Recaps

Li Qinwu secured grain from the rebels and received the deed to the Imperial Cult’s food factory and the diocese’s food monopoly. With supplies for only one month and a famine looming, he explored making cheap, filling food to help two million people last until the next harvest.

• Li Qinwu negotiated with the Marshal, offering security and fertilizer in exchange for 40,000 tons of food and another 40,000 tons after the next harvest.
• Li Qinwu moved fertilizer to the rebels and used military trucks to haul grain into the Lower Hive.
• Li Qinwu told the priest about the grain, and the priest gave him the Holy Food Processing Plant and responsibility for feeding the diocese’s two million people.
• Li Qinwu and the priest inspected the factory, where the supervisor explained its production lines and ability to process mildly toxic materials.
• Li Qinwu proposed grinding corn, potatoes, wheat, and their inedible parts into Hollow Pasta, and the supervisor confirmed it could be made but warned that it would not provide enough calories.

Li Qinwu sought ways to stretch the Hive City's food supply by processing crop waste and wild plants, and negotiated with Marshal Dilar for both agricultural leftovers and supplies gathered by rebel citizens. He discovered that coins were valuable to the rebels and accepted a mission to exchange ten million coins for Dilar's billion Fertilizer Vouchers, then returned to the food factory with grain and crop waste.

• Li Qinwu proposed grinding corn stalks, potato vines, and wild grass into food, then told the priest he would leave the Hive City to increase supplies.
• Li Qinwu asked Marshal Dilar to provide crop waste and let his people buy grain or gather edible plants, and Dilar agreed in exchange for coins.
• Dilar explained that rebel factions valued iron coins as practical, reliable currency and offered one billion Fertilizer Vouchers for ten million coins.
• Li Qinwu accepted the mission to gather the coins, then joined Little Knife's convoy returning from Whitewater City with grain and crop waste.
• Li Qinwu drove the loaded convoy through PDF Camp to the Middle Hive food factory, where the deliveries helped ease growing food panic.

Li Qinwu inspected the Factory’s crude emergency-food production and learned he controlled a vast parish food market. After tasting the first Hollow Pasta, he set its price at three dollars per bag and ordered strict limits on resale and price gouging.

• Li Qinwu watched workers turn unwashed crops into emergency Hollow Pasta and learned the Factory used sterilization equipment to make the food safe despite its poor quality.
• The supervisor explained the food grades, the Factory’s finances and workforce, and its sales channels through more than two hundred churches and three thousand shops.
• Li Qinwu examined and tasted the first batch of Hollow Pasta, finding it awful but filling and easy to prepare.
• Li Qinwu priced each bag at three dollars, assigned shares for costs, merchants, and profit, and prohibited shops from overcharging or reselling the food to other parishes.

As famine spread through the Hive City, Li Qinwu’s food trade made him rich, and he decided to spend his fortune equipping his private soldiers. At the Temple of the Machine God, Father Anthony showed him three types of Power Armor and their prices.

• Ten days passed, famine erupted in the Hive City, and Hollow Pasta kept people in The Devout One’s parish from starving.
• Li Qinwu collected ten million coins, exchanged them for one billion Fertilizer Coupon banknotes, and raised his assets to 1.1 billion.
• Li Qinwu contacted Father Anthony, who took him to the Temple of the Machine God to shop for equipment for his two hundred private soldiers.
• Li Qinwu toured the Temple of the Machine God and criticized its workers for praying and kowtowing after tightening each screw.
• Father Anthony showed Li Qinwu heavy, standard, and stealth Force-Feedback Power Armor, priced at fifty million, twenty-five million, and two hundred million per set.

Li Qinwu tested several types of Power Armor at Father Anthony’s shop and found that their performance varied in protection, responsiveness, and stealth. He chose a Stealth suit, two Heavy suits, and twenty Standard suits, leaving the purchase at the point of selection.

• Li Qinwu protested the high prices, then agreed to test the Power Armor before buying.
• Father Anthony and the Servitors fitted Li Qinwu with Heavy Force-Feedback Power Armor, which he found powerful but too delayed for close combat.
• Father Anthony offered to install Neural Interfaces, but Li Qinwu refused and moved on to the Standard suit.
• Li Qinwu tested the Standard Force-Feedback Power Armor and judged it suitable for widespread military use.
• Li Qinwu tested the Stealth Force-Feedback Power Armor and learned about its speed, detection equipment, and matching sniper rifle and carbine.
• Li Qinwu decided to take one Stealth suit, two Heavy suits, and twenty Standard suits.

