Officer Biographies

[Cao Chao]

Post your Officer Biographies here. Placeholders will not be appreciated and will be deleted.

[Xiang Zhuang]

Fáng Ai (防哀) hao Aishī (皚獅) (White Lion)
Born 239 BC

Description: Fang Ai is slightly above average height with a thick build. His voice is very low and often carries an edge on it. He normally is found wearing his full set of armor, often painted white, and almost always has his sword with him (his weapon of choice).

Biography: Fang Ai was born in 239 BC in the city of Linzi to one of the minor noble families of Qi. He showed great promise as a child toward dueling, but his own desires often led him into the realm of army planning. With this in mind, he was enrolled into the finest schools in Qi, with the hope that he would one day lead his family to greater prominence.

The opportunity presented itself when the armies of Qin and Qi came into conflict. He was only a lieutenant at the time, however, and achieved little merit. Few Qi men achieved merit in these times, though, as the Qin army was able to crush them and conquer their lands. Seeing little alternative, Fang Ai joined the Qi forces that were integrated into the Qin army.

The army did not last long. Within years of Qin's rise, their fall was almost certain. Uprisings began around Qi, and Fang Ai rose to join them. Joining the force of Tian Dan, he rose to the rank of Colonel before the king was defeated and killed. Ai attempted a surprise attack upon the Chu encampment later outside of Julu, but when he learned that Xiang Yu was the leader of the forces, he kept his troops back, and later, handed them over to one of the new leaders of Qi.

The wars with Qin and Chu occupied much of Fang Ai's adult life. The former kingdom of Qi had been one of the most prosperous in the land, perhaps only second to the Qin home regions. The attacks by Qin were brutal, but nothing compared to the assaults that Chu put to the land. Led by Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, the Qi lands were put to the torch, destroying the majority of the province of Chengyang, and massacring whatever people they came across. What was left of Fang Ai's family died that day... his parents, his wife, and his infant child. Fang Ai himself was marshaled to lead forces westward, and wound up nowhere near the site. The act itself was one of pure brutality, meant to destroy the spirit of the people; going beyond any reasonable assumption of retaliation. Yet, the people of Qi never lost their fierce independence.

Neither did Fang Ai. The time of an empire of Qi by the former rulers was long gone. He abandoned the thought, although he still cared for his homeland. He had been raised to one day serve as a protector of Qi, but there seemed little point to that, now. Somebody else would rule the land eventually. There was a different purpose for him now. Adopting the hao Aishi, he swore that the two who ravaged the lands of Qi would be made to pay for their acts. He did not know how it would happen, but the White Lion would see to it that neither Liu Bang nor Xiang Yu would rule this land. The lives of those lost would be repaid in full; the evils of the past would not be so easily forgotten.

[Brother Dun]

Name: Zu Yanghei zì 智盜 'Zhì​dào​' (Knowledge Thief)

Born in the summer of 235 B.C., Zu Yanghei came into this world as the powers of Qin were centralizing themselves in the hands of Ying Zheng. The failure of Lao Ai's coup, and the death of the co-conspirator Lu Buwei gave the new King both the strength and the paranoia needed to unify China. A native of Qin himself, Zu Yanghei grew up regaled with the stories of the glorious conquests of Qin, while also being educated during the end of the Hundred Schools of Thought. His father, a minor noble of Qin by the name of Zu Baihu, knew from an early age that his son would be a spectacular mind for the great King of Qin. His father had always told him that he would one day advise the King in his conquest of the rest of China. Due to his father's high expectations, Zu Yanghei was schooled in many schools of thought, notably Legalism, Confucianism, and Daoism. As a young man, Zu Yanghei also had a talent for alchemy, which caused him to dabble with many different chemicals, plants and animal parts.

It was during his teenage years, and after the unification of China that Zu Yanghei was granted a position in the Qin government. At the age of fifteen, he was noticed by a Qin official while lecturing a known Confucian scholar. The man claimed that all could be solved by Confucianism, and Zu Yanghei used his formidable knowledge of other schools to rail against him and cause the man back to back down. The official, a man by the name of Xia Liu, approached Zu Yanghei and offered him a position in the record keeping department of the Qin Empire, it was an offer that Zu Yanghei could not pass up.

