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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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The inner keep had narrowly avoided a direct hit from the heaviest cannons, but the concussive shockwaves had stripped it of its former glory. The delicate paper screens were torn, the wooden pillars were cracked, and the beautiful, ancient cherry blossom trees that lined the courtyard were completely coated in a thick, suffocating layer of gray ash, making them look like dead, petrified monuments. The Hengyuan high command was welcomed by a humiliating sight.
There, in the center of the ash covered courtyard, stripped of all the divine mystique and untouchable authority that had defined his bloodline for centuries, was the once proud King Tarashihiko. He was kneeling directly on the cold, hard ground. His exquisite royal silk robes were torn, covered in dust and soot, and his royal crown sat haphazardly on the stones beside him.
Surrounding him, his entire surviving royal council, the fiercely proud nobles, and the seasoned samurai generals were kneeling and standing haphazardly in the courtyard. They were completely disorganized, their posture slumped, entirely stripped of their previous, arrogant martial pride. The men who had screamed for a glorious, suicidal cavalry charge mere hours ago were now weeping openly, their hands trembling as they stared at the ground.
As the heavily armored Hengyuan generals, their capes billowing majestically, and the cold eyed, impeccably dressed strategists dismounted from their warhorses in perfect unison, the physical contrast between the conquerors and the conquered was absolute.
The Yamato King and his highest officials literally trembled before them. Their eyes were wide, dilated with sheer, unadulterated terror as they looked upon the men who had brought the apocalypse to their shores. They were not looking at rival warlords, they were looking at the harbingers of a new, terrifying, advanced era of warfare that they simply could not comprehend.
With a series of sharp, barked commands from the Hengyuan lieutenants, the heavily armed Hengyuan soldiers instantly fanned out, surrounding the courtyard with a synchronized clash of steel. They formed a tight, impenetrable ring of interlocking shields and leveled halberds, completely cutting off all escape routes and trapping the Yamato leadership in a cage of dark iron.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Zhang Liao stood with his hand resting casually on the hilt of his broadsword, his cold gaze pinning the kneeling King to the floor.
Then, stepping forward from the ranks of the mainland conquerors, the bilingual Goguryeo translators took their position. They cleared their throats, the sound unnervingly loud in the tense courtyard.
Thus began the harsh, uncompromising negotiation for Yamato's surrender.
From the very first word spoken, it was abundantly clear to everyone present that this was less of a negotiation and more of an absolute, unbreakable dictation of terms orchestrated by the ruthless minds of Sima Yi and Guo Jia.
Sima Yi stepped forward, his dark, calculating eyes looking down upon King Tarashihiko with the detached, analytical gaze of a scholar examining a fascinating, but entirely helpless, insect. He unrolled a long, heavy silk scroll bearing the absolute, unquestionable imperial seal of the Black Dragon.
"Translate my words exactly," Sima Yi ordered the Goguryeo scholar without taking his eyes off the broken King. "Do not soften the blow. Let them feel the full weight of His Majesty's decree."
The translator nodded deeply and turned to the trembling Yamato court.
"You stand before the vanguard of the Hengyuan Dynasty," Sima Yi's voice cut through the courtyard, smooth, cold, and echoing with absolute authority. As he spoke, the translator relayed the words in the native, guttural tongue of the islanders. "You have witnessed the fire of our engines. You have seen your ancient walls turned to dust. You are entirely defeated. You have no allies coming to save you, and the sea that once protected you is now owned entirely by our fleets."
King Tarashihiko squeezed his eyes shut, tears tracing tracks through the soot on his cheeks, nodding slowly in pathetic, broken agreement.
"Therefore," Sima Yi continued, unrolling the scroll further, "these are the final, unbreakable terms of your continued existence. If you reject a single syllable, the cannons will resume, and we will not stop until this island is nothing but a barren rock."
The final, unbreakable terms were laid out clearly, each one a massive, devastating blow to the very foundation of the Yamato civilization.
"First," Sima Yi declared, his voice ringing like a judge pronouncing a death sentence. "The Kingdom of Yamato no longer exists as an independent sovereign entity. From this day until the end of time, Yamato will forever become a subservient, strictly governed tributary state to the mighty Hengyuan Dynasty. You, King Tarashihiko, are stripped of your divine titles. You are now merely a provincial governor, serving entirely at the pleasure of the Dragon Throne. You will bow to Emperor Hongyi, you will pay exorbitant annual tributes of silver, silk, and grain, and you will adopt the laws, the calendar, and the Nationalism ideology of the mainland."