Li Qinwu bought weapons and field resupply equipment to arm his Power Armor troops, spending most of his fortune. Back at his base, he promised his Lower Hive recruits that the best warriors would become his personal guards and bring their families to live in the Spire.

• Father Anthony recommended heavy-barrel lasgun kits for Li Qinwu’s Standard Power Armor, and Li Qinwu bought twenty.
• Li Qinwu purchased two Automatic Grenade Launcher systems for his Heavy Assault Power Armor.
• Father Anthony persuaded Li Qinwu to buy a Field Energy Resupply Package, leaving him with only 200 million for emergencies.
• Father Anthony had the purchases delivered to Li Qinwu’s base in the Chemical Gang, where the recruits erupted in excitement at the equipment.
• Li Qinwu told his armed personnel that the finest warriors would become his personal guards and move with their families to the Spire.

Li Qinwu expanded his Lower Hive army and established monthly assessments to select personal guards, including literacy tests to prepare soldiers to use Power Armor. He then inspected the battalion he had been assigned and began probing its commander for chances to replace worn-out equipment.

• Li Qinwu announced monthly assessments, promotions, and Spireborn status for the ten best soldiers, then ordered Little Knife to expand the army to three thousand.
• Li Qinwu set coordinated and individual assessment standards, including literacy, and appointed Old White to teach soldiers in exchange for a chance to move to the Spire.
• Lieutenant Rudosen told Li Qinwu that he had been appointed commander of the regiment's First Battalion, so Li Qinwu traveled to its headquarters to inspect it.
• Regiment Commander Leo presented the battalion's personnel and equipment, and Li Qinwu suggested that its Logging Guns and Chimera Transport were in poor condition.
• When Li Qinwu questioned whether the 160mm howitzers were broken, Regiment Commander Leo said they would need to break gradually and on a schedule.

Commander Leo warned Li Qinwu that a war with the rebels might begin over Hive City's food shortage, and Li Qinwu took control of his battalion before seeking advice on protecting Marshal Dilar's territory. The noble adviser Killian Stanton Cavendish proposed starting his counsel by asking where Li Qinwu planned to establish his baronial fief.

• Commander Leo told Li Qinwu to avoid taking heavy weapons and warned that Hive City's famine could lead the PDF to fight the rebels for food.
• Li Qinwu assigned Egghead, Black Charcoal, and others to officer posts, took control of his battalion, and found its soldiers undisciplined.
• Li Qinwu returned to the Spire to consider how to protect Marshal Dilar's territory from PDF attacks.
• Li Qinwu learned that Killian Stanton Cavendish wanted to serve as his butler in hopes of earning a noble title.
• Li Qinwu asked Killian how to protect a rebel marshal's land, and Killian asked where Li Qinwu planned to establish his baronial fief.

Li Qinwu established the Punisher Family and made Whitewater City the center of his barony, protecting rebel marshal Dilar’s territory while grain flowed to Hive City. General Zeppelin visited him to ask how he had arranged the grain partnership, and Li Qinwu explained that he had invoked The Devout One’s support and threatened Dilar into supplying grain.

• Advisor Killian told Li Qinwu that the food shortage made his cooperation with the rebels politically useful and unlikely to be condemned.
• Li Qinwu chose a black sword and skull on a red background for his family banner and named his house the Punisher Family.
• Li Qinwu hired Advisor Killian as his steward, and Killian registered the family name and banner.
• Li Qinwu received his barony certificate, with Whitewater City at its center and land extending fifty kilometers around it.
• General Zeppelin visited Li Qinwu’s villa, and Li Qinwu explained how he had secured grain from Dilar in exchange for protecting Dilar’s territory from PDF raids.

General Zeppelin told Li Qinwu that Hive City was facing mass starvation and unrest, while the rebels had rejected peace talks and were preparing for war. The final negotiations collapsed, and Agricultural Planet 496b plunged into civil war.

• General Zeppelin told Li Qinwu that his grain deal had fed two million people and prevented riots, but unrest and desertions were spreading across Hive City.
• General Zeppelin said the rebels had rejected the planetary leadership’s ceasefire and trade offers, and he ordered Li Qinwu to prepare his soldiers for a major war.
• The planetary leadership offered the rebels contraband goods in exchange for food, but the rebel marshals demanded weapons, the withdrawal of PDF forces, and trials for listed war criminals.
• The generals and rebel marshals traded insults after the rebels demanded that one general be handed over for trial, ending the final negotiations in failure.
• The planetary leadership declared that it had exhausted its efforts for peace, and civil war erupted on Agricultural Planet 496b.

