General Yue Jin had already prepared himself for a long and miserable siege battle.
What he had not prepared for was a giant mechanical monster floating in the middle of the river and firing iron bolts the size of tree trunks at city walls.
The chaos atop Xiangyang's walls gradually died down.
The surviving guards silently carried away the corpses of their comrades. Several men worked together to pry the massive steel bolt out from the stone wall. The thing had punched through four armored soldiers before embedding itself deep into the battlements.
Yue Jin stood alone on the wall, gripping the bloodstained projectile in both hands.
He said nothing.
The bolt was absurdly heavy. Even holding it steady required effort. Yet this very chunk of iron had been launched from Guan Yu's flagship with enough force to tear through layers of armor, human bodies, and solid stone like paper.
A cold chill crept down Yue Jin's spine.
This was not a weapon meant for killing men.
This was a weapon designed to erase them.
He slowly surveyed the wall.
Truthfully, the first volley had not caused many casualties. Only a handful had died.
But morale?
Morale had been blown straight into the river.
Yue Jin was a vanguard general. His entire career had been built on charging first, fighting face-to-face, and planting his banner on enemy walls through sheer aggression. He excelled in brutal close combat where men could still see the whites of each other's eyes before dying.
But now? What are we supposed to do?
"I genuinely have no idea what I'm supposed to do."
"What's the plan here? Who still has a plan to confront a giant ship like that? Damn it."
"Or maybe... maybe I should just take a wooden fishing boat into the river and charge a floating fortress with cavalry, right?"
Even thinking about it sounds insane.
A wave of resentment suddenly rose in his chest.
Guan Yu was supposed to be a cavalry general from the northern plains. A land lubber. A man who probably thought a rudder was a type of farming tool. Since when did that bearded menace start studying naval engineering?
And more importantly, where the hell did Liu Bei even get a ship like this?
No. No, Liu Bei didn't build this. I refuse to believe it. This has Sun Wu written all over it. Sun Quan already handed over Jiangling. Then he handed over his own sister. Now he's handing over floating war fortresses. What's next? Is he going to gift Liu Bei the entire eastern seaboard and personally row him across the river?
At this rate, Sun Quan might as well just change his surname to Liu and be done with it.
Complaining solved nothing. Xiangyang still needed to be defended.
To the relief of the Xiangyang garrison, the giant ship did not stay. After that single, devastating volley, the flagship weighed anchor and drifted across the river to aim its weapons at Fancheng.
Fancheng and Xiangyang were sister cities. In theory, they shared the same fate.
In practice, however, human nature was often less heroic than official speeches suggested. Watching someone else get bombarded was always more comforting than being bombarded personally.
Yes, Fancheng is our ally. Yes, we swore an oath. But right now, that monster is aiming at them instead of us. Thank the heavens. May they hold out. May they survive. And please... just stay away from my walls. If you want to hit someone, just hit Fancheng.
The relief was complicated by a cold tactical reality.
If Fancheng fell, Xiangyang would not survive much longer. The mood on the walls became strange.
"Did you see the General pass by just now?"
"Yeah. I kept my head down."
"Same. What are we supposed to say to him? 'Glad that ship is hitting Fancheng now instead of us. Glad we're not dead yet, General. Sorry about Fancheng.'"
"Don't even joke about that."
"I'm not joking. I feel fear. How are we supposed to fight that giant ship? Tell me."
"I don't know. I'm just an ordinary soldier. That's not my job to think. I can't even read."
"We all know the ship turned toward Fancheng and we all felt relief. What kind of soldiers feel relief when their brothers are about to die?"
"At least we're still breathing."
"...That's cold."
"That's honest."
"We should be ashamed."
"We are ashamed. That's why nobody can look the General in the eye."
Yue Jin naturally noticed the shift in morale.
He immediately doubled the patrols along the walls and personally began inspecting every section of the defenses. Day and night, his figure could be seen pacing the battlements, constantly scanning the horizon.
He desperately needed a victory.
Not a grand victory that would decide the entire war. Right now, even a small tactical success would do.
As long as he could win one fight, kill one enemy officer, repel one assault, or burn one ship, morale might recover slightly.
