7 Birth of the Heavenly Dragon General
In a far away future
There were bright lights and camera flashing as Professor Dr. Xiang Lu made his entrance to the press conference which was going to be about the
discovery of the tomb of "Qin Shi Huang" the first emperor of China and present day Mongolia and Korea.
He was the first king to unite those lands and even conquer 2 more nations. If he lived 10 more years, China might have expanded further. Very little is known about him as The founder of Han dynasty, Emperor Han WuDi, decided to destroy most of the Qin dynasty records and histories.
A lot of people believe that, he actually fabricated the history to establish the Han dynasty and undermine the Qin, but there was only bits and pieces of records found in the Shiji records. At least until now that is.
Everyone quieted down as Dr. Xiang Lu sat down and took the mic. He smiled and spoke," Thank you all for gathering here today. As you may know, We have discovered the tomb of Our founding emperor about 3 months ago.
We have found some amazing things in there which was all displayed to the world. But what if I told you, aside from the terracotta soldiers, the unimaginable wealth and the historical artefacts including the imperial seal of Qin dynasty, We have found something far valuable and confusing at the same time."
Everyone gasped at the shocking announcement and started muttering among themselves. Dr. Xiang Lu started again," We have been searching for some documents in the tomb which was supposedly the true history of the warring states and how Qin empire was founded.
We never found anything but a week ago, one of my assistants actually broke a ornate box by accident from which we got a key and a note saying," The future needs to know about the past. So I left my story with the man who started this journey to unite China. "
We looked everywhere after finding the clue, then all of a sudden I found a small keyhole directly in the Coffin of the emperor. We could barely see it as it was blocked with sand and dust.
When we opened it, we saw a beautiful piece of silk with modern looking design, covering what seems to be a book which is definitely older than 2,000 years, and It was hand written with over thousands of pages.
We were shocked and excited to see this but something confused us. There was the name of the author, Xiang Long who was probably the most famous general under The emperor and one of my ancestors if we are to believe my family records, He smiled fondly.
There was a note which was actually written in modern English. It said, " Every end is another beginning. One needs to only seek out the path".
One of the reporters asked, " But how can that be possible ? Even if they encountered a English person that time, they would be speaking mostly the literary english, even the chance of that is basically zero! Also, I thought good quality paper came much later around 50 BCE."
Dr Xiang Lu replied," I don't know about all that. But all I can say is the words are actually written by him and will finally tell us about the true history of China.
We all know about Sun Tzu's "Art of War", but Great General Xiang Long was the one who embodied the teachings of it and was known as the one who is "Exalted by Heavens like none other."
In his early life, he was mostly famous for his strategies and remember that he was only 20 when he retired first time due to a conflict with the king and he was tired of the pointless wars.
He only returned because he saw promise in young King Ying Zheng and his desire to unite China was something he shared. He conquered most of the territories of Qin Empire and said to have suffered no real defeat among the battles he was the commanding General.
I believe we will learn of his adventure soon after we finish reading the book."
Present time
Few months of leisure was good but now I have to go to war again. I trained with all my effort in spearmanship with Zhao Yun as I decided to use my spear . It was a beautiful weapon. I called it "Destiny Breaker" as with it I shall overwrite my destiny itself.
I was probably supposed to be another victim of wars who was meant to die in that village. But my reincarnation took place and a new fate was born. I'll make sure to take this chance and write my name in history no matter the hardship.
Our target was Chu this time. Qin was looking to push Chu back behind the Yangtze river and Chu tried their best to maintain a strong presence at Central plains. Although we have heard rumours about Chu switching their capital to Danyang, right on the Yangtze river south side, it's still a rumour however.
If we can take their capital Shouchun, they will definitely pull back but that seemed impossible to most people. I would be taking Zhuge Liang this time as I have appointed a few scholars to keep up the work and just follow the guid made by Zhuge Liang.
I of course checked if they were spies or not but none of them were . One of them, A young scholar named Ma jung was pretty decent at management and fiercely loyal as like other people in Shangjun. So we trained him well and left him in charge before heading out to battle.