As Hive City's PDF prepared to fight the rebels over food, Li Qinwu equipped private soldiers and secured his battalion's loyalty by feeding their families. At a conference, the 109th Regiment received orders to secure a hundred-kilometer route, and Li Qinwu promised its soldiers' families free food from his factory.

• Hive City's high command mobilized the PDF Regiments and urged soldiers to fight by telling them the rebels had refused to provide food.
• Li Qinwu recruited 200 private soldiers, equipped them, and gave the families of his battalion's thousand-odd soldiers a month's supply of food.
• Regiment Commander Leo ordered the 109th Regiment to secure a hundred-kilometer transport route and divided it among three battalions.
• Rudosen worried that guarding the road would keep his soldiers from finding food, and Leo promised the regiment a share of captured supplies.
• Li Qinwu offered free food from his operating factory to the families of 109th Regiment soldiers, and Leo ordered the regiment to depart the next morning.

Li Qinwu organized his battalion to defend a thirty-kilometer highway and established a network of outposts and artillery positions. As his men prepared for a long defense, they witnessed the brutality of the passing PDFs and received two truckloads of potatoes from a regiment that had stripped the surrounding fields.

• Li Qinwu’s officers planned a central headquarters and four small outposts, with trenches, machine-gun positions, artillery, and vehicle patrols covering the highway.
• Li Qinwu urged his men to hold the road, avoid needless risks, and prioritize survival as the starving PDFs set out for rebel territory.
• Li Qinwu’s convoy passed fields full of civilians killed by earlier PDF units and a destroyed Chimera Transport that Egghead identified as belonging to Second Battalion.
• Li Qinwu’s battalion reached its defense zone and built the main outpost, then sent four hundred soldiers to construct four smaller outposts.
• A passing ten-thousand-man PDF regiment dug up the nearby potatoes, loaded them onto trucks, and left two truckloads for Li Qinwu’s battalion.

Li Qinwu trained his troops at a quiet rear position while secretly allowing farmers to plant crops at night after the PDF swept through the area. As his private soldiers grew more capable, a radio call reported that Hans Camp was fighting its own people.

• Li Qinwu trained his private soldiers and sent several recruits to learn artillery work despite the artillery company commander's doubts.
• Li Qinwu led ten soldiers to investigate figures digging in a field and discovered they were farmers planting crops at night.
• Li Qinwu let the farmers continue working under strict conditions, and their nighttime farming grew to include more than three hundred people.
• Li Qinwu returned to Hive City for another two hundred private soldiers and rewarded noncommissioned officers for teaching his troops to use heavy machine guns.
• Li Qinwu received a request for aid after Hans Camp exchanged fire with its own people.

Li Qinwu learned that Hans Camp had clashed with a food convoy after Hans tried to claim food for his regiment, whose families had received none of the promised redistribution. Li Qinwu arrived with reinforcements, but the full PDF 81st Regiment also reached the standoff, leaving both forces facing each other.

• A soldier reported over the radio that Hans Camp had exchanged fire with another PDF regiment, and Li Qinwu rushed to assemble a relief force.
• Hans Camp soldiers explained that Hans had intercepted a convoy to secure food for his regiment after two months without the promised supplies.
• Hans's troops and the convoy soldiers traded fire, leaving Hans wounded, casualties on both sides, and the trucks disabled.
• Li Qinwu arrived with armored vehicles and infantry, then deployed his troops between the opposing forces.
• The main force of the PDF 81st Regiment arrived after its commander learned that the food convoy had been robbed.

Li Qinwu confronted the 81st Regiment commander after a clash between the regiments and demanded compensation for a wounded battalion commander. He threatened to destroy the convoy’s grain with artillery, leaving the 81st Regiment facing an ultimatum.

• The 81st Regiment commander arrived at the scene and demanded to know who had killed his soldiers, but Li Qinwu opened fire near his jeep with a Chimera Transport’s Logging Gun.
• Li Qinwu ordered the 109th Regiment’s soldiers and vehicles to aim their weapons at the 81st Regiment commander, who stayed in his exposed jeep rather than retreat.
• Li Qinwu accused the 81st Regiment of firing first and wounding Battalion Commander Hans, then demanded an explanation and compensation.
• The 81st Regiment soldiers protested when Li Qinwu demanded their trucks and grain as payment for Hans’s medical expenses.
• Li Qinwu ordered the artillery to load chemical incendiary shells and prepare a full volley, warning that the grain would belong to the 109th Regiment or be burned to ashes.

