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Muchen stood frozen, his scholarly lessons, his spear training, his imagined visions, all of it evaporated. This was reality. It was vast, it was deafening, and it was horrifically beautiful in its orchestrated destruction.
He saw his father, a tiny figure now at the head of that tidal wave, not charging blindly, but moving with purpose, directing reserves, pointing with his halberd, a conductor at the heart of the storm.
Sima Yi, utterly calm beside him, began speaking in a low, continuous murmur to the messengers who darted up and down the platform steps. "Tell the third division to pressure the eastern gatehouse. Inform General Huang Zhong that his archers should concentrate on the enemy artillery positions on the northwest tower. The mining team is to begin their work under cover of this assault."
This was the mind of the army. Cold, calculating, turning the raw, cheering will into precise, tactical instructions. Muchen watched, listened, and felt the last vestiges of boyhood burn away in the furnace of the genuine, bloody siege of Hongnong.
The lesson had begun, and it was more terrible, and more awe inspiring, than anything he could have possibly imagined.
The command post was a vortex of calm within the storm. While the plain below churned with screams and the thunder of engines, the platform hummed with a different kind of intensity, the sharp, rapid fire exchange of minds. Sima Yi stood at its center, his gaze fixed on the unfolding panorama of violence, but his attention was divided among the voices around him.
Behind Muchen, Chen Deng leaned forward, pointing a slender finger at the eastern section of the wall. "The pressure there is insufficient. The defenders are shifting reinforcements from the central breach to shore it up. We should feint a stronger push at the main gate to pin them, then truly reinforce the eastern assault."
Zang Hong, his face etched with the pragmatism of a seasoned campaigner, grunted. "A feint costs men. Better to commit a full surprise assault from the newly dug trench on the west. They won't expect a major push from that angle yet."
Sima Yi listened, his expression giving nothing away. After a moment, he spoke without looking away from the field. "Chen Deng's observation is correct, but Zang Hong's solution is wasteful. Implement a limited escalation at the main gate, enough to make them look, not enough to waste lives. Simultaneously, prepare the western trench force, but hold them. Let the enemy commit to the central shuffle, then strike the east with the third division's reserves."
He wasn't just giving orders; he was conducting a symphony of suggestions, harmonizing them into a coherent strategy. Xu Shu, his brow furrowed in thought, interjected. "The enemy's counter archery from the northwest tower is suppressing our miners. They need a window."
Pang Tong, who had been unusually quiet, sniffed, a sly grin on his face. "Then give them a window made of fire. Concentrate three volleys of fire arrows from the hwachas on that tower. Not to destroy it, but to force the archers to duck and the crews to deal with the flames. That's your window."
Sima Yi's eyes flickered. "A blunt instrument, but the timing is delicate… Xu Shu, coordinate with the artillery captains. Three volleys on my mark, synchronized with Huang Zhong's suppression. Tell the miners they have one hundred breaths to make progress."
It was a mesmerizing dance of intellect under pressure. Muchen watched, his initial awe at the scale of the battle now tempered by a dawning appreciation for the complexity behind it.
No one was afraid to speak, Chen Deng's idea was refined, Zang Hong's was modified, Pang Tong's unorthodox suggestion was adopted and given precise parameters.
A rejected idea wasn't a personal failure, it was a stepping stone to a better one. This was how an empire's brain trust functioned, not as a single autocratic mind, but as a council where sharp, competing thoughts were honed against each other until a superior strategy emerged.
As he absorbed this, he felt a gentle presence at his shoulders. Lu Zhi and Zhuge Jin had moved to flank him, their scholarly robes whispering against the wooden railing.
"Observe the ebb and flow, Your Highness," Lu Zhi began, his voice a steady, grounding bass beside Muchen's ear. He pointed a bony finger toward the surging lines of infantry. "See how they advance not in a blind rush, but in waves? Each wave covers the advance of the next. It is like the tide, relentless, using its own retreat to gather strength for the next advance."
Zhuge Jin, his tone more pedagogical, added, "And note the signals. Watch the flagmen on the small hill to the left. Their patterns are a language. A crossed set of red and black flags means 'archery cover.' A single green flag waved in a circle means 'retreat and regroup.' The entire army moves as one body because it speaks with one voice, conveyed through cloth and light."
Muchen's mind, overwhelmed by the noise and chaos, began to find patterns. He saw it now, the deliberate rhythm, the communication. He pointed to a section where a trebuchet stone smashed into the parapet just as a wave of Hengyuan soldiers reached the base of the wall there. "That… that was timed. The stone cleared the defenders right as our men arrived."
"Correct," Zhuge Jin said, a note of approval in his voice. "That is combined arms. The siege engines are not firing at random. They are creating opportunities, softening targets, disrupting enemy formations at the precise moment our infantry can exploit it. It is a brutal calculus."
