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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emperor Valerian" data-source="post: 2194225" data-attributes="member: 15043">The Prince Moves... and Felonca’s Past Comes Back...A few days later, as Liu’s hand left the spot it was pointing to on the large map of the Empire in the palace, a collective gasp rose through the room.  Ling’s head lowered, while a vein stood prominently from Quan-Shi’s forehead, so great was his rage.  The Chief of the Xianfung Scholars wrung his hands together in worry, as did Quan-Shi’s second in command, a certain General Yuli.“He marches to Liangxiang, towards the Jade City itself,” Liu said, limping back towards his seat in the Council of War.  “He pays no attention to the Military Governor, or you, for that matter!”“How does he know this?” the chief of the Xianlung scholars asked furiously, attempting to recover from his look of abject horror.  “He is but a mere follower of Shenyang, one that due to his injuries was likely delirious most of his admittedly impressive run by foot to this city!”“Unlike you delicate scholars, Shenyang’s teaching gives me the strength to keep my eyes open!  To notice things such as supplies moving south, the flags of army troops I see from my hiding places, to even have the sense to find hiding places!” Liu spat back.“Hey now!” Nayu called, and Felonca jumped up with him to stop the brewing verbal brawl.  This isn’t the time to weaken and show fractures! she thought, the military blood in her veins rising to the fore.  We have one common thing... we have the same enemy!  And he is moving!“What of the Prince of Shu?” she loudly asked, drawing the conversation back towards the important topic at hand.  “He is the brother to the Dowager Empress, and if rumors are true, father to the Emperor.  Surely he presents a threat to our enemy, and could come down upon him from the rear?” “The Prince of Shu is like a small puppy yapping at the sides of a great dragon,” Quan-Shi said sourly.  “I saw a detachment of Shu’s army in battle, and Prince Hu single-handedly destroyed this detachment of two thousand cavalry.  They are no army, and after Hai-cheng, there is no army between Prince Hu and the Jade City!”“What happened at Hai-cheng?” Felonca asked.  She’d heard of the small town, near the southern border of the province of Langya.  There was not much there, save a very minor academy that trained prefectural scholars.  I have a feeling this is not good news...“The Dowager Empress dispatched a powerful army towards Langya soon after we departed Mingzhong,” Quan-Shi said.  “I know this because I received dispatches advising me that we might have to turn around.  After Hai-cheng, those orders were recinded, so the march continued.”“The Empress’ army was massive... she culled all the levies she could from the capital province and Liangxiang itself, and brought in the backbone of her brother’s cavalry.  They say the force totalled some hundred and fifty thousand under arms... I doubt those people are correct, but even if she held half the number, it would be the largest army gathered for many many decades.”“Prince Hu had only one third that number, and charged down to meet her attack.  At Hai-cheng, the two armies met, and the Empress’ army was almost completely destroyed.  They said you could walk over a mile, and your feet would not touch the ground from the bodies of the peasant levies...”“Ancestors preserve us...” Ling whispered quietly.“That almost sounds like the work of Uncle Dian,” Felonca said softly, speaking of her uncle, the ‘Black Warrior,’ known as one of the most ferocious fighters the Empire had ever seen.  He was hot-tempered, unfortunately, and never possessed the strategic brilliance that Quan-Shi spoke of...  if that ferocity and brilliance were married in one mind...“If there’s no one between him and the Jade City... the scholars, all the knowledge, all the magical power...” the chief scholar said, his voice hushed in horror.  “If he is already this powerful, and he gains control there...”That cannot happen! Felonca’s mind snapped.  Not after all the work, the sweat we’ve put into trying to set at least THIS area right!  The Prince of Langya could not be allowed to gain the strength sweep it all away!But how do we fight someone with that amount of strength, that gifted in war?Felonca’s mind drifted back years, to a classroom whose ceilings were the open sky, whose walls were the boundaries of the horizon as far as the eye could see.  She didn’t remember the instructor who gave the lecture... the deep basso growl that echoed in her mind made her think it might have been Master Hsiu himself, but the words nonetheless came back.”You must know your enemy, before you fight your enemy!  Know who is in charge, know when they eat, when they sleep, how many of them there are, where they are from, where they are going!   And even if you find yourself outnumbered or outmatched in wits, remember that all armies, all masses of men share the same weakness!”“Ling, how many troops can you put together in the next week?” Felonca asked, plans and plots coalescing in her mind.  “I’ll need you, General, to find out as much as you can about our enemy during that time!”“Um... Felonca?  What are you doing?” Nayu asked softly, as the others looked on in confusion for a moment, before Ling finally spoke.“I do not know... if General Quan-Shi would elect, we would have his army... but our provincial armies will be busy for the next few months restoring order to the rest of Dai province!”“I have 20,000 spears and 15,000 horse, Wa-Feng,” Quan-Shi replied, his eyes narrowing as he looked at his former student.  “Exactly, what are you thinking, Felonca?”“Who are the officers leading this invasion towards the Jade City?” Felonca bulled onwards.  “How good are they at command?  What do they command?”“Felonca... surely you aren’t thinking...” Nayu started to speak, before Quan-Shi cut him off.“Well, from the short service I had with the Prince, I can guess he is likely marching south with some seventy or eighty thousand troops.”  The General’s eyes widened a bit, as if he had pieced together her thoughts, and then they quickly narrowed as he gave a fierce grin.  “The Prince himself leads them, they say.  If I were in the Prince’s place, I would take with me General Akatsuki from Taisho, General Shunyi, Princess Hu Lian...”“Wait wait wait... Princess?” Nayu asked.“Yes... Prince Hu’s younger sister, Lian.  She commanded a wing of his army at Hai-cheng, and sprung the trap that destroyed the Empress’ armies,” Quan-Shi replied matter of factly.“But if she’s his younger sister... that would make her... what?  Nineteen?  Eighteen?”“Seventeen, Master Nayu,” Quan-Shi answered.  “Despite her youth, I would not argue with the dead of Hai-cheng on her ability to command.”  “What does she look like?” Nayu asked, intent on discovering if she looked like him or not.“NAYU!” Felonca snapped.  My gods!   No, you cannot go sleeping with her!Nayu fell silent, as did the entire Council.Wait...  why did I care so much? Felonca asked in her mind a moment later. She realized she wasn’t angry that Hu Lian was the sister of their enemy, though in every right, that was what she should have snapped at him about.  In fact, she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why she’d snapped at him...Clearing his throat, Quan-Shi resumed his listing of officers, all formidable and gifted, known to Felonca by name, and Felonca refocused herself away from the snapping at Nayu.  Finally, near the end, he said, “and then there’s...”  He stopped, and paused, looking at Felonca.“What?  Go on, please,” Felonca urged, and Quan-Shi sighed.“Master Hsiu Lan, former chief of the Hsiu-lan Military Academy,” the general said quietly.  Felonca’s dark face blanched slightly at the mentioning of the name, memories of terror coming back to her heart.  The shape of the immense tiger hengeyokai looming over her after combat drills, always picking her out to fight him one on one, then tossing her around like a ragdoll.  His proverbial growl, his hiss whenever she entered the room.  The very simple threat, made so long ago that shook her to her core...“You will not leave here alive, Wa-Feng!” he had hissed, simply, viciously.  “You are weak, I smell the fear, the weakness running through your veins!  You are rank with weakness, you little cur!  You stink up my Academy, you bring your weakness on other proud warriors that are here! For that, I shall make sure you never leave this Academy as a soldier!  You will leave it in dishonor, or in death!”“Isn’t that...” Nayu leaned over and asked her quietly, before noticing that she was rigidly stiff, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.“Quan-Shi, take the next week, and find out as much as you can about Prince Hu’s army.  I need to know where Prince Hu’s supply depot is,” she said firmly, forcing herself to speak confidently, despite the fear running through her blood.  Hsiu was not right!  I am not full of fear!  I am a warrior, just as the others in my family!  “You tell me where that depot is, and give me enough people, and I will leave it in flames!”  She watched as Quan-Shi’s smile grew fierce, pride swelling slightly in the old weasel hengeyokai’s chest as he watched his former student take charge.“What good would that do?  I mean...” Liu asked, before Felonca turned to him, forcing her eyes to take on the same look of steel she’d seen in her father’s when she was a child, the same look of decision and power that made her want to follow the family honor, and take up the warrior’s life as well.“An army only goes so far as food can reach it!” Felonca explained, her plan unveiling itself.  “It can shoot arrows so long as it has more arrows to reload!  If we find and destroy his supplies, we can force his army to retreat to Langya, without risking a battle!”“That would most certainly be a plan, but an exceedingly dangerous one,” Ling said quietly.  “It would require avoiding Hu’s powerful army, sneaking into a camp, and lighting it afire, while in the midst of the territory of the Empress Dowager, whom Nayu tells me is no friend of yours either...  if it is possible, it would be a major coup, however...”“I see no other way,” Felonca replied.  “Hu is too powerful to attack head on, and he must be stopped before he can take the Jade City!” As nods went around the Council room, and Quan-Shi asked for two weeks instead of one, Felonca began to find something strong, powerful, beating within her heart.  I am Wa-Feng!  I am a warrior!I am not afraid!It was then she realized that if her father had seen her, his smile of approval likely would have made even the sun dim in comparison.Two weeks later, Quan-Shi cleared his throat, and Ling called for the reconvened Council of War to silence.  Soon after, the aged weasel hengeyokai walked to the front, now in his full regalia as a senior general, and looked over the gathered audience.“Firstly... I would like to thank Mistress Wa-Feng and Master Wakabayashi for their earlier efforts in Dai Province.  It appears,” Quan-Shi smiled, “that many south of Xianfung know you by name, and that you saved a village.  Your name has carried us far... we have gained some 8,000 recruits from this area after your names were spoken!”“We are glad we could help, sir,” Nayu bowed, before looking at Felonca and giving a huge grin that she echoed.“They are raw troops, and we’ll have to train them on the march, but they will still be useful to us,” the general continued, before moving on.  “To the next subject, the subject of this Council meeting.  