This time, I went Under one of the six greats of Qin, Oukotsu. He was a violent man always seeking blood. and aside from his strength was quite poor with strategies. I wonder why they made him a great general.
But still, as a member of the 6 greats, he holds a lot of authority and basically can do whatever he wants. So I need to follow orders this time unless it dangers my army. An expedition force of 130,000 is quite a number but we don't know how many soldiers they actually got.
I think they have around 700,000 army if they go all out, maybe a bit more. But for this campaign, They would be sending around 150,000 or so. We had some other generals in the army.
The main army was 70,000 under Oukotsu. The second army is under General Mougou which had another 40,000. The third army had only 20,000 and I was in it. Along with me, there was an old general named Raigen who commanded the rest of the 12,000.
He was a nice fellow. He decided to tell me about the battles of the six greats and three great heavens , the fire dragons and so on. It was actually more real listening from someone who participated in those battles.
At that moment, a messenger came with our orders. We were to take a longer route to reach Jiangnan. As there might be an ambush the armies have moved separately. Me and Raigen decided to go through our orders and it was our lucky day.
As it turns out, this was the battle where Oukotsu gets wrecked by Han Ming. That idiot lost half of his troops and his deputy ordered a full retreat. I was pissed off but suddenly Zhuge Liang came up with an idea.
He said," I was thinking, Since Oukotsu has ordered retreat and is knocked out. Why don't my lord take over Jiangling with the Mougou army? He has these new lieutenants Ousen and Kanki who are said to be quite good, specially Ousen whom even my lord has an eye out for. Including those two, he should have enough firepower."
I replied,"But to Make Ousen join, I need to make a plan that ensures absolute certainty of victory. That guy is too cautious and basically lacks any pride as general. The only way I can think of is to attack the returning Chu army at night as they wont be ready for it.
They have about 150,000 soldiers so it won't be easy. But I believe if we have Mougou's 40,000 it is possible. I'll just have to make sure that KouEn has gone back to capital before I strike. That guy is a monster. I'm not really afraid if its only Han Ming."
Zhang Liao nodded and said," with our lesser numbers, it will be difficult but doable."
I looked towards Zhao Yun and he just shrugged and said, "I'll follow whatever your commands are."
I smiled and said," I think I have an idea but if we get caught, the entire battle will be lost. But if we succeed, it's our win surely."
Zhuge Liang asked curiously ," Are you thinking about using those things my lord ?"
I just smirked and nodded.
So I immediately sent a letter to General Mougou detailing my plan. We need to wait 5 days to attack as there will be no moon that night, so it'll be easier to sneak in their camp.
In the one month I was at home, I actually gathered some talented doctors to gather herbs and make antidotes and medicines for all sorts of poison and disease . In the process, I have collected some types of poison as well. The one I'll use is Nothing too harmful but it will give you explosive diarrhea and stomach pain.
I did so that they can at least stand up and fight, otherwise I'll just be known as a mass poisoner who cowardly killed people with poison. Mougou agreed to strike at that time and went with his whole army.
So, on the 5th night we snuck in the Chu camp using camouflage under the darkness. It was way too easy as the Chu army wasn't at guard at all. They thought they won after beating Oukotsu and decided to return home as soon as they saw Oukotsu army retreating and let down their guard.
We waltzed into their camp and poisoned all the water supplies as we had only enough for that. Chu soldiers believing they have defeated the invaders were basically partying, it was gonna cost them dearly.
As I planned, the idiots were puking and shitting themselves like crazy by morning. Although the mixture was diluted and had less potency to be odorless and tasteless, it worked well enough.
To their Surprise, An army of 60,000 Qin soldiers were upon them when they decided to march in the morning. Before They could understand anything, we ran amok their camp putting them out of their misery.
It took us a few hours until we chased out the last of the survivors to their death. Not a single soul was alive in that camp of 100,000 soldiers. It seems KouEn returned with his main army and Generals and left another general called Rengoku to oversee their return.