During his time serving in the Qin government, Zu Yanghei began to commit many of the records that he was in charge of taking care of to memory. For the most part, they were minor things, noble birth records, tax records and the like. Zu Yanghei did not feel the importance of such matters, but recognized they were important to any empire. It was during this time that he decided he would continue to further his own educations, and begin to work on absorbing all that he could while using his position to its fullest advantage.

Seven years after joining the Qin governement, Zu Yanghei had managed to use his position to gain access to many different areas of the government, most notably to Zu Yanghei himself, the royal libraries. Zu Yanghei's skill with the Qin written language had landed him a job as a scribe and preservationist. However, it was during this time that Li Si and the First Emperor had decided to initialize the outlawing of the Hundred Schools of Thought, and the massive book burning campaign. Zu Yanghei, a lover of the written word, was outraged by this and began to bear a strong hatred for Qin Shihuangdi, but smart enough to realize that saying so would lead to his execution. It was at this time that Zu Yanghei began to create copies of forbidden works for himself from the Qin royal libraries, and used his position to gain access to soon to be burned books so that he could steal them from their fates. His actions, labeled as insane by his father, soon brought him into confrontation with his own family. His father wanted to turn his own son in, for fear of what the First Emperor would do to the entire family should they find out about the actions of his son. Zu Yanghei, of course, could not allow this to happen, the preservation of these books, and the knowledge they represented was far greater than any family bond, and even his own life. It was during this tumultuous crisis within his family that Zu Yanghei, to put it simply, snapped. He was left with just one option, and one option only... He had to kill his own father.

Zu Yanghei, upon deciding to kill his own father, began to put his own education to work. His talents at alchemy and medicine allowed him to concoct a tasteless poison known to stop the heart. He slipped this poison into his father's soup at dinner time, and then waited. The poison would take some time, so Zu Yanghei left his home to return to his work and to save more of the valuable books. Upon returning home, Zu Yanghei found that the soup he had poisoned was shared by both his mother and his father, and the potency of the dosage he gave was more than he had imagined, it was strong enough to kill both within an hour. At a time when most would have been devastated, Zu Yanghei found himself devoid of any feelings. His father had intended to betray him, and his mother did not defend him, so he would not pity their losses, and with their deaths, the entire family fortune fell into his hands. He would take the secret of their deaths to his grave, for he could not let himself be caught for their deaths, his work was too important! He laid them both in bed, knowing that the poison stopped their hearts, but left no other trace, and reported their peaceful deaths to the authorities. He went through the funeral rites, and even managed to make himself cry at their final rites. During this time of "mourning" Zu Yanghei grew even more bold. He learned that people would not question his actions during this time, as they pitied him for his losses. It was during this time that he stole original copies of the Book of Songs and Classics of History from one of the Qin royal libraries. As forbidden books, no one would notice their loss, and no one even bothered to check him on his way out, due to feeling for his loss.

When the First Emperor finally passed, and the actions of Zhao Gao and the Second Emperor seemed to be steering the empire into chaos, Zu Yanghei used a large sum of his wealth to construct a villa and a library out in a small village south of Xianyang. It was in his mind that he may some day need to leave Xianyang, and his preparations would certainly pay off in a huge way in the future. After living in Xianyang for four, chaotic years of the Second Emperor's rule, Zu Yanghei had been secretly moving his books and possessions into his country villa and library. When Zhao Gao had Ying Huhai murdered, and Ying Ziying reciprocated the action upon Zhao Gao, Zu Yanghei began to make preparations to leave himself. He had received news that Liu Bang was marching upon the capital, and he feared the armies of the revolutionaries, fearing that they would destroy the city much like Qin did to other great cities during the Warring States period. He also began to speed up his work, and began to use the chaos in the palace to take more and more from the collapsing Qin government. Having taken what books he wanted, he began to take Qin records and Qin histories, every time he left the ministry or the library. Upon Liu Bang's arrival at Xianyang, Zu Yanghei left the city and finally settled into his new villa.

As it turns out, his fears of Liu Bang were unfounded, but his suspicions of the rebels were not entirely unfounded. Xiang Yu completely destroyed the city of Xianyang and had many high officials and Ying family members executed before burning the city. As the city blazed, Zu Yanghei could not help but think of all that was destroyed by Xiang Yu. The loss of life did not matter much to him, but the destruction of the archives, the records and the books drove him to loathe the man who would become King of Chu, just as much as he once loathed Qin Shihuangdi. This blatant misuse of power has driven Zu Yanghei away from politics, for he now views all "rulers" skeptically. Kings only seek to destroy knowledge, to destroy the educated, to keep the masses ignorant and easy to control. Zu Yanghei would defy them in his own way, by collecting all knowledge of the world... And he would preserve this knowledge at any cost.

