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He watched a squad of his own heavy infantry try to press forward into a market square, only to be met with a hail of crossbow bolts from hidden positions and a sudden, vicious counter charge led by a grim faced Xu Huang. They were beaten back, leaving three of their number on the cobblestones.
'Enough,' Lie Fan thought, the calculation cold and final in his mind. A good commander knew when to attack. A great commander knew when to stop.
Victory today was not about taking the city, it was about proving they could, and about taking something priceless from within it.
He turned from the inner city view, his armor scraping against stone. Raising his halberd high, he began a series of deliberate, sweeping motions, clear, pre arranged signals visible across the front.
In the command post, Sima Yi's telescope followed the Emperor's movements. He saw the specific arc of the halberd, the deliberate pause, the final downward chop that meant 'withdraw and consolidate.'
"His Majesty signals retreat," Sima Yi announced, his voice devoid of disappointment, only professional acceptance. "Drummers. Sound the recall. Ordered withdrawal. Covering fire on my mark."
The massive signal drums, which had beaten the furious rhythm of advance, now shifted to a deeper, more measured beat, BOOM… boom boom… BOOM… boom boom, a sound that spoke not of defeat, but of disciplined disengagement. It rolled across the battlefield, a call every Hengyuan soldier had drilled into their bones.
The effect was immediate and orchestrated. On the walls and in the forward trenches, unit commanders bellowed orders. Shields locked into a defensive testudo formation.
Men began to back away, step by measured step, keeping their faces to the enemy. There was no panic, no rout. This was the unglamorous, vital skill of a professional army, knowing how to leave a fight alive.
Muchen, from the command post, watched this new phase with wide, absorbing eyes. The chaotic surge of the assault had been terrifying. This orderly retreat was somehow more impressive. It was control in the face of lingering danger.
"See how the rear ranks hold position Your Highness," Lu Zhi said, his finger tracing the lines on the field. "They form the anvil. The forward ranks are the hammer being drawn back. If the enemy pursues too eagerly, they smash into a wall of shields and spears."
"And watch the artillery," Zhuge Jin added, pointing as the distant trebuchets and hwachas crews, having received Sima Yi's flagged orders, sprang into renewed action. "They are not firing at the city indiscriminately now. See the arcs, Your Highness? They are creating a killing zone between our retreating men and the walls. A curtain of fire and stone to discourage pursuit."
Thwump. Hiss CRACK. Volleys of fire arrows from the hwachas streaked across the darkening sky, planting a flaming barrier along the base of the wall. Stones from the trebuchets crashed into the areas where Wei troops might mass for a chase.
It was a deadly umbrella, a demonstration of the siege army's power used with surgical precision to protect its own.
Lie Fan was the last to leave the wall. He moved with his generals, Zhang Liao and Huang Zhong forming a solid rearguard on his flanks, Taishi Ci and the freshly arrived Dian Wei and Ji Ling clearing the immediate path ahead.
He didn't run, he walked, his halberd held ready, his gaze scanning the Wei positions for any sign of a reckless sally. None came.
The loss of Cao Hong and Cao Ren, and the ferocious display of the covering fire, had tempered any aggressive thoughts in the Wei command. They were content to let the invaders go, to lick their own wounds and shore up their shattered inner defenses.
The retreat took mere minutes, a well oiled machine reversing its gears. As Lie Fan's boots finally touched the churned earth of no man's land, leaving the grotesque landscape of the wall behind, a sound began to build from the Hengyuan trenches and the rear camps. It started as a murmur, then grew into a roaring wave.
The soldiers who had been holding the line, who had watched the duel of champions and the capture of the enemy generals, were cheering. Not for the retreat, but for the man leading it. Their voices were hoarse from battle but thick with fervent pride.
"LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR! THE GOD OF WAR! VICTORY!"
They chanted as he passed, faces smeared with dirt and blood alight with admiration. They had seen him fight like a demon, command like a god, and now withdraw with the wisdom of a true king.
He acknowledged them with a raised hand, a nod here and there, but his pace didn't slow. The adulation was fuel for another day, now, there were immediate duties.
He was steered not to his command tent, but to the physician's camp, a sprawling area of tents already filling with the moans and cries of the wounded.
The smell of blood, herbs, and searing flesh was overpowering. Lie Fan submitted to the check with barely a grimace as a skilled surgeon cleaned the cut on his cheek, applied a poultice to his bruised arm, and made him drink a bitter, fortifying draught. His eyes, however, were already elsewhere.
"The prisoners," he said to no one in particular, rising from the stool. "Where are they being held?"