Muchen's questions began to flow, hesitant at first, then with growing urgency. "Why are our archers firing in high arcs now, but earlier they were shooting straight?"
"Wind shifted," Lu Zhi answered bluntly. "High arcs use the wind to carry the arrows farther and drop them behind the front line shields. Direct fire is for when you have a clear, close target. It is about adapting to the moment."
"Why is that unit pulling back? They weren't beaten!"
"Their rotation is up," Zhuge Jin explained. "Even in an assault, men cannot fight at peak fury for more than a short time. Fresh troops replace them before exhaustion leads to a rout. It is about managing stamina, not just territory."
Each answer peeled back a layer of the incomprehensible chaos, revealing the intricate, ruthless logic beneath. Muchen was no longer just seeing a battle, he was reading it.
The terror was still there, the distant screams still curdled his blood, but now it was mixed with a profound, sobering understanding. This was the machinery of conquest, and his father was its chief engineer.
Throughout this intense tutorial, Zhao Yun and Ma Chao were a study in vigilant stillness. They did not look at the battle. Their eyes scanned the sky around the command post, the distant tree lines, the movements of every nearby soldier.
Zhao Yun's hand rested lightly on the grip of his spear, his head turning with the slow, patient certainty of a predator. Ma Chao's posture was more coiled, like a spring, his gaze sharp and flickering, missing nothing.
When a stray arrow, fired from a desperate, high arcing shot from the walls, hissed through the air toward the platform, it was Ma Chao who moved. Without a word, his spear was a blur, a sharp crack splitting the air as he batted the projectile aside before it could land within twenty paces of the prince.
He didn't even break his scanning of the horizon. This was their duty, to make the area safe, so the prince could learn the terrible lessons of war without falling victim to them.
On the blood slicked stones of the main breach, the lesson was of a vastly different kind. Here, there was no analysis, only application. The air was a thick soup of smoke, the metallic scent of blood, and the sour stench of fear. The cacophony was immediate, the clash of steel, the thud of shields, the guttural cries of men killing and dying.
And at the tip of the Hengyuan spear was Lie Fan.
He was not a distant emperor here. He was a force of nature. His dark armor was soon streaked with grime and other, darker fluids. His halberd was not a symbol, it was an extension of his fury, a whirling arc of polished death.
He fought not with blind rage, but with a terrifying, economical efficiency. A thrust pierced a gap in a shield wall. A sweeping blow knocked three men from the ramparts. A deft parry sent an enemy sword spinning into the air before a reverse stroke ended its owner.
He had been the first up the "climbing tiger" ladder, shrugging off rocks and boiling oil that splattered harmlessly against the shielded cover held by his two immense Yellow Ghost bodyguards.
Once on the wall, he became an anchor, a lodestone of destruction that drew the Wei defenders' panic and the Hengyuan soldiers' courage.
Huang Zhong, standing ten paces to his left, was a statue of lethal precision. His great bow was silent now, replaced by a long, heavy glaive. He moved less, but every step, every swing, was final. A Wei officer charged him, Huang Zhong sidestepped with a speed belying his years, and his glaive removed the man's head in a single, clean motion.
To Lie Fan's right, Zhang Liao and Taishi Ci were a whirlwind of coordinated violence. Zhang Liao's style was solid, unstoppable, a hammerblow that shattered enemy formations.
Taishi Ci was all fluid motion and passionate fury, his twin swords weaving a net of death around him. The two Yellow Ghosts were more than bodyguards, they were deadly extensions of Lie Fan's will, intercepting attacks from the sides, creating space with brutal, shield shattering slams.
The effect on the battle was electric. Where before, Hengyuan soldiers had clawed for a foothold on the walls only to be pushed back by disciplined defense, now they swarmed up the ladders behind their Emperor's wake.
The breach, once a contested bottleneck, was widening into a secured beachhead. The soldiers fought with wild eyes, their shouts of "For the Emperor!" now a battle cry born of witnessing his valor.
The myth of the "God of War" was no longer a story from the past, it was a living, breathing, slaughtering reality right before their eyes. Morale, that fragile, crucial element in a protracted siege, solidified into something like fanatical certainty.
In the main watchtower of Hongnong, the highest command post of the Wei defenders, the mood was starkly different. The air was thick with the smell of dust, ink, and a pervasive, grim anxiety. Cao Cao stood at the wide observation slit, his hands clasped tightly behind his back.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 35 (202 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 9)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 966 (+20)
VIT: 623 (+20)
AGI: 623 (+10)
INT: 667
CHR: 98n
WIS: 549
WILL: 432
ATR Points: 0