He was killed by me during the battle so that's the end of him. We decided to leave immediately after we finished the massacre. I actually pitied these poor souls but it had to be done. If we let even a single one leave this place alive, they would alert KouEn immediately.
This way, they will think the army is delayed and wait, which will give us more time to take Jiangnan, and we can also ask for reinforcements in the meantime. I actually sent the letter to the capital immediately after our win so the reinforcements can come early.
We decided to head towards Jiangling City which was defended by their general Rinbukun. He had about 50,000 soldiers with him. Thankfully, as soon as he got the news of our arrival, he pulled all the soldiers of Jiangnan into Jiangling which now had 80,000 troops.
SInce he's a dumb musclehead, Lets give him a proper thrashing before sending him off. I decided to use my spear for now rather than the Glaive as I had good skills due to practicing with Zhao Yun ever since the last battle.
The 3 days it took us to reach Jiangling, I honed the new Techniques I've learned from him. I wanted to duel that baldy so I just straight up challenged him and said to face me if he had the balls for it.
Just as predicted, the baldy spouted some bullshit about Chu being superior and was killed by my new move "Thousand Birds become Phoenix", Zhao Yun's signature move . Although it wasn't truly perfect, it was enough to take out a musclebrain like Rinbukun.
The battle lasted for about 10 minutes or so. As he fell, his army rushed at us like their idiot general and we managed to take over Jiangling within a day.
I sent Zhang Liao to take one city while Zhao Yun and Zhuge Liang took one each. The rest of the 2 Cities were taken by Ousen and Kanki.
It took us 2 days to take entire Jiangnan which was a surprise after the main army getting crushed. I decided to scout out any lingering threats outside, But here I would come across someone who I didn't think would see at this time.
I was out on a mission to hunt some bandits that roam here. I had only Zhao Yun and a 1,000 riders. Suddenly we were ambushed and the bandits showed extremely cunning tactics to distract and slowly lower our numbers.
It was quite amusing to watch but I won't let my troops die so easily, so I decided to charge directly at the centre where the commands were given from. They tried to protect their leader as I broke through but it was pointless. I saw the leader trying to escape amidst the chaos but I went directly towards him and with a flick, my blade was resting at his throat.
A small drop of blood came out of his throat as I spoke, " What's your name? How do you know these advanced tactics? I refuse to believe you are just a common bandit. "
The leader took off the helmet and I was surprised to see a Woman under it. She turned to face me and spoke with a sneer ," Why don't you just go ahead and kill me? I will crush your balls if you plan to take me alive and violate me and I sure as hell won't tell you anything."
I smirked and replied," What if we were both consenting?"
She glared at me with a huff and spoke," That will never happen bastard! Just let me go or kill me."
I smiled and said," How about I tell you your name, bandit leader KaRin?"
She immediately snapped and hissed as her hand went to her sword ," How the hell do you know my name you bastard? What do you want from me? "
I just lazily replied," Absolute honesty. Tell me your story without any lies and maybe I'll think about letting you live."
She glared at me for a while and eventually gave up and spoke," Can we talk alone?"
I nodded and we went to my tent to speak while the others tied up her bandit gang. Zhao Yun wanted to tag along but I reassured that it was alright.
In my tent, I listened to her story for a while. KaRin was actually the princess of the Kingdom of Ba which ceased to exist about 7 years ago. She was only 12 years old back then. She was the last remaining heir as her brother in this world was actually killed by Chu.
She decided to take whatever she could from their treasury and escaped with her most loyal vassals and soldiers. Through the years she grew up, her only desire was to gain power and obtain revenge for her brother.
But as she became older, she realized it couldn't be achieved with her current strength so she started gathering bandits and ex soldiers to form a gang and maybe join the Chu army to climb up ranks. Once she had enough power, she would then exact her revenge on the people who killed her family.
She had tried hard but somehow Chu court knew about her being former royalty and decided to make her a concubine to the Chu King, upon which she escaped and decided to cause as much damage possible.