A junior officer led him to a stout, guarded tent on the very edge of the secure compound. The two Yellow Ghost Bodyguards who had carried the prizes stood sentinel outside, their imposing forms a clear deterrent. They saluted as he approached.
Inside, under the glow of a single lamp, Cao Hong and Cao Ren sat on the ground, their hands bound tightly behind their backs with thick, coarse rope.
Their armor had been removed, leaving them in stained under tunics. They looked battered, humiliated, but far from broken.
As the tent flap opened and Lie Fan's silhouette filled the entrance, both men looked up. Cao Hong's expression was one of sheer, unadulterated hatred. Cao Ren's was colder, more analytical, but no less defiant.
Cao Hong spat on the ground at Lie Fan's feet. "Come to gloat, usurper? Or to finish what your lackeys started?"
Lie Fan didn't react to the insult. He stepped fully inside, letting the flap fall closed. He looked at them for a long moment, taking in their disheveled state, the bruises rising on their faces, the stubborn fire in their eyes.
He let out a soft, almost weary chuckle. "I must apologize for the… hospitality," he began, his voice calm. "Ropes on the ground. No wine, not even a proper seat. It is poor treatment for men of your station."
Cao Ren snorted, a dry, humorless sound. "Spare us your false courtesies, Lie Fan. We are not children to be placated with honeyed words. We are prisoners. We know our fate. If you have any spine, you'll give us a clean death. Or are you the kind of victor who parades his captives like trophies?"
Lie Fan shook his head slowly, a faint, knowing smile touching his lips. "Kill you? Why would I do that?"
"Because we will never serve you!" Cao Hong snarled, straining against his bonds. "Our loyalty is to the House of Cao! To the Wei Dynasty! You can bind our bodies, but you will never break our oaths!"
"I believe you," Lie Fan said, surprising them with his quiet sincerity. He took a step closer, his shadow falling over them. "Your loyalty is commendable. It is, in fact, the very reason you are alive and not left to be killed or bleed out on that wall."
He crouched down, bringing himself to their eye level. The gesture was not one of submission, but of intense focus. "You misunderstand me. This is not about breaking oaths. It is about respect."
He paused, letting the word hang in the lamplight. "Cao Mengde and I… we have been at each other's throats for most of our adult lives. We have schemed, betrayed, and slaughtered our way across this land. There is little we agree on."
He met Cao Ren's skeptical gaze. "But one thing we share, one fundamental understanding beneath all the blood, is a love for talent. A genuine appreciation for capable minds and valorous hearts. He gathered them around him. So did I. You two… you are not just soldiers. You are pillars. Cao Hong, your aggressive drive in battle is legendary. Cao Ren, your defensive mind, your ability to hold a line against impossible odds… it is the stuff of field marshals."
He stood up again, looking down at them. "To kill such talent out of hand would be an act of profound stupidity. A waste. It would be an insult not just to you, but to the very nature of the contest between your master and me. This war… it is about proving whose vision for this land is stronger. What does it prove if I simply destroy the best pieces on his board? It proves only that I can break things."
He turned and walked to the tent flap, pausing before leaving. "You will be treated well. You will have food, water, a physician if you need one. You will not be tortured, nor will you be paraded. Think on what I've said. The future is not yet written. Your loyalty is to the House of Cao. But consider what the House of Cao might need to survive, in any form, when the dust of Hongnong finally settles."
He left them then, the two proud cousins sitting in stunned, furious silence. He had offered no deal, no demand for surrender. He had offered only respect and a chilling, pragmatic view of the future. It was a move far more disarming and unsettling than any threat of execution.
As Lie Fan emerged, the cheers of the camp a distant rumble, he looked toward the command post. His thoughts went to his son. The day's brutal lessons were over.
He hoped Muchen had been watching, not just the fighting, but the ending, the controlled retreat, the care for the wounded, and now, the complex calculus of dealing with defeated, valuable enemies. The boy had seen the God of War. Now, he needed to see the Emperor.
Back at the command post, the lesson had ended in a far more visceral way. As the last of the covering fire ceased and the full, horrifying tableau of the battlefield was laid bare under the setting sun, the heaped bodies, the broken siege engines, the dark stains spreading across the earth, Muchen's composure, which had held through the duels and the retreat, finally shattered.
The abstract 'cost of war' his tutors had described became a specific, stomach churning reality. The distant figures became sons, brothers, fathers. The metallic scent on the wind became the copper tang of blood.
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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: 98
WIS: 549
WILL: 432
ATR Points: 0