Otherwise, the defenders of Xiangyang would slowly collapse under pressure before the real siege had even begun.
As for Fancheng...
Yue Jin could only wish them luck.
At present, Xiangyang could not spare a single soldier.
Not one.
---
Deep within the belly of the war fleet, Zhao A had no idea that General Yue Jin was currently questioning the meaning of life atop Xiangyang's walls.
Zhao A simply felt that real war was nothing like the stories.
Back when he was a child in Zigui, the village elders loved telling tales about ancient battles. They spoke of the Yellow Emperor fighting Chiyou in mythical wars that shook heaven and earth. Every story was grand and dramatic, filled with divine weapons, heroic generals, and impossible feats.
Young Zhao A had listened with shining eyes.
Those stories made war sound glorious.
Then he grew older, and reality turned out to be very different.
His former employer, Master Li, had fled south to avoid Cao Cao's advancing army, and the version of war he described was nothing like the legends.
"You want to know what war is really like, boy?" Master Li once said while shaking his head. "Soldiers cutting off civilian ears to fake military achievements. Entire cities burned to the ground. Prisoners dragged into forced labor camps. Starving refugees collapsing by the roadside."
That version of war sounded less like legend and more like hell with paperwork.
Now Zhao A officially served in General Guan's vanguard navy.
After working there for several weeks, he reached a simple conclusion.
War was basically exhausting physical labor with occasional screaming.
During the day, he stayed below deck, desperately pedaling the giant wooden wheels that pushed the dreadnought against the river current.
At night, he climbed into a small transport ferry and rowed back and forth between Dangyang and Fancheng, hauling crates filled with absurdly oversized arrows.
His squadmates constantly bragged about the flagship's heavy ballistas.
"Brother, when those things fire, it sounds like an angry god roaring," one of them told him.
Zhao A had never actually heard it himself.
Every time the bombardment began, he was either trapped below deck pedaling like his life depended on it or hauling supplies somewhere else.
"You sure it is not just the wind?" Zhao A asked once.
"It is not the wind."
"Could it be a very angry wind?"
"It is not the wind, Zhao Five."
Honestly, Zhao A was beginning to suspect the gods deliberately waited for him to leave before making any noise.
The only time he could properly admire the warship was during his night runs.
Under the darkness of the river, the giant vessel floated silently atop the water like a sleeping beast.
Massive.
Cold.
Heavy with killing intent.
The more Zhao A looked at it, the more he liked it.
He worked aboard it during the day and slept inside it at night. At this point, the thing felt less like a warship and more like a very dangerous wooden apartment complex.
Back in Zigui, Zhao A's greatest life ambition had been painfully ordinary.
He wanted to save enough copper coins to marry a decent wife.
"Just a small wedding," he used to tell himself. "As long as there is enough meat on the table, life would already be perfect."
That dream was temporarily suspended.
Now he had a new goal.
A very specific one.
He wanted to become a certified Triple-Bow mechanic.
The Triple-Bow was the infantry nickname for the heavy siege ballista mounted aboard the flagship. The weapon used three enormous overlapping wooden bows to generate terrifying tension and launch giant steel bolts capable of smashing city walls into rubble.
The name itself was simple enough that even illiterate soldiers could remember it.
"What does it do?" a new recruit asked him once.
"It turns walls into something engineers cry over."
The recruit blinked. "What?"
"Nothing. I was trying to sound mysterious."
"It did not work."
More importantly, certified mechanics earned an additional one hundred coins every month.
One hundred coins.
Just thinking about it made Zhao A pedal harder.
Life soon settled into a brutal routine.
Pedal during the day.
Row at night.
Repeat until death or promotion.
One evening, Zhao A looked at his squadmate and asked, "Which do you think comes first? Death or promotion?"
His squadmate did not even hesitate. "Death."
"Your optimism is inspiring."
Then one afternoon, while Zhao A was furiously stomping the pedals below deck, a deafening cheer suddenly erupted from above.
"The walls are broken!"
"Fancheng has fallen!"
The entire lower deck instantly exploded into celebration.
Zhao A had never even seen Fancheng properly before.
