Jiangdong (1)
Jiangdong.
The center of the realm.
A land where nine rivers converge.
A natural treasure house of fertile, golden granaries.
And the one region the rebels of the Central Plains and the northern barbarians could never breach.
Countless foreign invaders descended on Jiangdong to plunder its riches. Every last member of the Han Imperial House had abandoned their territory and people, so the invaders must have thought taking the region would be child's play.
"Gwaaak!"
"A-arrows...! Where the hell did they come from!"
Those arrogant invaders soon learned otherwise.
I loosed arrows from a distance so great it blurred.
Mountains of corpses. Seas of blood.
Corpses piled into mountains, blood pooling into seas.
I sent every rebel who'd soiled Jiangdong with their filthy boots straight to hell. And the barbarians who'd been planning the invasion took one look at the plain choked with blood and corpses and fled in blind panic.
"Four hundred paces...! You struck their commander at over four hundred paces!"
"As expected, Your Highness is a Divine Bow!"
Divine Bow.
Their over-the-top voices left me a little embarrassed.
Is it really at that level?
Doesn't seem worth all the fuss about being a "Divine Bow."
History records countless master archers who embodied Hundred Shots, Hundred Hits. I never believed I deserved comparison to them, so the title "Divine Bow" always left me embarrassed.
'Could be thanks to this life's bloodline. Or maybe the experience from my past life.'
The master-archer blood of ancient China, all but extinct in the modern age.
And Korea's dominance of international archery, sweeping the medals at every competition.
A perfect union of body and mind.
A fusion of innate talent and hard-earned skill.
"I min-max a custom officer, and the moment I register him, I get dropped straight into the setting... This is why you have to be careful with Chinese-made games. Back in the day, they at least had the decency to slip a backdoor into the Terms of Service and scrape your personal data. These days, they can't even be bothered with that—they just add a bug that transmigrates you without consent."
Jackals Reign Supreme, 189.
New officer registered.
New officer appeared.
『Name: Liu Seong-hwi』
-Ability Scores.
Leadership: 100
Martial Power: 105 (100+5)
Intelligence: 100
Politics: 100
Charm: 100
-Traits
Hundred Shots, Hundred Hits (百發百中): Massively increases hit rate against a target.
One-Hit Kill (一擊必殺): A hit against a character with Martial Power 65 (105-40) or lower guarantees instant death.
-Item
Bow of Yang You-ji
Martial Power: +5
The bow of the master archer Yang You-ji, famed for the tale of Hundred Steps Piercing the Willow. Has a fixed chance to inflict a critical wound.
I didn't set any traits originally.
Maxing out a new officer's Ability Scores would be enough to clear the game easily, after all.
The traits came later.
I got Hundred Shots, Hundred Hits after killing a thousand enemies,
and then One-Hit Kill after killing five thousand.
Purely the fruits of my own effort.
I drew and released the bowstring until my fingernails split and the flesh on my fingers was shredded to rags, firing arrow after arrow into the enemy. The goddamned will that dropped me into the Three Kingdoms setting must have thought, "This guy is relentless. Absolutely relentless," because it handed me a new trait for every enemy I killed.
'If I'd known I'd get dumped into a chaotic era, I would've crammed in every trait the game offers. ... Something like a trait that lets me rapidly increase Favored Characters.'
Eh, traits don't really matter.
I can just recruit all-rounder officers proficient in both letters and arms, can't I?
Fuck.
I wanted to go back and shoot my past self's mouth full of holes.
To learn a single trait, you have to study under someone who already has it for at least several years before the trait slot even opens. In other words, acquiring the full range of civil and military traits would mean spending years chained to a desk.
"You've worked hard. You drove off all the foreign invaders who breached Lujiang Prefecture?"
"It was the Shanyue People from Wu Prefecture. They'd crossed the Yangtze River and reached the interior. They've lost their chief and scattered, so they won't dare try anything for the foreseeable future."
Still brooding over that, I arrived at the Main Palace.
A middle-aged man welcomed me, sporting a magnificent mustache straight off the Pringles logo.
Liu Chong.
King of Chen.
Vassal King of Chen Kingdom.
Descendant of Prince Jing of Chen, Liu Shan—the second son of Emperor Ming, the second emperor of the Later Han.
Now that was pedigree and legitimacy.
Among the warlords of the Era of Warlords, figures widely known as Han Imperial House kinsmen—Liu Biao, Liu Yan, Liu Yu, and the like—are practically reduced to mongrels next to his staggering lineage. While those men are imperial clansmen of the Former Han, Liu Chong is a premium descendant of Emperor Guangwu, who founded the Later Han.
Every river has an upstream and a downstream.
So being born a Han imperial clansman doesn't put everyone on the same level.
If you're a descendant of Emperor Guangwu.