We have found from numerous sources, among them certain individuals that Mistress Wa-Feng had surprising connections to...”Felonca nodded and smiled at the reference to her partners in the Thieves Guild, whose eyes and ears reached far beyond the city walls.“...that the Prince of Langya is building an enormous supply depot near the village of Segoruken, south of the plains of Ii-suken.”  Quan-Shi pointed to several figures on the map before them.  “The purpose of this meeting is to decide our course of action with this knowledge.  Governor, as general of this army under your command,” Felonca saw Ling suppress a smile in her direction at the comment, “should we march to Segoruken, and destroy Prince Hu’s supplies?”“General Quan-Shi, I am a civilian administrator,” Ling admitted, “while it appears that you and Mistress Wa-Feng possess the gifts of a military mind.  Does this appear, in your eyes, the most effective way to keep Prince Hu from taking the Jade City, and thus keeping him from the scholars, knowledge, and power that lies there?”Both Quan-Shi and Felonca nodded.“Very well.  I leave the nuts and bolts planning to you professionals,” he smiled slightly, before adding, “I shall take care of getting Dai back onto its feet, and raising and provisioning a large provincial army to protect us while you are away.”As the Council broke up, Felonca fairly hurried over towards Quan-Shi, excitement bubbling within her heart, mixed with a great deal of trepidation.  “Ah... yes... Felonca,” Quan-Shi said quietly as he rolled up the planning map.  “I do have something to speak to you and Nayu about, regarding a commission...”“Yes?” Felonca asked, and Nayu walked over after hearing his name mentioned.“Well... I am assembling a section of the army to go and conduct this raid while the rest acts as cover, keeping itself between you and Hu’s main force...”What?! Felonca thought, rather confused.  He can’t be asking me to command the operation! Despite her bold words two weeks earlier, she hadn’t expected anything remotely like a full command.  I have no idea how to order around a wing of the army!  I can’t run thousands of troops!“I...um...” Quan-Shi started to say, before stopping again.“What is it, general?” Nayu asked, his face growing concerned, as did Felonca’s.  Quan-Shi wasn’t usually tongue-tied unless there was a major complication.“Well, you will not be in command of the operation, and I am leaving its commander a free hand, for the most part,” Quan-Shi replied slowly, cautiously, as if he was picking every word from a bee’s nest.  “The only precise orders I will issue to him is that both of you are to receive commissions at the rank of captain, with commands to equal your ranks.”“Me?!  A captain?!”  Felonca squealed, before forcing a military demeanor back on herself, and giving a sharp, precise salute to Quan-Shi.  “Of course sir!  We will not fail you, sir!”“No offense... general,” Nayu hastily added the latter title, “but... what would I do as a captain?  I don’t know how to swing a sword, or...”“There is a small group of warrior scholars traveling with your special expedition wing.  You would command them.  While it would be a small command,” Quan-Shi demurred, “only 10 people as opposed to Felonca’s likely future company of 100, it would have a far greater amount of firepower and responsibility.”Nayu’s face lit up, in a way Felonca hadn’t seen in a long while.  The prospect of having that many fireballs at his beck and call will probably make him giddy for DAYS....  Felonca then noticed that while Quan-Shi smiled towards Nayu, he didn’t smile towards her... instead, the trepidation returned anew.“Is something wrong with my commission, General?” she asked.“Um... well... you might have to speak to your new commanding officer about that,” the old general replied hestitantly.“I’m...well, I’m sure that any trouble that...um... arises... can be handled professionally by the both of us, sir,” she offered, her own reply hesitant and filled with worry.  What’s wrong with my superior officer?  I don’t know many of Quan-Shi’s subordinates, but if they are like him, they are fair commanders that judge by performance!“I... I sincerely hope so,” Quan-Shi replied.  “He is likely outside now.  Shall I send him in?”“Yes, by all means, sir,” Felonca replied, her mind confused as she tried to sound confident.  Who would have a problem with me taking a position as a mere Captain?  It’s not like I would be commanding the entire...She stopped when she noticed that as Quan-Shi opened, the door, he left the room.Why did he do that?  Who’d have a serious enough problem with me that we would be left by our commanding officer in private to sort things out?For a moment, there was no one in the doorway.  Then, she heard a distinctly familiar clank of scaled armor boots coming up the marble hallway.  Soon, the door was obscured by an immense figure, nearly seven feet tall.  His scaled armor was pitch black, blacker than the darkest of nights.  From his hip hung an enormous black sword, the carved panther on its pommel frighteningly familiar to her.The massive figure wore a huge helm, the face of a roaring panther as its crest.  Clawed hands reached up, and removed the helm, and Felonca found herself looking into the deep, piercing, and ferocious eyes of Wa-Feng Dian, the audible growl from his voice telling her of a furious, unquenched anger at her person...= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = You knew Felonca’s family was going to appear at some point!  And that they wouldn’t be pleased at all by the choices she had made... though the true extent of her uncle’s disapproval shall be revealed during the next update.  I think I’ll call it, “The War of the Wa-Fengs.” Enjoy!</blockquote>

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