That did not stop him from cheering at the top of his lungs alongside everyone else.
"What are we celebrating?" he shouted toward the man beside him.
"No idea," the man shouted back. "But it sounds important!"
A captured city meant military merit.
Military merit meant bonus pay.
And bonus pay meant Zhao A's future wife was gradually becoming less fictional.
That very night, Zhao A steered his transport skiff away from Fancheng once again.
This time, however, he was not carrying supplies.
His small boat was packed tightly with captured northern soldiers. Their hands were bound securely with thick ropes, and their pale faces looked almost ghostly beneath the moonlight.
Zhao A glanced at them.
"So," he said casually, "does anyone here know how to row?"
The prisoners stared at him in complete silence.
"No? That is unfortunate."
As Zhao A rowed farther away from shore, he finally got a proper look at Fancheng itself.
The riverside wall resembled a giant stone hedgehog.
Massive steel bolts protruded from the battlements everywhere.
Several sections of the upper walls had completely collapsed under the bombardment. Siege engineers had already piled enormous dirt ramps against the damaged areas, creating direct pathways onto the walls.
From the river, the fortress no longer resembled a city.
It looked like something that had repeatedly lost arguments against an angry giant.
The prisoners sitting in Zhao A's boat stared toward the distant flagship with hollow expressions.
Pure fear filled their eyes.
To them, the giant warship was less a military vessel and more a floating nightmare.
Zhao A, however, paid no attention to their emotional suffering.
He was currently facing a much more serious issue.
Halfway through rowing, his expression suddenly changed.
He slowly turned toward the prisoners.
"Hey," he asked, "none of you happen to know who is paying the ferry toll for this trip, right?"
Blank stares greeted him.
Naturally, the prisoners had no answer. They were prisoners, not quartermasters.
Zhao A rowed silently for a while.
Then he let out a long sigh.
"I really am paying for this myself."
---
Guan Yu was completely unaware that one of his transport ferrymen was currently suffering a financial crisis over ferry toll expenses.
The imposing general stood atop the conquered walls of Fancheng, his long beard swaying gently in the river wind as he gazed toward the flagship resting quietly upon the water.
"Siege warfare remains an inefficient endeavor," Guan Yu said slowly. "Even with the heavy ballistas, fortress walls and reinforced gates are still too stubborn."
Standing beside him, Xu Shu immediately burst into laughter.
"Yunchang," he said while pointing at him, "you captured an impregnable fortress in exactly seven days. That speed is unprecedented in recent military history. How are you still dissatisfied?"
Guan Yu turned his head slightly, his expression completely serious.
"Yuanzhi. Fancheng and Xiangyang possessed no naval forces whatsoever. My flagship sailed directly to their doorstep and fired upon the battlements uncontested. The defenders did not even dare stand properly atop the walls."
He paused briefly.
"Against a completely undefended river perimeter, taking seven days is embarrassing."
Xu Shu instantly gave up trying to argue with Guan Yu's impossible standards. Some people simply treated perfectionism as a lifestyle.
He leaned slightly over the battlements and inspected the damaged wall below.
"I must admit, Yunchang," Xu Shu said with a faint smile, "I never once considered using ballista bolts as architectural staples. You practically nailed ladders straight into the city wall."
Due to the limitations of current engineering, fortress walls of this era were usually built from heavily rammed earth reinforced with outer stone layers. The foundations were thick, gradually narrowing upward into steep defensive walls.
Now, however, countless giant steel bolts protruded from the surface. An infantryman could grab the shafts and climb upward by hand.
Xu Shu silently memorized the tactic. Effective tactics were effective tactics, no matter how strange they looked.
After a moment, he turned back toward Guan Yu.
"Yunchang," Xu Shu remarked thoughtfully, "if you had possessed this technology during your original campaign to flood these cities, the outcome might have been entirely different."
Guan Yu offered no opinion regarding alternate histories. Instead, he quietly changed the subject.
"Yuanzhi. I assume the structural repairs to Fancheng will be handled by the military strategist's office?"
Xu Shu nodded. That responsibility had already been included in their operational agreement.