If you aren't far removed from the Legitimate Lineage.
And if you're a Vassal King who holds intact the title and fief personally bestowed by an Emperor.
'Even the Runan Yuan Clan, which boasts Four Generations of Three Dukes, is nothing but second-rate in front of a descendant of Emperor Guangwu. Enough that even Yuan Shu, famous for his arrogance, would suddenly discover humility and set down his honey water.'
Silver spoon.
The silver spoon that had remained a vague wish in my past life—I'd finally seized it.
Pathetic. Just pathetic.
I had to pull off the impossible—transmigrating as a new officer in the Three Kingdoms setting—just to be born with a silver spoon.
"As befits my eldest son, you are indeed gallant. I, too, made a name as a master archer in my youth, but... I never earned a martial name like the Hero of the South as my Crown Prince has. No, this won't do! I shall heed my ministers' appeals and abdicate to the Crown Prince this instant!"
"...Isn't it simply that Your Majesty wishes to."
When you register a new officer, you can fill in settings for Favored Character, Spouse Character, and Family Character.
A Favored Character who starts the game with max affinity.
A Spouse Character who begins already in a marital relationship.
And a Family Character bound to you by blood from the game's start.
An overpowered bloodline.
And the legitimacy of the Han Imperial House.
The urge to become a golden spoon, even if only in the Three Kingdoms Setting, drove me to do it.
I registered King of Chen Liu Chong, a descendant of the Later Han founder Emperor Guangwu, as my father, creating a father-son relationship. At first it was just backstory play so I could start the game as part of the Han Imperial House, but once I ended up possessing the new officer in the Three Kingdoms Setting, it became a real father-son bond.
"Royal Father, have you heard the reports coming from Luoyang? They say Dong Zhuo has seized power."
"That goddamned barbarian had the gall to depose the Emperor, I'm told."
The Yellow Turban Rebellion was suppressed.
Then an internal war broke out in which General-in-Chief He Jin and the Ten Regular Attendants were murdered one after another.
Immense power was left masterless and abandoned.
The fierce power struggle that had raged in Luoyang for years ended with no victor—just the absurd outcome of the General-in-Chief and the eunuchs all dead.
The man who seized the authority of the Han Imperial House and the Imperial Court, now left undefended, was a figure who had emerged from Xiliang named Dong Zhuo. After occupying Luoyang with a Capital Expedition Army numbering in the tens of thousands, Dong Zhuo, with boundless arrogance, didn't stop at deposing the Emperor and the Empress Dowager but went so far as to butcher them in broad daylight.
"Dong Zhuo is a traitor to all under Heaven! How dare a vassal forcibly depose the Emperor!!"
A traitor who usurped power.
A rebel who led barbarians to defile Luoyang.
It was only natural that Liu Chong, as a member of the Han Imperial House, raged and flew into a fury. He even clenched his fists as if he might raise a Capital Expedition Army and march on Luoyang that very moment.
"Royal Father. Do you recall the counsel I offered you before?"
"Hmm... Crown Prince, the pieces of counsel you've given me were hardly one or two."
"Sun Jian."
"Ah! You mean the Tiger of Jiangdong."
Sun Jian.
A fierce general of the age who had suppressed countless rebellions that threatened the Han Dynasty.
But despite his staggering military achievements, he suffered the injustice of being cold-shouldered by the Han Imperial House and the Imperial Court. He'd offered no bribes to the Ten Regular Attendants who held real power in the court, and on top of that he was little more than a Local Gentry from the frontier, so he was repeatedly sidelined from the path to advancement.
In other words,
he was the premier free-agent talent available among the Han Dynasty's Out of Office literati and warriors.
Recruit the Tiger of Jiangdong and the officers under his command would follow in droves. And if Heavenly Fortune smiled on me, I could even recruit Sun Jian's children later on.
"Sun Jian is a southerner from south of the Yangtze River. Whatever his personality or character might be... his ability is a sure thing. He's a monster who scaled fortifications unarmed and single-handedly butchered Yellow Turban Rebels."
"Understood. Promise him an office and a title in Chen Kingdom, and tell him to join us with his personal troops."
"Ever wise, Your Majesty."
"Crown Prince, I trust your judgment."
Right now Sun Jian was heading south with the corps that had taken part in the rebellion suppression.
The reason was simple.
He was openly hostile to Dong Zhuo's army, which had seized power.
He had denounced the Dong Zhuo army's passivity and incompetence during the rebellion suppression, becoming their sworn enemy. When Dong Zhuo seized control of the Han Imperial House and the Imperial Court, Sun Jian, fearing future reprisals, had no choice but to turn his back on Luoyang.
This is the moment.
This right now is the golden opportunity to recruit the Tiger of Jiangdong.