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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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But just as the conservative backlash reached a fever pitch, ready to physically attack the women who dared to defy the ancient laws, a deafening, terrifying sound cut through the chaos. The massive bronze war horns on the palace walls blew a single, earth shaking note. The heavy wooden doors on the high balcony overlooking the plaza were thrown open. Lie Fan majestically stepped out into the sunlight.
He was not dressed in his bureaucratic robes. He was wearing his heavy, dark steel battle armor, the Black Dragon crest gleaming on his chest. He was flanked by the phalanx of his Yellow Ghost Bodyguards, their hands resting on the hilts of their swords, and beside them, several handlers tightly held the leashes of the massive, newly trained sulfur sniffing mastiffs.
Lie Fan looked down upon the chaotic plaza, his presence alone projecting an absolute, terrifying aura of imperial authority that instantly choked the riotous traditionalists into a fearful silence.
He utilized his absolute, unquestionable power to protect and support his wives.
"Hear my words, and hear them well!" Lie Fan's voice boomed across the plaza, amplified by the acoustics of the marble walls. "You look upon the Empress and the Imperial Concubines, and some of you weep for the past. But I tell you, you are looking at the pioneers of the future!"
He pointed a heavy, gauntleted hand down at the five women standing tall in the center of the plaza.
"They are the shining future of the Hengyuan Dynasty!" Lie Fan decreed, his voice brooking absolutely no argument, carrying the unspoken threat of extreme violence to anyone who disagreed. "Any man who speaks against their authority, speaks against the Dragon Throne. Any man who raises a hand against a woman seeking her rightful place in this empire, will lose that hand!"
As his deafening decree echoed across the plaza, paralyzing the conservative nobles with fear, the true, ruthless machinery of his empire went to work.
While the crowd was focused on the Emperor on the balcony, they did not notice the shadows moving among them. The hidden Oriole Agents, who had seamlessly blended into the crowd dressed as commoners and merchants, moved with lethal, coordinated precision.
As the most dangerous, inciting traditionalist scholars and conservative nobles opened their mouths to shout another insult at the Emperor, hands suddenly clamped over their mouths from behind. Knives pressed discreetly against their ribs. Before they could even struggle, they were violently and silently dragged backward into the dark alleyways and side streets bordering the plaza, disappearing from the world entirely.
The crowd, seeing the most vocal agitators simply vanish into the crush of bodies, felt a cold, terrifying chill run down their spines. The message was crystal clear, the Emperor's progressive vision was non negotiable, and the price of traditionalist defiance was a shallow, unmarked grave.
The progressive cheers swelled again, louder, fiercer, completely drowning out the whimpers of the remaining conservatives.
Under the Emperor's unyielding, terrifying protection, and backed by the lethal efficiency of the Oriole Agents, the five women stood tall and unbreakable in the center of the plaza. Ying Yue smiled serenely, Diao Chan raised her fan, Cai Wenji gripped her scrolls, Lu Lingqi rested her hand on her halberd, and Zhen Ji calculated the wealth of the future. Together, they permanently closed the book on the ancient world.
And so, perfectly executing the grand, world altering vision of their Emperor, the five royal wives proudly began their groundbreaking work. They had stood upon the marble plaza and faced down the screaming traditionalists, and now, they eagerly followed the revolutionary request of their beloved husband. Shedding the secluded, quiet, and heavily perfumed life of the inner palace, they actively worked to become the absolute pioneers of their respective professions, driving a stake through the heart of the ancient patriarchal world.
Ying Yue, whose her heart overflowing with a huge healing purpose, goes directly toward the bustling grand hospital in the capital. The facility, originally funded by Lie Fan years ago, was a sprawling complex of clean wooden wards and fragrant herbal gardens. As her imperial carriage arrived, she was warmly and respectfully welcomed by the legendary physicians Hua Tuo, her adoptive father, and Zhang Zhongjing. The two old masters, who cared nothing for court politics and everything for the advancement of medicine, bowed deeply to their former student, before then Hua Tuo goes to hug her.
Putting on her pristine white medical robes, Ying Yue immediately began utilizing her vast, groundbreaking medical knowledge. She didn't just consult, she built. With imperial funding at her back, she rapidly established specialized, heavily guarded wards dedicated entirely to treating female patients and sick children.
For centuries, these demographics had suffered in silence, having no comfortable or legal access to proper healthcare due to the rigid, suffocating modesty laws that forbade male doctors from physically examining them. Now, women from all across the capital flooded the hospital, weeping with gratitude as Ying Yue and the female nurses she began to train as doctors, they gently examined them, safely delivered their babies, and cured ailments that the old world had simply ignored.
Meanwhile, across the city in the affluent cultural district, Diao Chan goes to a beautiful, elegantly designed small mansion. It featured delicate weeping willows, serene koi ponds, and wide, polished wooden floors. The estate was already perfectly prepared, heavily guarded, and fully funded by Lie Fan to become her official Dancing and Embroidery Academy.