[Radical Dreamer]

What good is freedom? What will it bring to the unfortunate? The freedom to die? The freedom to be robbed of their goods? The freedom to make a mess of the country all over again? How long would it be before people started redoing the measurement systems or messing up the road system?

Ying Ranzhen could already see the country being torn apart due to the lack of the central government. Xiang Yu and Liu Bang, the bandits, would allow China to become fractionated once again. It would take decades of bloodshed to fix and reunify if things were left to their own devices. The Qin stood for something far greater than what it was in reality: a unified China.

At least, that's what the young man's opinion was. He had grown up in the shadow of Xianyang, inundated with the teachings of Shang Yang's legalism. As one of the many dynastic bastards, the young man would never see any post or privilege, but he was afforded an education if only to better recognize how superior his dynastic relatives were. It was only the death of the First Emperor that stopped Ranzhen's study. At 16 he managed to escape the insanity of the court and avoid Zhao Gao and Li Si's tyranny.

Many of Ranzhen's relatives, however, did not.

With only an education, the young man fled Qin and worked with various magistrates as a clerk and scribe. Ranzhen learned firsthand what the Qin had accomplished where so many more had failed: it had made a country. Weights and measurements were standardized, as was the writing system. As much as the people complained, life was better under the Qin. People were uniting and people could finally call the land their own and not be divided by state.

However, Ranzhen's hatred of the Second Emperor compelled him to join Xiang Yu's army. The Second Emperor and his inept rule had brought the Qin to its own end and by the time Liu Bang forced the surrender of the country everything that the First Emperor had stood for was washed away. There was no shame in watching Ying Huhai's empire burn around him, though he felt some pity for Ziying. Ranzhen returned with the Chu army to Chen and petitioned the court for a job scouting out the population of the former land of Qin, biding his time and gathering contacts to rebuild the empire that fell too quickly and grasped too much. Now, in 206 BC, the young man returned to the capital of the Hegemon King to put his plans into action...

[Shi Tong]

Name: Shi Tong
Birth Year: 233 BC
Learning Types: Administration III, Commerce & Agriculture II, Diplomacy II, History & Law I

Shi Tong was born in Gaomi (present-day county level city to Weifang, Shandong Province) in 233 BC. He descended from an aristocrat family in the Qi State of the Warring States period. For as long as his family could trace back their lineage, they had served the House of Jiang, rulers of the State of Qi along with several other familial houses including the House of Tian. When the House of Tian struck down the House of Jian, the House of Shi was ill-prepared for the turmoil and, for their long time service to the old line, was exiled from court, sent to the isolated province of the Jiaodong Peninsula (present-day Shandong Peninsula).


Though in exile, the House of Shi, through good financial intuition, was not at all destitute. While not living in the luxuries that was once afforded his family over one hundred years ago, Shi Tong spent his days not having to worry about the dire nature of manual labor. Instead, he was taught the Classics and other literatures in the privacy of the family home, learning from Kong Qiu's (Latinized as Confucius) Analects as well as Meng Ke's (Latinized Mencius) Mengzi all the way through the rest of the Four Books and Five Classics. Through these works, Shi Tong began a transformation that would help shape the Middle Kingdom after the chaos that started with the fall of the Qin.


Another reason for Shi Tong's aversion to stress of the body was due to his weak conditition. Born with a fever that lasted through many days and nights, doctors brought in to assist with the childbirth had though the baby would not survive. And though he did in fact survive the long bout with the sickness would leave Shi Tong unable to perform most physically intensive actions for the rest of his life. Understanding of this fact, and instead of lamenting over this, Shi Tong focused his attention on his intellectual upbringing to ensure that though he could not fight on the battlefield and gain honor and glory through the cutting down of his enemies, he would fight in councils with his silver-tongued words and well drawn out plans.