Li Qinwu turned the standoff with the 81st Regiment into a public grievance before General Zeppelin, who sided with the 109th Regiment. The 81st Regiment withdrew after leaving ten truckloads of grain behind for the soldiers’ families.

• Li Qinwu and the 81st Regiment remained locked in an armed standoff as both sides called for reinforcements.
• Lieutenant Rudosen told Li Qinwu that General Zeppelin was on his way, and Zeppelin arrived with elite soldiers and Regimental Commander Leo.
• Li Qinwu accused the 81st Regiment commander of insulting the 109th Regiment, forcing a checkpoint, and shooting Battalion Commander Hans Camp.
• General Zeppelin saw Hans Camp’s wounds, rebuked the 81st Regiment commander, and promised to investigate why the soldiers’ families had received no grain.
• General Zeppelin ordered the 109th Regiment to take grain for emergency relief, and the 81st Regiment left ten truckloads behind before withdrawing.

After the 109th Regiment won grain from the 81st Regiment, General Zeppelin’s troops discussed their lack of access to the front and the food controlled by Hive City’s nobles. Li Qinwu proposed that the garrison regiments grow their own crops, and General Zeppelin ordered them to begin planting and vowed to protect the harvest.

• General Zeppelin told the 109th Regiment to divide the ten truckloads of grain among the soldiers’ families, and the troops cheered for him.
• General Zeppelin explained that his regiments had been assigned logistics duties and that Spire nobles had hoarded most of the distributed grain.
• General Zeppelin asked Li Qinwu how the soldiers could overcome the food shortage, and Li Qinwu suggested using the land around their defense zones to grow crops.
• Li Qinwu proposed recruiting nearby farmers and refugees to teach the soldiers, while warning that other forces might seize the harvest.
• General Zeppelin ordered every garrison regiment to plant crops around its defense zone and declared that he would protect what they grew.

Li Qinwu and Commander Leo planned to recruit displaced farmers and use captured machinery to grow food for the regiment and their families. After the 81st Regiment shot Hans Camp over grain, Li Qinwu proposed charging convoys three sacks per truck and mining the fields to stop them bypassing the tolls.

• Commander Leo checked on Hans Camp, who said a military doctor had operated on his ruptured intestines and he expected to recover after a few days of rest.
• Li Qinwu proposed recruiting farmers, protecting them, and borrowing farm machinery from rebel territory to cultivate the regiment's land.
• Commander Leo offered to find displaced people at the front, and Li Qinwu promised to provide seeds, tools, and fertilizer while they waited for General Zeppelin to negotiate with his superiors.
• Lieutenant Rudosen worried the 81st Regiment's commander would retaliate, but Commander Leo said he would not dare challenge the regiment's lord, Li Qinwu.
• After Hans Camp recalled being shot for requesting grain from a convoy, Li Qinwu ordered that future trucks pay three sacks of grain as a road-repair toll.
• Li Qinwu proposed mining and fencing the farmland to prevent convoys from bypassing the toll, and Commander Leo agreed to bring over more than five thousand mines.

General Zeppelin secured approval for the 109th Regiment to reclaim farmland, and Li Qinwu organized farmers and refugees to cultivate and defend a vast agricultural zone. The chapter ended with Battalion Commander Hans stopping a grain convoy at a roadblock and threatening its officer with the Chimera Transport’s gun.

• General Zeppelin won approval for the 109th Regiment to conduct military reclamation after giving up its food allocation.
• Li Qinwu recruited more than three hundred farmers, promised to protect them, and obtained agricultural machinery from the Marshal.
• Li Qinwu’s soldiers and the farmers plowed thousands of mu of land, while Regiment Commander Leo brought back more than ten thousand refugees to help work the farms.
• Li Qinwu organized the refugees into work groups, distributed tools, and had them build homes and cultivate crops along the 109th Regiment’s transport route.
• The 109th Regiment guarded its fields with patrols, barbed wire, and minefield warnings as crops began to sprout.
• Battalion Commander Hans blocked a twenty-truck grain convoy at a road pit and threatened its officer after he cursed at the guards.

Battalion Commander Hans Camp forced the grain convoy to pay a toll of sixty sacks before the 109th Regiment let it cross their defense zone. After the convoy left, Hans ordered the grain distributed among the other battalions.

• The grain convoy officer confronted Battalion Commander Hans Camp over the crater, and Hans's soldiers aimed their weapons at the convoy.
• Hans said the 109th Regiment had received none of its promised grain and demanded three sacks from each of the convoy's twenty trucks.
• Hans warned the officer that mines blocked the fields, and the officer accepted the demand after a junior officer urged him to prioritize the convoy's mission.
• Hans had a Chimera Transport lay an iron plate across the crater so the convoy could cross, and the officer threatened to report him to the Department of Military Affairs.
• Hans ordered his soldiers to carry the sixty sacks inside and divide them among the other battalions.