The morning Diao Chan opened the heavy, lacquered doors of her academy, the street outside was completely gridlocked. A massive recruitment drive was underway. Diao Chan, dressed in a breathtaking, flowing silk gown of deep azure and silver, personally oversaw the evaluation process. She sat upon a raised wooden platform in the main courtyard, a gentle but piercingly observant smile on her face, evaluating the thousands of young girls and women who flocked to the mansion.
They came from all walks of life, daughters of wealthy merchants hoping to refine their grace, and daughters of commoners seeking a way out of poverty through skill. Diao Chan watched them move, testing their rhythm, their poise, and their dedication.
She was not just teaching them to dance for the entertainment of men, she was teaching them the highest forms of cultural arts, the complex mathematics of weaving intricate silk patterns, and the graceful, storytelling dances of antiquity. To learn from the most beautiful and culturally refined woman in the empire was a prize beyond measure, and Diao Chan intended to build an army of artists who would define the cultural soul of the Hengyuan Dynasty.
At the exact same time, the intellectual powerhouse Cai Wenji confidently joined the prestigious, heavily male dominated Xiapi Academy. The academy was a fortress of ancient thought, filled with the sons of nobles and the strict, white bearded scholars who had nearly rioted at the plaza.
Upon walking through the grand, echoing academic halls, her heavy scholar's robes sweeping across the stone floors, she was met by a sight that warmed her intellectual heart.
Her proud father, the great revered scholar and one of the Six State Tutors, Cai Yong, openly wept tears of pure joy. He stepped out from the ranks of the stunned, whispering student body and warmly embraced his daughter. He turned to the assembly of hundreds of male students, his voice shaking with pride, and proudly positioned her as one of the leading, senior teachers of the academy.
Cai Wenji wasted no time. She strode to the front of the grand lecture hall, unrolling a heavy bamboo scroll. She immediately began teaching advanced poetry, breaking down the complex, rigid structures of classical literature, and demonstrating mastery over complex musical instruments to a completely mesmerized audience.
The young male students, initially skeptical and deeply uncomfortable with a female instructor, were quickly, brutally silenced by the sheer, overwhelming brilliance of her mind. She debated them, corrected them, and expanded their horizons, proving that intellect possessed no gender.
Across the city, far away from the quiet hospitals and the refined academic halls, a far more aggressive, earth shattering scene was unfolding.
The fierce Lu Lingqi, of course, goes straight to the dusty, sprawling, and heavily armed military barracks of the central army. Stepping onto the packed dirt of the training grounds in her gleaming, heavy steel lamellar armor, she powerfully gathered her small, highly lethal elite personal squad of veteran women warriors, the fierce, loyal women who had served as her personal guard in the harem.
The recruitment banners, black flags emblazoned with a crimson crescent halberd, were hoisted high above the barracks walls. Lu Lingqi stood atop a massive wooden training platform, her halberd resting casually on her shoulder, and began the rigorous, unprecedented physical recruitment process to create the empire's first-ever heavy infantry women's battalion.
The response was staggering. Hundreds to thousands of fierce, determined women who had always wanted to fight for their nation, women who had lost fathers and brothers in the northern wars and wanted to take up the spear, lined up at the barracks. They were commoners, butchers' daughters, and farm girls with calloused hands. They looked up at the warrior queen on the platform and were deeply inspired by her.
Lu Lingqi did not go easy on them. "If you want to wear the Emperor's iron, you will bleed for it!" she roared across the training grounds. She willingly subjected them to brutal, agonizing physical tests. They were forced to run miles in heavy sandbags, spar with seasoned veterans, and lift iron weighted training logs to prove they can wield heavy steel just as well as any man. Those who collapsed were sent home, those who stood back up, wiping the blood from their mouths, were handed a real spear and welcomed into the vanguard of a new era.
Lastly, in the bustling, infinitely wealthy commercial district, the cunning Zhen Ji gracefully joined the massive, incredibly wealthy Yu Clan Merchant Guild.
Stepping into the grand, opulent guildhall, the air thick with the smell of imported spices and the frantic clicking of abacuses, she was warmly embraced and welcomed by Yu Yan, Lie Fan's own mother and the undisputed, terrifyingly competent matriarch of the guild. Yu Yan, who had built the commercial foundation of the empire, proudly positioned Zhen Ji as her absolute right hand woman, signaling a passing of the torch.
Showing her terrifying, inherited business acumen, Zhen Ji flawlessly took over. She sat behind a massive desk covered in mountains of ledgers and trade reports.
She handled all the complex merchant guild matters, aggressively negotiating bulk prices for northern grain, mapping out sprawling new trade routes into the deep south, and ruthlessly crushing rival merchant consortiums with calculated economic warfare for her mother in law. She proved to the shocked, sweating male merchants in the room that a woman's mind could completely dominate the economic battlefield.