At the age of twelve, Shi Tong had long heard of King Zheng's intentions to conquer the rest of the states and unite the land under one banner. While he understood that a united land would be easier for the advancement of society as a whole, he could not bring himself to justify the Qin's cruel methods of victory and the butchering of millions in the name of this conquest. However, there was no love lost when the Qin, having conquered all other states but one, turned their eye to the State of Qi. After Qi's destruction, Shi Tong and his family conspired and used his illness as an excuse not to serve the now Imperial Court of Qin Shi Huang as a servant boy to one of the ministers, with the young teen preferring to remain in now a self-imposed exile with his family rather than serve such a destructive force.


Twelve years later Qin Shi Huang perished and the Imperial Empire that had been created with his life would almost immediately begin to crumble with his death. His curiosity unsatisfied, Shi Tong watched with a keen eye as rebellion after rebellion sprang up to try and destroy the Qin and claim the right to rule for their own name. And three years after the first revolt by Chen She and Wu Guang the Qin was finally destroyed, with the same brutal and total annihilation it once afforded its enemies. With the Empire's destruction, Shi Tong made the decision to quietly remove himself from Gaomi for the time being, as Chu forces began to overwhelm the old Qin outposts and local governments, installing their own prefects in due course. Finding himself in the town of (Insert Town Name Here) Shi Tong managed to convince the local population to entrust him with the duties of Magistrate, and was installed as such in January of 206...


To Be Continued...

[JG Chan]

Name: Tu Shu'er 屠淑儿
225-206 BCE
Base Stats: 46-69-69-78-70
Full Stats: 46-72*-70*-78-70
Skills: Artisan, Decoy, Doctor, Jianshu II, Poison, Propagandist II, Saboteur II, Spy II

Born in 225 BCE in the Wei capital of Daliang, the infant Shu'er and her father barely survived the flooding of the city that claimed her mother's life. With the conquests of Qin in full swing, the two took refuge in the surrendered lands of Han, escaping from the harsh wars being carried on elsewhere.

Tu Feng, a doctor and apothecary, managed to earn a modest living for himself and his daughter from then on; though grieved at the loss of his wife, he cared little for politics and was content to treat his patients and raise his child in peace. Thus, Shu'er grew up surrounded by herbs and lacking a mother, becoming a somewhat tomboyish teenager with an open and cheerful personality. She had always been curious, and never complained of her father's lessons in medicine, nor of the idea of following in his footsteps.

On the other hand, she did acquire a strong and slightly offbeat sense of justice along the way, and learned swordplay from a retired old soldier who visited their clinic often. This manifested itself as pranks and mischief directed at corrupt or oppressive officials, though she was careful to not let her father be implicated. Under the severe government of the Qin, opportunities and reason for such acts grew steadily with her ability to carry them out, and she eventually fancied herself some kind of hero of the people, meting out justice in secret on their behalf. She did, however, have the sense not to call herself the Iron Monkey. That was just corny.

In 208 BCE, with rebellion sweeping over the lands of Qin, Shu'er left home to find a place and purpose for herself. Two years later, she can be encountered wandering the lands, a medicine cabinet on her back and a carefree smile on her face. To all who met her, the young traveling doctor seemed unconcerned about the upheavals across the empire...or of the small acts of theft and property damage that seemed to plague some of the officials along her path...

Disappeared without a trace in 206 BCE, after being last seen exploring the area around Suzhou.

[AaronH229]

Name: Pang 'Wu' Jian zi Lángdìwáng
Statline: 59-18-78-76-56
Skills: Civil Admin II, Public Planner II, Military Admin I, Propagandist I, Doctor, Engineer I
Year of Birth: 238 BC. (32)
City of Birth: Wuzhong
Province of Birth: Yue
Titles: District Manager of Renzhe
Titles Claimed: King of Yue, Marquis of Wuzhong

Biography:

Born in the city of Wuzhong, Pang Jian was the eldest son of a cadet branch of the Wu family which had been appointed by the Kings of Chu to administer the province as King. That was until the abolishment of the title by the Qin Emperor in the year 223 BC, the King at the time and his close family meekly accepted this and moved south into the lands beyond the middle kingdom this meant that the father of Pang Jian decided upon the course to change the name of the family from Wu to Pang so as to avoid unwanted attention when the Emperor sent his legalists to secure his holdings and allow for the continued existence of the merchant ventures of his father to continue. Entering into the city garrison at 15, with a junior officers comission Pang Jian was never a man who was hugely suited to leading his men from the front but quickly became known for his quick but considered judgement, rising through the ranks slightly faster than average Jian was the commander of the garrison at the town of Yuelang in 215 B.C., which had long been associated with the provincial capital for many years.

