The Fallen

In the sixth year of the Dading era.

Winter had only just passed when a stunning piece of news spread throughout Great Zhou.

Great Zhou's Chancellor, King Ding Wu Zhi, led an army of three hundred thousand by land and water into Taizhou, launching the war of unification in grand style.

Great Zhou had nineteen provinces. Wu Zhi now held Dingzhou, Lingzhou, and Xuzhou, which supported one another like the legs of a tripod. Her troops were elite, her provisions plentiful, and she had the court's mandate on her side. The large and small vassal lords of Taizhou submitted one after another. Those who resisted were swiftly crushed, their entire lineages implicated, and their fate proclaimed to all under Heaven.

By March, among the three largest vassal lords—Tong Ying, Xu Yusheng, and Lin Chong—Tong Ying and Lin Chong had surrendered and been reorganized into new units to await orders. Xu Yusheng resisted the army, but was defeated in just ten days. He himself was stripped of his lands, and his entire lineage was wiped out.

By then, all of Taizhou had submitted. That same month, Lu Xiang of Qingzhou requested to surrender.

Lu Xiang came from an illustrious lineage and already controlled most of Qingzhou. But Wu Zhi had attacked him from several directions, and knowing there was no hope of survival, he could only offer up his registers and official seal and beg to submit, for the sake of his lineage.

After all, Wu Zhi still represented the Great Zhou court. As a former subject, surrendering was simply an act of loyalty to his duty; his reputation for integrity would remain untarnished.

With that, Wu Zhi held five provinces and swept across the south. The momentum to swallow all under Heaven had taken shape, leaving the various vassal lords