Reborn In The Three Kingdoms - Chapter 973

Chapter 973: 925. Cao Cao Could Do Activities & Cao Brothers
By the time he finished the draft of the second letter, the sun had climbed high above Xiapi, and the sounds of soldiers training in the distance drifted faintly through the window. Lie Fan smiled to himself. “Ziling will owe me wine for this.” But the warmth of that thought didn’t last long. For in the west, the fires of war were raging.

On Hongnong.

The once bustling border prefecture had transformed into a fortress of desperation. Siege towers burned like torches in the night. The cries of soldiers echoed from both sides of the walls. And though the Hengyuan Dynasty’s army numbered over seven hundred thousand, the defenders of Wei held firm, their will sharpened by fear and necessity.

Inside the main command hall, Cao Cao finally stood again, pale, weakened, but upright after days confined to his bed.

His legs trembled as he moved toward the war table, but he refused assistance form anyone. “I am not dead yet,” he said with a weary half smile.

Guo Jia, Xi Zhicai, and Xun Yu exchanged looks of quiet relief. Their emperor had nearly succumbed to the relentless headaches he have that struck him without warning. That he now stood before them again was a blessing, even if his strength had not yet fully returned, and it was a because of his insistence that the physician allows him to leave his bed.

Guo Jia cleared his throat and began the briefing. “Your Majesty, as we have predicted before, the siege will remains locked in stalemate for quite some time. Our initial entrenchments hold. Their artillery cannot breach the inner walls, and our countermeasures have stalled their progress. But, Your Majesty, they do not let up their attack.”

Xi Zhicai added, “Zhang Liao and Taishi Ci launch assault after assault on the eastern gate. Huang Zhong probes the northern walls relentlessly. They are like a tide, ebbing and flowing, but the water level never drops. Sima Yi is the true danger. He is not merely battering us. He is studying us. He launches an attack, watches how we reinforce, where we shift our reserves, how quickly we respond, and then he breaks it off. He has ignored every feint and bait we have laid. He is a surgeon, looking for a single, weak seam in our armor.”

Xun Yu stepped forward, placing a map onto the table. “Their intent is clear. They expect us to crumble from within, not from a single breakthrough. Their assaults are pressure, nothing more. Sima Yi wants to exhaust our men, our supplies, and our morale.”

Cao Cao listened quietly, his fingers resting lightly on the edge of the table. “He is patient,” he murmured. “Too patient.”

“Just like you, Your Majesty,” Guo Jia said with a faint, tired smile.

Cao Cao did not deny it.

He inhaled slowly before speaking again. “And what of our rations?”

“Stable for now,” Xun Yu replied. “But if the siege continues another month, we will be forced to ration heavily.”

Cao Cao exhaled. “So the situation is worse than I feared.”

His gaze drifted toward the narrow window, where smoke curled upward from the distant walls. His mind churned, though with far less clarity than usual.

“I… I am sorry,” he said, the words tasting like gall. “I lie here, a useless burden, while you all fight my war. My mind… it feels clouded. The strategies that once came so easily…” He trailed off, a look of profound frustration and fear in his eyes.

“My sudden collapse…” he continue bitterly. “Had it happened during a critical moment, Wei might have lost Hongnong already.”

Xi Zhicai stepped closer. “Your Majesty, it was illness. Nothing more. No mind, however brilliant, can escape the limitations of the body.”

Guo Jia added gently, “Our greatest concern is your recovery, Your Majesty. Strategies, tactics, leave them to us. Hongnong will not fall while we draw breath.”

Cao Cao’s expression softened at their words, though a shadow of guilt lingered in his eyes. “I should be helping you. My mind feels fogged, slower than before. I cannot think as sharply as I once did.”

Xun Yu bowed deeply. “My lord, even now, your presence alone bolsters the entire army. The Crown Prince and Prince Cao Pi remain united only because of Your Majesty’s strength and the affection you hold for them. But should your health falter…”

He left the terrible implication unspoken. “Your prestige, your paternal authority, is the only thing that keeps the question of succession dormant. The dynasty’s stability, in this moment of extreme peril, rests upon your recovery. If you push yourself further and fall again… the entire dynasty may enter chaos.”

Cao Cao stiffened.

He knew it was true.

The delicate harmony between Cao Ang and Cao Pi held only because of him. Without his guiding hand, competition, perhaps bloodshed, might emerge between the two.

“My health…” he whispered. “The dynasty’s lifeline rests upon it?”

Guo Jia nodded gravely. “Yes. For now, it does, Your Majesty.”

Cao Cao closed his eyes. He took a deeper, slower breath, forcing the tremors in his hand to still. The self pity began to recede, burned away by the cold fire of necessity. They were right. His role had changed. He was no longer the battlefield commander, he was the symbol. The heart. However weakened, it could not be seen to fail.

When he opened his eyes again, there was fire, dimmed but still burning.

“Very well,” Cao Cao said, his voice gaining a sliver of its old strength. “Continue the defense as you have. You have my full confidence. I will focus on recovering my strength.”