A collective, muffled gasp of sheer horror rippled through the kneeling Yamato nobles. The erasure of their independence was complete. But the strategists were not finished. Guo Jia stepped forward, a vicious, cunning smile playing on his lips, ready to deliver the final, killing blow to the island's pride.
"Furthermore," Guo Jia spoke, his voice dripping with a dangerous, chaotic amusement. "We have seen the bravery of your warriors. We have seen how eagerly they charge into our artillery fire. Such martial pride is a dangerous, volatile thing. To ensure you would never again pose a threat to our supply lines, or ever harbor the foolish delusion that you could resist the Emperor's will again..."
Guo Jia paused, letting the suspense hang in the air, ensuring every single general and Daimyo in the courtyard was listening to their doom.
"...Yamato will completely lose its right to have any standing military power," Guo Jia decreed, the words striking the samurai generals like physical blows. "Your armies are immediately disbanded. Every sword, every bow, every suit of lacquered armor in this kingdom will be confiscated and melted down in our foundries."
General Katsuro, kneeling beside the King, let out a choked, agonizing sob. To take a warrior's sword was to strip him of his very soul.
"Of course," Guo Jia added, waving his feather fan dismissively. "We are not entirely heartless. We will not let your proud men starve. By imperial decree, we are relegating your once-l proud warriors to mere farmers, laborers, and lowly constables. They will trade their blades for plows, tilling the fields to meet the massive grain quotas demanded by the empire. And they will do so under the watchful, eternal, and heavily armed eyes of the permanent Hengyuan garrisons that will now occupy every major city on this island."
The dictation was complete. The psychological death of the Yamato warrior class was absolute.
"Do you accept these terms, Governor Tarashihiko?" Sima Yi asked, emphasizing the King's new, degraded title. "Or shall I order General Zhang Liao to signal the artillery?"
King Tarashihiko looked at the terrifying, steel clad men standing before him. He looked at the impenetrable wall of Hengyuan halberdiers surrounding his courtyard.
He looked at the impenetrable wall of Hengyuan halberdiers surrounding his courtyard. He thought of the unquenchable liquid fire and the exploding rockets that had turned his capital into a graveyard.
Slowly, painfully, with the last shreds of his royal dignity crumbling into the ash, the former King of Yamato placed his hands flat on the ground and pressed his forehead entirely against the dirt.
"We accept," he whispered, a broken, hollow sound that was immediately relayed by the translator. "Yamato submits to the Hengyuan Dynasty."
As the translated words of absolute surrender echoed through the courtyard, the Black Dragon's conquest of the island of Kyushu was officially cemented in history.
With a heavy, trembling sigh that seemed to physically drain the very life, the ancient majesty, and the divine right from his body, King Tarashihiko finally spoke the bitter words. He officially accepted the deeply humiliating, culturally devastating terms of unconditional surrender.
The translated words hung in the still air of the ash covered courtyard like a suffocating shroud. Hearing their sovereign yield to the foreign invaders, the proud, aristocratic nobles, the fierce, battle scarred warriors generals, and the wise, aged advisors of the Yamato court all could only deeply bow their heads against the cold, splintered wooden floor.
It was a picture of absolute, soul crushing despair. Their ancient pride, a martial arrogance that had been cultivated over centuries of isolated island warfare and myth making, was completely, irrevocably shattered in a single afternoon. The men who had believed they were the favored children of the sun goddess now realized they were merely mortals, easily broken by the industrialized thunder of the mainland.
"Stand up," barked one of the Hengyuan lieutenants, his voice echoing harshly in the quiet courtyard. He punctuated the command by slamming the butt of his heavy halberd against the stone paving.
As the defeated Yamato leadership slowly, shakily rose to their feet, their fine silk robes covered in gray ash and their faces pale with shock, the brilliant Sima Yi stepped forward. His sharp, calculating eyes swept over the broken men before him. His demeanor was entirely devoid of any warmth, reflecting only the cold, mechanical efficiency of the empire he served.
"You are no longer lords of war," Sima Yi coldly told the defeated court, his voice slicing through their lingering grief. "You are now subjects of the Emperor's peace. Effective immediately, you will all be put under strict house arrest within your respective estates in the capital."
A murmur of panicked confusion rippled through the Yamato nobles, but a single, sharp look from Sima Yi silenced them instantly.
"This confinement is an absolute necessity," Sima Yi explained, though it sounded more like a threat. "The capital, no, the entire island of Kyushu, is currently being rapidly and aggressively consolidated under the absolute military presence of the Hengyuan Dynasty. We are imposing a new order, and we cannot have the architects of the old order wandering the streets, inciting unrest or plotting foolish, suicidal rebellions among the peasantry."