With his youthful education, suitable more to a noble rather than a merchant, being tempered by two years as the unquestioned controller of a town the news of the fall of the Qin it wakened within Pang Jian the flame of ambition. He was the eldest remaining relative of the Kings of Yue and now that the Qin Emperors had fallen and the cruel grip of legalism had loosened this was the time in which his claims could be realised, he decided there and then that he would begin his campaign to bring down the Prefect of Wuzhong and it seemed to him that his years of working for the Marquis should allow him to bring down the man through some carefully placed arguments as to his honesty and integrity.

[Mikal]

What price a man's freedom, if his honor is lacking...

...What good is gold, when your heart is stone?



The man known only as 哲夫 Zhéfū seems a study of contradictions. Appearing on the scene less than 4 years before, bearing a mask claimed given to him by healers from a distant sect of mystics, Zhéfū has risen to prominence in his province over those last four years, due to the aid of the Guan clan, and to his own band of followers, western barbarian exiles from a war-torn land they call 'The Republic'.

When asked, Zhéfū will tell of his travels outside China. An itinerant youth, he thrived on adventure, seeking exotic riches and glories to bring back home. During those travels, Zhéfū was caught in a fire, started by a lightning storm striking a tree he was sheltering under. Badly burned, he would have died, if not for his chance encounter with those exiles, led by an old, charismatic man who called himself Lucius Quintus Publius, they saved Zhéfū from the burning branches which surrounded him, and took him to the healers, who claimed the mask they gave him, made from pure ivory and shaped in the visage of their fish-god, would heal all wounds, given time.

Feeling a debt upon him, Zhéfū pledged to repay Lucius, who only asked that Zhéfū treat his men with honor, having heard of the Chinese attitude towards outsiders. The group traveled together for many months, where Zhéfū heard the tales of the exiles, how they had come from a land once peaceful, but now sought to expand its power, fighting wars for land and political gain.

Hearing of this, Zhéfū thought of his own land, which he had blithely abandoned. Lucius listened to Zhéfū, and became alarmed. He had learned to love the differences of the lands of the east, and he wished to help China prepare itself, should his former people, who exiled him, somehow reached even this far to claim dominance.

With a farewell, Lucius and his band of men traveled towards China, where Lucius claimed he knew of a man from his youth, one who perhaps would listen to his words and be able to act upon them.

Changed by his encounter, Zhéfū decided to return home as well, wanting to make a difference. To remove the stigma of his earlier arrogance, he decided to keep the mask on, to represent the new self which the stranger helped provide. He also renounced his name to the ashes of history, taking a new hao for himself, "Zhéfū", or the Wiseman, in honor of Lucius' ideals.

After healing and meditating, Zhéfū returned to his home province, surprised to find that the old friend Lucius had spoken of was none other then the current patriarch of the Guan clan, having taken over when the former head, Guan Huang, left during the civil wars.

Spying the men whom Lucius had led, Zhéfū grew worried. Lucius was not among them. He rushed into the home of the Guans, Lucius' men telling the guards he was to be trusted. Inside, Lucius was on his deathbed, his life sapped by some strange sickness gained during his travels across the lands.

"It seems that my life was given to you, my friend." he said in surprise upon seeing the masked traveler.
"Perhaps..you will also be given my dream?"

Zhéfū was overcome by emotion, and pledged to not only complete the dream of Lucius, but to aid his companions, who would be lost here without them.

Smiling, Lucius passed onto whatever worlds lay beyond this, content that the Fates had led someone capable of success.

The last four years saw the realization of that. The Guan family, already pledged to aid in this, married itself to Zhéfū and his band of "barbarians".

Zhéfū himself gained political power, his personal drive and political acumen giving him many allies within the province, some of them Magistrates and village elders themselves. Together, they formed a bloc of power which was impressive. But only the beginning. As the new year dawned, Zhéfū would concentrate on the next phase of his plan. The peaceful control of the province.

He knew he could rise to command the capital city of the Province itself, but those in the other cities would oppose him. As such, he knew those who pledged themselves, while hoping for peace, would also have to begin preparations for battle, a battle he could see beginning to occur throughout the land once more...