He looked at each of them. “And know this, whatever happens, you have already done more for Wei than I could have ever asked. If these are to be our final days, we will make them a story that will be told for a thousand years.”

A sense of grim resolution settled over the room. The briefing was over. The advisors bowed and left to return to their duties, leaving Cao Cao alone with his thoughts and the ever present, distant roar of the siege.

The battle for Hongnong was not just a military contest, it was a test of endurance, of will, and of the fragile structure of a dynasty clinging to life. And in his chamber, the Emperor of Wei understood that his most important battle now was not against the armies of Hengyuan, but against the weakness in his own body and the specter of chaos within his own house.

Meanhwile the air outside the Governor’s Castle carried the harsh scent of smoke and burning pitch. Even from the high porch where the two princes stood, the distant crash of siege engines and the guttural roar of battle rolled in like thunder. Hongnong had become an anvil upon which the fate of Wei was being hammered with every passing hour.

Cao Ang rested both hands on the cold stone railing, eyes fixed on the horizon where the haze of war blurred the landscape. Flags snapped in the wind. Arrows occasionally gleamed like dark needles in the far distance before vanishing into the fray. Below, soldiers scurried like ants, reinforcing barricades or dragging wounded comrades from the gates.

He breathed slowly, deeply, as if trying to steady something inside himself.

“Pi,” he said after a long silence, his voice low, contemplative. “What do you think of the siege? Will we win… or not?”

Cao Pi blinked in surprise at the question, turning to look at his older brother. The sunlight caught the sharp line of his jaw, the slight furrow of his brow. There was an intelligence in his eyes, quiet, calculating, always turning like polished gears.

But he saw something else in Cao Ang’s expression. A faint heaviness. A quiet unease buried beneath the steel façade.

Cao Pi folded his hands behind his back. “The end of the siege…” He exhaled slowly, letting the wind carry his words. “It is still obscured. No one, not even the greatest strategists we have, can say with confidence how this will unfold.”

He looked once more toward the distant battlefield.

“But one thing is certain, this siege will be long. Very long. Longer than anyone wishes to admit.”

Cao Ang nodded slowly, a thin line forming between his brows as he listened.

Cao Pi continued, his tone thoughtful. “Sima Yi has no intention of ending it swiftly. He wants to stretch us thin. To make time itself into a weapon. And… if he continues like this, then the true battle may not be at the walls at all, but in the minds and bodies of the men defending them.”

Cao Ang absorbed his words in silence. Then he turned back toward his brother, his expression shifting into something more vulnerable, something rare.

“Pi…” he began softly, “tell me honestly… do you resent me? Or Father?”

Cao Pi’s shoulders stiffened.

“For choosing me as Crown Prince,” Cao Ang finished, the words hanging in the air like the weight of an unsheathed sword. “You’ve always been the better one in matters of strategy, law, governance. I only inherited Father’s strength, Father’s instincts for the battlefield. I… never understood why he chose me over you.”

Cao Pi did not answer at first.

He looked away, jaw tightening. A muscle twitched along his cheek. The wind lifted strands of his hair, brushing them across his forehead.

Then he finally spoke.

“It would be a lie, big brother,” he said quietly, “if I claimed I felt nothing.”

Cao Ang’s eyes softened, but he remained silent, letting him continue.

“When the edict came,” Cao Pi said, his voice low, almost trembling with something deeper than anger, old hurt, swallowed ambition, wounded pride, “I was furious. Angry at Father. Angry at the heavens. Angry at you. I thought… I thought I deserved it more.”

He took a long breath, steadying himself.

“But in time, I understood something.”

He turned to face Cao Ang fully, the setting sun outlining his figure in a warm glow.

“Father chose you not because of tradition. Not because you were first born. You know Father better than that.” His lips curled slightly, a faint, bitter smile. “He never cared for convention. He must have seen something in you that even we cannot see.”

Cao Ang lowered his gaze, thoughtful.

He knew Cao Pi was not wrong. Their father was a man who made decisions with clear eyes and iron will. If he wanted Cao Pi to succeed him, he would have done it without hesitation.

“Pi,” Cao Ang murmured, “since you put it that way… must I expect something to happen in the future?”

Cao Pi’s chest tightened, not from anger this time, but from the sudden pain of hearing doubt, fear, and worry in his brother’s voice.

“I don’t want our bond to break,” Cao Ang continued, his words carefully chosen, almost fragile. “Not over a throne. Not over a seat that either of us might never sit on. You know as well as I do… the future is uncertain. Look at the world now. Look at Lie Fan.” Cao Pi frowned, taken aback. Cao Ang pressed on before he could respond.

______________________________

Name: Lie Fan

Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty

Age: 35 (202 AD)

Level: 16

Next Level: 462,000

Renown: 2325

Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 9)

SP: 1,121,700

ATTRIBUTE POINTS

STR: 966 (+20)

VIT: 623 (+20)

AGI: 623 (+10)

INT: 667

CHR: 98

WIS: 549

WILL: 432

ATR Points: 0