Li Qinwu strengthened his farmstead and defenses while the PDF’s brutal advance descended into factional infighting and disorder. After learning that an 81st Regiment convoy had bypassed his grain toll, he prepared to intercept it.

• Li Qinwu monitored the PDF’s chaotic advance and predicted that its exhausted troops would soon suffer a setback as the rebels’ larger forces spread them thin.
• Li Qinwu reinforced his defenses and heard farmstead reports as he warned the brigade commanders to keep rebels from causing trouble among the farmers.
• Li Qinwu planned to expand cultivation, then take his private soldiers to the front lines to recover abandoned weapons and equipment.
• A soldier told Li Qinwu that a five-truck grain convoy from the 81st Regiment had refused to pay the toll and detoured west.
• Li Qinwu ordered Kai to summon two Company Commanders and prepare six military trucks and the Command Chimera Transport.

Li Qinwu ambushed a grain convoy that tried to avoid his toll, killing its drivers and stealing its cargo and trucks. He and his men erased the evidence and returned to the Lower Hive with the spoils.

• Li Qinwu ordered his soldiers to intercept a five-truck grain convoy that had chosen a detour instead of paying his toll.
• Li Qinwu and Old Kai hid beside 13th Yellow Dirt Road while Little Kai led another hundred men to block the convoy’s retreat.
• Li Qinwu activated the Chimera’s jamming system and gave the order to attack when the convoy reached the ambush.
• Li Qinwu’s soldiers killed all the truck drivers, captured the five vehicles, and cleared the battlefield of evidence.
• Li Qinwu’s men brought the grain and trucks to the Lower Hive, where they mixed the grain with their own stores and had the Black Merchant dismantle the vehicles.

Li Qinwu paid for Big Kai to receive advanced mechanical legs at the Temple of the Machine God, where the brutal operation gave him enhanced endurance and detection abilities. Father Anthony then invited Li Qinwu to replace parts of his own body with machinery, leaving him facing the possibility of extensive augmentation.

• Li Qinwu brought supplies from the Lower Hive and took Big Kai to Father Anthony to ask for mechanical legs.
• Li Qinwu paid two million Fertilizer Coupons for military-grade prosthetics, and Tech-Priests installed them while Big Kai endured the operation without anesthetic.
• Father Anthony explained that Big Kai's new legs could detect ground vibrations and locate buried objects such as land mines from a distance of three kilometers.
• Father Anthony showed Li Qinwu an array of mechanical organs and invited him to abandon his flesh for machinery.

Li Qinwu weighed the risks of Adeptus Mechanicus cybernetic enhancements and worried that replacing his organs could change who he was, especially since modifications might not revive with him in the Hideout. Father Anthony offered a gradual alternative that would strengthen Li Qinwu’s bones with special metal, and Li Qinwu asked to hear more.

• Li Qinwu considered becoming an Astartes or undergoing mechanical modification to gain strength and live longer, but worried about losing his freedom and humanity.
• Li Qinwu explained to Father Anthony that only things he regarded as fundamental parts of himself returned with him when he revived in the Hideout.
• Father Anthony described how Tech-Priests gradually replaced their organs and how Archmagos Belisarius Cawl had modified his brain over centuries.
• Father Anthony offered to strengthen Li Qinwu’s flesh by implanting special metal into his bones, and Li Qinwu asked him to explain the technique.

Li Qinwu considered Father Anthony’s gradual skeletal enhancement and learned that the Adeptus Mechanicus wanted his help recovering a valuable machine. The mission would take him to a rebel-controlled military base, and completing it would earn him the promised surgery.

• Father Anthony explained that gradual increases in bone density would strengthen Li Qinwu’s body and said the modification could be stopped without side effects.
• Li Qinwu realized Father Anthony hoped to use his status as a baron to expand the Adeptus Mechanicus’s influence, then asked for the enhancement details and its price.
• Father Anthony gave Li Qinwu a certified storage unit and said the price was recorded inside it.
• Back at the Hideout, Li Qinwu used the Intelligence Station to extract information about the skeletal enhancement and a secret military base northwest of the Hive City.
• The intelligence revealed that an Adamantium-drilled Tunnel Boring Machine had been abandoned beneath the base, and Father Anthony’s mission required Li Qinwu to escort a repair team there and bring the machine back in exchange for the surgery.