She only started becoming strong last year after plundering some rich nobles and formed a 10,000 strong army with about 5-6 elephants. She didn't know that Jiangnan had already fallen to Qin, so she came here to collect some supplies from the nearby battlefield and maybe get some from us as well.
Sadly, I happened to go on the patrol that day. She had only around 1500 or so regular bandits with her when she spotted us. The rest happened as I said.
After finishing her story, she asked with a shaky voice," What will happen to me now? Will you put me out of my misery or let me go?"
I stood up and thought for a few moments before saying," I can give you two choices. You can leave and continue with your revenge. Perhaps you will find it one day or die without ever getting close. Or, you can join my army as an officer.
I am someone pretty well reputable in Qin and I can definitely help you start anew. Most importantly, as long as you stay loyal to me and prove that you are worhy of my trust, I shall grant you what you desire most. You will accompany me as I conquer Chu.
It will be a long time but you will get your revenge. I just want your strength and knowledge as you fight beside me and my army. Who knows, maybe you will become one of my "Heavenly Generals" like Zhao Yun, Zhang Liao and Zhuge Liang.
KaRin was surprised to hear my offer and she went silent for a while. She then asked slowly," Can you truly promise such a thing. I have been trying for years and I got nowhere. At some point, I even thought it would be impossible. Don't give me any false hope."
I just walked towards her and patted her head, she flinched at first but calmed as I said," I believe you have the talent and the strength required for it. You just didn't have someone to rely on.
You can rely on me as what I said wasn't a false hope but a promise. Afterall, how would I be the Greatest general under the Heavens if I lied about simple things like that?"
At this point, she finally let go and hugged me while sobbing, Thank you. I just let her vent as it must have been hard putting that strong face while in truth, she was just a young girl who lost her family and kingdom having to survive the chaos.
After a while when she calmed down, she pushed me away with a blush and spoke, " Don't get any idea! I just lost control of my emotions."
I just laughed and said," How can I not have any idea when you say that with such an expression?"
She looked like she would pop a vein but calmed herself and said,"Thank you for accepting me. I KaRin, princess of Ba hereby swear to follow you. Please promise you will take care of my men."
I just nodded and smiled, before exiting the tent said with a wink," I'll take good care of you too", to which she gave a glare but couldn't hide the redness in her cheeks. She looked quite cute If I must say so, compared to the twisted person she was in the original world this is much better.
I went out and delivered the good news and her troops was confused at first but decided to follow her will. She brought back her entire army along with her gold and treasures. It took a while, but she got used to the life here. I told her, once we get back to Qin she can settle them anywhere in my territory but the elephants would be a issue as Elephants can't survive in cold weather of the north.
So I have to build a special stable for them. Considering I have over 50,000 gold to spare, I will earnestly start training my troops. I will build the most famous army like Roman legion or Yennicheri army.
Meanwhile our reinforcements arrived a week later, much earlier than predicted. After all, by Securing Jiangling, Qin has basically monopoly over the developing silk and spice routes. So the king immediately sent out the troops.
For Chu ,it was a strong and humiliating blow. General KouEn was ashamed at this failure and the Chu king was furious with rage. But they could do nothing as the area was close to the Baiyue tribes and they could ambush the Chu army on route.
Not to mention they need over 100,000 troops or more just to take back Jiangling city. So they could only grudgingly give up Jiangnan which officially become Qin territory.
This news reached Kanyou and once again, the entirety of China was marvelled by the 16 Year old KouRyu. All the states decided to increase their military power to prepare for the upcoming storm.
I was once again in Kanyou and that too within a year receiving two rewards for two separate achievements. This time, it was another huge achievement as I have managed to not only secure Jiangnan where Oukotsu failed, I also took down a Chu army of 100,000 which would further weaken them.
Yet even this time , I wasn't promoted to general as they wanted me to be more experienced. Although the King claimed that once I become general, I would be a candidate to join the 6 greats of Qin.
I did get promoted to 5,000 man commander and Zhao Yun and Zhang Liao became 3,000 man commanders.