Sima Yi then turned his piercing gaze directly to the defeated ruler, who stood slouched, completely devoid of his former royal bearing.
"As for you and your bloodline," Sima Yi stated, "the royal family will be put under confinement strictly within the inner palace walls. You will not leave the grounds. Your servants will be replaced by our own thoroughly vetted personnel. Your correspondence will be monitored by the Oriole Agents."
King Tarashihiko flinched, the reality of his captivity fully sinking in. He was a prisoner in his own ancestral home.
However, with a thin, unreadable, and incredibly terrifying smile that did not reach his cold eyes, Sima Yi told them not to worry.
"Since you have wisely accepted the terms of surrender today without forcing us into a costly, bloody urban siege," Sima Yi said smoothly, "you have earned a measure of imperial grace. You wouldn't be physically harmed, tortured, or executed. The Dragon Throne is not a butcher of compliant subjects."
The King, who was now swiftly and officially downgraded in title, in all imperial ledgers and official correspondence, to merely "Governor" Tarashihiko of the newly established Yamato Province, stared back at the strategist.
Governor Tarashihiko and his terrified council absolutely doesn't believe this sudden show of imperial mercy. They were men raised in a culture where a defeated warlord was expected to either commit ritual suicide or face brutal execution at the hands of the victor. They fully expected a massacre. They expected to be dragged into the courtyard at midnight and beheaded, their bloodlines completely eradicated to prevent future uprisings.
But what can they possibly do against such overwhelming, god-like military might? They looked around the courtyard at the towering, steel clad Hengyuan infantry, men who looked more like iron statues than human beings, and they knew the truth. They had no other choice but to just silently follow it through. If the mainlanders wanted to lie to them before executing them, they would just have to accept the lie. Bowing in profound, humiliating submission to their new overlords, they surrendered their fate to the Black Dragon.
And so, the subjugation of the capital was exactly what was flawlessly done.
Zhang Liao, having secured the psychological surrender, immediately took absolute, physical control of the city. He did not waste time with grand ceremonies or victory parades. He treated the capital as a massive, volatile military asset that needed to be locked down immediately.
He barked orders to his vanguard captains, and the Hengyuan war machine shifted gears. Zhang Liao ordered for thirty thousand of his most elite, heavily armored soldiers, veterans who had held the line against the northern hordes, to permanently stand guard and garrison at the capital.
The occupation was swift and terrifyingly efficient. Heavily armed squads marched through the smoking, ruined streets, securing every gate, taking control of every intact defensive wall, and setting up checkpoints at every major intersection. The yellow banners of the Black Dragon were raised over the city's highest points, completely replacing the ancestral crests of the Yamato clans.
Once the capital was locked down in an iron, inescapable grip, and the royal family was securely confined under the watchful eyes of the Oriole Agents, Zhang Liao then systematically sent the remaining hundreds of thousands of Hengyuan soldiers out of the city.
These massive, unstoppable legions were efficiently split up into highly mobile, heavily armed divisions. Under the direct, tactical command of seasoned veteran generals and the younger, aggressive cavalry commanders, they were mobilized for the pacification of the countryside.
Each division was accompanied by groups of bilingual Goguryeo translators and a cadre of imperial magistrates trained by Jia Kui. They marched out of the smoking capital, spreading like a massive, suffocating net of black iron and crimson silk across the entire island of Kyushu.
Their orders were simple, fan out, secure the rice paddies, dismantle the local fortresses, and begin aggressively consolidating Hengyuan's influence over every single town, fishing village, and mountain hamlet in the province.
At first, as the endless columns of mainland soldiers marched down the narrow dirt roads and through the terraced hills of Kyushu, the common people of Yamato lived in absolute, paralyzing fear. The massive military consolidation begun with a wave of sheer terror preceding it.
Having heard the horrifying, exaggerated rumors spread by fleeing survivors regarding the invaders' destructive weapons, tales of iron dragons breathing green fire, of thunder exploding from metal tubes, and of giant men in unbreakable black armor who ate the flesh of the defeated, the villagers reacted as any sane people would.
When the rhythmic, thundering sound of thousands of marching boots approached their settlements, the villagers panicked. They frantically gathered their children, locked their flimsy bamboo and paper doors, and hid their families in root cellars, caves, and deep within the surrounding bamboo forests. They fully expected to be brutally slaughtered, their crops burned to ash, or to be rounded up in chains and enslaved by the foreign demons.
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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