As the conversation ended, Guan Yu slowly descended the stone steps of the battlements. Halfway down, he planted the Green Dragon Crescent Blade firmly into the earth beside him before bending over to gently lift the corpse of a fallen Jingzhou infantryman into his arms. Then he carried the body toward an open clearing beneath a massive banner bearing the single character: Guan.
Dozens of bodies already rested there in orderly rows. Nearby, logistics officers carefully loaded the dead onto wooden carts one after another. Every fallen soldier would be transported back to Jiangling for proper burial rites.
Xu Shu watched silently from above and let out a quiet sigh.
The defending force at Fancheng had numbered roughly ten thousand men. Their command structure was chaotic from the beginning, and their provincial governor had already been executed during the siege.
Following Xu Shu's tactical recommendations, Guan Yu fully exploited the flagship's overwhelming range advantage. For four consecutive days, the fleet bombarded the city without allowing the infantry to approach the walls. Only after the defenders were mentally exhausted and completely demoralized did the ground forces begin constructing dirt ramps. One day later, Guan Yu personally led the final assault.
Using the terror created by the dreadnought, the Jingzhou army achieved a crushing victory. Their casualties barely exceeded two hundred men. Meanwhile, nearly eight thousand enemy soldiers were captured alive.
By the standards of ancient warfare, it was an astonishing result.
And yet, when Xu Shu looked upon the rows of corpses below, all he felt was exhaustion. Most of these men had once been ordinary farmers. Now they lay dead far away from home. Han people killing Han people. The thought alone left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Xu Shu lightly slapped his own cheeks and forced the melancholy aside. There was still too much work to do.
He immediately turned around and began issuing orders to nearby officers, organizing labor crews to repair the breached walls and reinforce the city defenses.
Capturing Fancheng was only the beginning. The real battle had not even started yet.
Soon, Cao Cao himself would arrive.
And when he did, this place would become the center of the largest and bloodiest war of their lives.
---
For Cao Cao, the year had already become a complete nightmare.
The moment his carriage rolled into Xuchang, he got straight to work.
"Execute those three," Cao Cao said casually, pointing toward a cluster of terrified minor officials. "That one too. Hmm. Yes, him as well."
One of the guards hesitated. "On what charges, my lord?"
Cao Cao barely looked up. "Does it matter? Pick something believable. Corruption. Insubordination. Improper hat etiquette. Whatever sounds official enough."
The young Emperor watched the scene unfold from the palace steps, looking like he wanted to disappear into the floor.
Cao Cao calmly adjusted his sleeves before giving him a polite smile.
"Now that introductions are finished, I trust Your Majesty remembers who handles the empire's affairs these days."
Nearby, Xun Yu looked deeply uncomfortable.
"Executing officials the moment you arrive in the capital is excessive," he said carefully. "The court is already terrified."
"Good," Cao Cao replied without missing a beat. "Fear keeps people productive."
Xun Yu frowned. "This level of bloodshed damages the legitimacy of the throne. An empire cannot be governed through intimidation alone."
Only then did Cao Cao glance sideways at him, visibly irritated.
"And an empire also cannot survive on endless lectures about morality," he said flatly. "Now, if you're finished, I have actual problems to deal with."
Without waiting for a response, he strode toward his office, where an ugly stack of military dispatches from the southern front was already waiting.
The first report nearly ruined his mood instantly.
Fancheng had fallen.
In seven days.
Seven.
Attached to the disaster report was a message from General Yu Jin, who was currently leading the relief force south. His question was painfully straightforward.
Since the city no longer existed, should they still continue the operation?
Cao Cao read the report once.
Then again.
Then he threw it across the room hard enough to scare the servants.
"Seven days?" he snapped. "Seven days and the city is gone?"
He grabbed another dispatch and hurled it into the wall.
"Yue Jin, you unbelievable idiot. I gave you one job. One. Hold Xiangyang. That was the order. I never told you to gut Fancheng's grain reserves just to make your own walls look thicker."
He paced furiously across the room, boots slamming against the floor.
"You stripped the city of supplies. You stripped it of soldiers. And now Fancheng collapsed faster than wet paper in a rainstorm."
Another turn.
Another furious gesture toward the scattered reports.