Zhuge Liang was also popular with his ingenious tactics. People started calling them "3 Heavenly Generals of KouRyo", kinda like RenPa. My army was said to be perfectly balanced as it had 3 of them supporting me. The next battle will be the one where I shall become general.
Now with 11,000 soldiers, I was sent to the Wei front again in the beginning of 256 BCE. I mostly fought daily skirmishes and against some unlucky bandits. There was one major battle where I took Fan castle from Wei Fire dragon Choukotsu and killed him.
Choukotsu wasn't that good but he was still a fire dragon. This time Wei was truly angry at me now as I have costed them two great generals. They started raising all their available soldiers and sending them to the Qin front along with Reiou and Earl Shi. I actually faced them once but it was more like a skirmish.
KaRin and Zhang Liao came before they could push on the attack and decided to retreat.Earl Shi was a good match for me as the fight with him gave me better understanding of spear mastery. Then there was a rumour that Wei is planning to send their strongest generals to set up a trap for me. So the Qin King decided to replace me to the Chu front again as Wei might commit to an all out attack just to kill me which they didn't want to happen.
But I finally did become a full fledged general after this battle. Not only I was awarded a reward , I was bestowed the title "Heavenly Dragon General" and Zhao Yun, Zhang Liao, Zhuge Liang and KaRin became known as the "4 Heavenly Generals of KouRyu"
Now I had Both Shangjun, Hanzhong and Jincheng as my territories which were basically just near the Qin northern border as the 2 nd line of defense. Which Means I will have to deal with the mess Lu Bu created.
The Xiongnu is too afraid to attack Zhao, so They will now look west towards Qin. What a pain. On the plus side, we had a standing army of 20,000 now with Zhao Yun, KaRin and Zhang Liao becoming vice generala with 5,000 troops. Zhuge Liang was named as master strategist "Sleeping Dragon".
After I was promoted, I was given two weeks to rest and head towards eastern Chu lands. If we could conquer Jiangxia, Runan and Lujiang, We will be exactly next to their capital.
They are planning to move their capital due to continious Qin attacks, so we must take over these territories soon before they could move. But we all know that's not possible. They would muster all living Chu soldiers before they let their capital fall before they relocate. But I'll take my chances as the Chu army were surprisingly of low quality.
But the most amazing thing happened before I set out. I got a sudden prompt from the system.
Ding! The host has broken into the Supreme General of Heavens (Beginner). Congratulations on taking the first steps into becoming a legend.
Ding! Host has gained a welcome reward pack.
Please choose which rewards host want. Can only choose 3
General pack (Obtain a random general of choosing from the 5 options. The remaining generals will be distributed to other Kingdoms.)
Supply pack ( gives the host 10,000 modern quality weapons of host choosing)
Resources pack ( gives a random amount of gold, horses or food)
Crafting pack ( Has 1,000 best engineers and blacksmiths from three Kingdoms era who can craft basically all kinds of machineey and weapons)
Weapons pack( Will give a few random legendary weapons of any kind.)
Soldiers pack(Gives a random legendary unit of 5,000)
Damn this is a difficult choice! I thought hard on what should be chosen and decided to go with General pack, soldiers pack and Crafting pack. I chose them because I need another general and some good troops to defend my lands better. And the craftsmen would help me to further improve my defenses and make better quality weapons.
Ding! rewards have been chosen. The craftsmen have been sent to your territory in the iron mining town Gaoliang.
Ding! Generating legendary unit, unit from different countries will have chinese appearance to blend in, their background will be from northern tribes.
Ding! Unit chosen. Congratulations to host for obtaining 5,000 Spartans.
Holy shit! I have lucked out with this one! I still have the modern grade spears left and when I build some shields for them, they will probably be the most dangerous army to exist.
The Spartans need a leader, please choose a general to put in charge.
Opening general pack. Please choose which general host wants
Zhang He
Jia Xu
Fa Zheng
Wei Yan
Lu Meng
I picked Lu Meng without thinking much as He was the best option among them. I already have two strategists. I need a good general who can both fight and good at government work. Not to mention Lu Meng has good expertise with foot soldiers.
With a flash, Lu Meng appeared along with the Spartans.
