, envisioning the day when his iron clad fleets would completely ignore the wind and dominate the oceans.
He waited for the deafening crack of the perfected flintlock pistols that would render the swords of his enemies obsolete. And he waited for the naval admirals to finalize the apocalyptic invasion plans that would shatter the islands of Yamato and bring the rising sun under his dominion. The quiet night eventually began to fall over the capital of Xiapi once again. Lie Fan sat upon his chair in the flickering candlelight, an undisputed sovereign surrounded by a sea of paperwork, silently listening to the distant, rhythmic turning of the gears.
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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