The powerful, highly visible presence of these five incredible women working so passionately and efficiently makes them true, untouchable pioneers of the era. They were not just symbolic figures, they were changing how the empire operated.
Their public recruitment, their undeniable competence, and their active leadership completely lifted the suppressed spirits of all the women in the capital and the surrounding regions. Suddenly, a farm girl could dream of holding a halberd, and a merchant's daughter could dream of running a guild.
Soon, the inspiring, world shaking news of what they were doing rapidly spread like wildfire along the new imperial wagonways, reaching the furthest corners of the entire, continent spanning domain of the Hengyuan Dynasty, sparking a massive, irreversible cultural awakening.
Seeing their Emperor's absolute, unwavering dedication to this cause, and witnessing the sheer effectiveness of his wives, Lie Fan's trusted and top advisors all, of course, faithfully followed their Emperor's lead.
Across the sprawling government bureaucracy and the massive private sectors, the ministers boldly opened job recruitments explicitly allowing women to enter the workforce.
Most notably, the incredibly wealthy and pragmatic Mi Zhu, acting as the Minister of Finance and the head of the colossal Mi Clan, saw the untapped economic potential. He began actively recruiting highly educated, mathematically gifted women as well to run his vast merchant family businesses and to help manage the impossibly complex imperial treasuries.
Slowly but surely, the rigid walls of the ancient world crumbled. Women began to confidently enter a world where none of them had ever been allowed before. They became clerks, scribes, and guild managers.
Especially for the commoners, the change was life altering. Because of the new laws, ordinary young girls could now even go to the newly established public schools and imperial academies to learn reading, writing, and mathematics. It was a revolutionary, earth-shattering concept completely unheard of before this golden era. Half of the empire's population, previously locked in darkness, was suddenly unleashed, doubling the intellectual and economic power of the Hengyuan Dynasty in a matter of months.
As this massive, heartwarming societal revolution was happening on the mainland, thousands of miles away to the far east, across the treacherous ocean, the winds of war were howling once again.
The peaceful integration of Kyushu was complete, but the hunger of the Black Dragon was far from satisfied. Inside the conquered, heavily fortified capital of Yamato, the highest military echelon of the empire had gathered.
Deep within the former royal palace, now draped in the black and gold banners of Hengyuan, the true masters of war, Zhang Liao, Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, Sima Yi, Jia Kui, and the naval admirals Zhou Yu, Gan Ning, Jiang Qin, and Huang Zu, gathered around a massive, highly detailed wooden map of the entire Wa archipelago.
The map was no longer a crude sketch provided by terrified prisoners, it was a highly accurate topographical masterpiece, mapped by the Oriole Agents and imperial surveyors using Yamato's own geographical knowledge over the past months.
With Kyushu completely pacified, its warriors disarmed, and firmly under absolute Hengyuan administrative control, the hardened generals and brilliant strategists looked toward the north and east. The massive island of Honshu loomed like a dark, mountainous beast across the northern straits, and the mysterious island of Shikoku, home to the Yamatai kingdom, sat menacingly to the east.
The room was silent, save for the crackling of the braziers, as the men calculated the logistics of total war.
"The waiting is over," Zhang Liao stated, his voice a low, heavy rumble that commanded absolute attention. "The men are rested. The powder is dry. The Emperor expects the entire archipelago to bow."
With cold, calculating precision, they unanimously decided that the brutal, multi front invasion into the chaotic island of Honshu and the mysterious island of Shikoku can finally begin.
"Honshu is a fractured mess of warring tribes," Sima Yi noted, pointing his wooden routing stick at the northern island. "They will try to use the mountains to bleed us. We will not let them. We strike their coastal cities simultaneously, cutting off their food supply, and force them to starve or fight us in the open plains where our artillery can shatter them."
"And Shikoku?" Zhang Liao asked, looking at Guo Jia.
Guo Jia smiled, a chaotic, brilliant gleam in his eye. "Queen Himiko and her Yamatai kingdom have watched us long enough. We send a vanguard fleet to their shores, armed to the teeth. If she submits, she lives. If her shamans attempt to curse us, we will show them that our cannons speak louder than their gods."
The devastating, combined effort of the massive land army and the towering naval fleets have been fully supplied. Millions of pounds of grain, endless crates of black powder, and tens of thousands of heavily armored marines were perfectly prepared.
They were ready to move, strictly adhering to the flawless, interconnected strategies and tactical maneuvers that the four peerless strategists had meticulously prepared to crush the remaining island kingdoms. The storm of iron and fire that had consumed Kyushu was about to unleash its absolute wrath upon the rest of the Way Archipelago, and there was nothing on the islands that could stop the march of the Hengyuan Dynasty.
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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