Looking at them, they look like the Qiang tribes of Northern Qin but they are larger. All of them are 6 feet tall and over. The had their armours on along with shields. Looks like I can put them to use immediately.
Lu Meng and the Spartans kneeled in front of me and spoke in unison," We pledge our undying loyality to the lord. Our spears are yours, as well as our lives."
I raised Lu Meng up and spoke happily," I accept your loyality and as long I live, you will be under my care."
Ding! Redistributing the remaining Generals.
Zhang He - Zhao
Jia Xu - Wei
Fa Zheng - Yan
Wei Yan - Chu
Atleast they are not that strong. I just need to watch out for Jia Xu and Fa Zheng. Zhang He and Wei Yan are strong but they don't have their original troops....
Ding! Each general will receive 10,000 of their original troops. So Zhang He and Wei Yan have their original troops along with Jia Xu's Xiliang cavalry and Fa Zheng's white eared soldiers.
Son of a bitch!
Ding! please refrain from verbally abusing system.
I felt the spirit of a certain bald black pirate with eyepatch suddenly as I yelled internally "Motherf$&ker!"
I relocated all the troops and ordered the craftsmen to make as many good quality weapons and armours and some of them started working on the building structures. I sent Lu Meng to Jincheng Along with the Spartans and 10,000 more troops while KaRin and Zhuge Liang held Shangjun with 30,000 troops.
I also left them the order to mobilize the reserves if necessary. Finishing all these preparations, I started to train like a madman to test out my new strength. I can go against Houken now and even win if play some mind games.
My spearmanship and Archery was improved along with my training with the Glaive. I didn't need much sword training as I don't plan to use it too much, but kept up my skills.
In the beginning of Year 254 BCE, at the age of 18 years old, I marched towards Jiangxia along with great general Kyo who was Ouki's fiance apparently. I had to leave KaRin, Lu Meng and Zhuge Liang to manage the defense of my lands as It was a large area and needed more manpower. Not to mention the increasing Xiongnu raids.
KaRin was not happy with this as she wanted to come too. I placated her saying I would bring her next time. I had gut feeling that for some reasons this campaign could go badly. So, I brought only Zhang Liao and Zhao Yun along with Gao shun, my new infantry commander. He was a quiet guy and mostly spent his time training and organizing the troops.
With me becoming a general now, I had 5,000 formation breaker Infantry, 2,000 heavy spearmen along with 2,000 archers and 1,000 light cavalry.
When I met with Kyou, she took a shine to me for some reason and decided I would be like her little brother and I couldn't persuade her otherwise. She enjoyed ruining my hair whenever we met not to mention the hugs so I actually hid from her on occasion.
She was beautiful and strong with a gentle demeanour outside of battle. Her fiancé was a different case altogether. I actually met Ouki in the capital last year but the dude scared the crap out of me. For some reason, hearing his laugh would make me clench my butt in fear.
I was confused if he was actually like that or just acting. We also had general ChoTou accompanying us on this campaign . He actually smiled after seeing me and we talked for a while. He adviced me to get to know my troops deeply as they would be the core of my army in future.
He also talked about me becoming one of the 6 greats in future and I jokingly said I will be retiring after 252 BCE so I might not become one. He was quite pissed hearing this from me and started ranting about responsibility and the mantle of Qin general.
I just shrugged and said," I joined the army for the minimum service of 5 years as I plan to return home and just defend my lands, maybe have some kids and settle down." He grumbled for a while after hearing this and left. Meh, he will get over it.
Anyways, It was a total of 200,000 army. I had my own 20,000 and some other generals called Enkei and Aizen. So I had 40,000 soldiers under my command, which was a shocker as very few commanded so much troops only after becoming a general.
ChoTou had 60,000 soldiers and Kyo had 100,000. soldiers. The plan was to enter Jiangxia together and after that move as 3 armies to gather more speed. I was really excited to finally lead an army as a general.
The feeling of having 40,000 soldiers under you is amazing. Sadly, this campaign won't go as I planned it to be.