"Seven days. Guan Yu probably spent more time deciding what to eat for breakfast than he did capturing the city."
The servants wisely stayed silent.
Cao Cao stopped pacing and pointed accusingly at the crumpled papers like Yue Jin himself was standing there.
"And no, I'm not blaming the dead governor for this mess. That man died because you abandoned him. This disaster belongs to you, Yue Jin. Your cowardice. Your stupidity. Your complete inability to understand basic military strategy."
He took a long breath.
Then another.
Eventually, the anger cooled enough for logic to return.
"Fine," he muttered. "What's done is done. Xiangyang is still standing. It's heavily reinforced. It should hold."
A brief pause.
"Probably."
He sat back down heavily.
"Yu Jin is already marching south, so the campaign continues. But after this war is over, Yue Jin… you and I are going to have a very unpleasant conversation."
Cao Cao rubbed his temples while smoothing out the wrinkled reports across his desk.
At the moment, his emotional state was an unhealthy combination of stress, exhaustion, and smug self-satisfaction.
Yes, the southern front was falling apart.
But he had also been completely right about Guan Yu.
While everyone else treated the naval threat like a joke, Cao Cao had been one of the few people who understood just how dangerous Guan Yu really was.
Well.
Nobody at Fancheng was laughing now.
After a rapid war council in Xuchang, elite cavalry couriers were immediately dispatched north toward Yecheng. Their orders were brutally simple.
Squeeze every northern province for grain.
Mobilize the reserve armies.
Beg, borrow, steal, threaten, Cao Cao did not particularly care how it got done anymore.
Meanwhile, Cao Cao emptied the Xuchang barracks. Aside from a few unlucky soldiers who drew the short straw and got stuck guarding the walls, every combat-ready man was ordered to march toward the Fancheng theater.
This aggressive deployment drained his active supply chain. The army only had enough food to operate for roughly twenty days. Cao Cao was unbothered by the ticking clock. He had built his entire career on winning impossible wars while his troops were starving.
At this point, logistical panic was basically his comfort zone.
He set the military reports aside and picked up two sealed secret letters. He cracked the wax on the first one.
His eyebrows shot up.
"Well, well. Look at this."
Liu Bei was aggressively seizing the private agricultural estates of wealthy noble clans in Yizhou. In response, those same wealthy landlords had formed a secret coalition. They wanted to overthrow Liu Bei, welcome the coward Liu Zhang back into power, and they were formally begging Cao Cao for military assistance.
Xun Yu stood near the desk. His face curled in disgust.
"The elite clans of Yizhou are famously devoid of honor. The men organizing this treason are the bottom of the barrel."
Cao Cao waved a dismissive hand.
"Xun Yu. They are traitors. I am aware. That is precisely why they are useful."
He did not even pause to think. He handed the treasonous letter directly to his other advisor, Xun You.
"Have this document duplicated. Send copies north to the elite clans in Yecheng. I am sure they will deeply understand the subtle implications."
It was a masterclass in political extortion. Cao Cao had been desperately searching for an excuse to force his own wealthy nobles to donate grain to the war effort. Liu Bei had just handed him the perfect weapon.
The northern aristocrats valued their land holdings more than they valued their own children. If they saw documented proof that Liu Bei was actively liquidating private estates in the west, they would panic. They would gladly empty their silos to fund Cao Cao's army just to keep Liu Bei away from their property.
Nothing motivates generosity quite like existential terror.
Cao Cao smiled and reached for the second secret letter. He cracked the wax. Read it once. Read it again.
The smile slowly morphed into something far more dangerous.
"Sun Quan is watching Guan Yu launch a massive northern campaign. Yet, Sun Wu has not fired a single arrow at our eastern borders. Instead, Sun Quan is quietly stacking thousands of troops into the Jiangxia fortress right behind Guan Yu's back."
He set the letter down and rubbed his chin.
Well now. That is interesting.
The southern alliance was rotting from the inside. Sun Quan was sitting on his hands while Guan Yu did all the work. And now Sun Wu troops were quietly massing behind Guan Yu's supply lines.
Cao Cao leaned back in his chair.
The game was getting very, very interesting.