[King Tao]

Bio for Caius Secundus Plublius zi BaiHu

Born into Roman nobility, Caius Secundus Plublius (son of Lucius Quintus Publius) was brought up watching gladatorial games and learning the various arts, especially the ones related to warfare. But all his studies did nothing for the nine year old child when his family was faced with banishment from the grand republic he had spent his entire life in. He wouldn't understand why they were banished until they were already gone from the Republic, travelling as a large group of vagabonds in the Far East.

Nonetheless, his studies wouldn't stop while his family travelled. They were joined along the way by their servants (who were banished with them) and some soldiers and warriors who were indebted to the family, and from these men, Caius learned how to weild the spear, a weapon used throughout the Roman military. Caius also continued his studies of great military historians, who wrote of great warriors and legendary commanders. Caius became envious of these men, wishing to make his own mark on history, but having that oppurtunity torn from him when his family was banished.

After a few years of travelling, his father and some other people travelling with the family rescued a man who had caught fire and stayed with the man as he healed, a man who would later go on to have a deeper relationship with this travelling band of vagabonds. Caius was growing into a young and ambitious young man, fueled by both envy and a desire to prove himself to his father, and his life's ambition would soon be given an oppurtunity to to come to fruition when his father told him where they were headed: the Middle Kingdom. This place had supossedly been engulfed in warfare for several years, maybe even longer, so when Caius heard of a chance for him to possibly take part in the warfare, he urged his father to try and set up an army and reclaim their places as nobles.

They eventually did reach the Middle Kingdom and were settling into a province the locals called Qi. Quintus had apparently made friends out of local nobility, the Guan family. Caius felt things were finally turning around for his family when once again fate played them a cruel hand. Quintus took ill and eventually died, but before he died, the mysterious burned man was asked by Quintus to carry on Quintus's ambitions (and by extent, Caius's ambitions). Caius was also adopted by the man, a gesture by Quintus to make the group more unified with their new leader.

Caius swore his loyalty to his new father and then drowned himself in studies and training for the next two years, refusing to interact with anyone from the outside world for those years. Once he felt like he was comfortable to show the fruits of his labor, Caius established the Qi Gladiators, a group of some of the greatest warriors in Qi province, mostly members of his father's retinue and his own friends who accompanied the family or met the family while travelling. For a year the Qi Gladiators' reputation grew as they became more and more successful, fighting slaves and challengers alike. Caius himself was a Qi Gladiator, and during one of his matches, a challenger swung and connected his sword with the left side of Caius's face, causing him to lose his own left eye, but this setback only cause Caius to train harder, to ensure that would never happen again.

But once again fate would intervene in Caius's life in the form of a mysterious 15 year old girl who challenged the Qi Gladiators. Caius decided to accept the challeng himself and met the girl in the arena, the result being a tie between the two young fighters. Caius, impressed by the girl's ability and beauty, married her and quickly made use of her abilities, adding her to his now growing group of commanders who he would eventually call upon when his new father would choose to make a move on Qi province. A year the two were married, and a year the two waited patiently before having kids, waiting for Zhefu's ambition to start before their family could grow.

During Caius's stay in the Middle Kingdom, he felt going by his normal name would make things difficult for the locals to communicate with him, so Caius took a style name, a name which he would be known as by the time the Qi Gladiators first showed up. Caius took the name of Baihu, or White Tiger. It became his new and only name to anyone who didn't know him personally, and it would soon become a name people would fear and respect.

His new adopted father, Zhefu, approached Baihu in January of the year 206 to assemble an army to help him take Qi, a task Baihu was all too glad to take on. He quickly assembled a small corps of officers including his childhood friend Julius Marius, the gladiator Zhuge Jia, Baihu's wife Niu Gongzhu, and the mercenary Fa Shi. Along with others under Zhefu's banner, towns and villages alike fell to the growing force, Luan being claimed by Baihu himself. After Linzi was taken under control, a new man joined Zhefu's ranks: Tian Rong. This man would be subject to Baihu's envy and resentment for months to come, but also a rival who Baihu would stop at nothing to impress and earn the respect or awe of.

After Qi was united after a campaign which conquered its two northern cities, Baihu spent several months patrolling the countryside and learning the language of the people as well as their customs, being almost cultured in the eyes of some of them. Baihu also began training to be a better commander in his father's eyes, now only being trusted as a supervisor for the commanders of Qi and a military adviser to his father. Eventually Baihu would be called to lead a force into Ma Deiu's lands in Jiaoxi to take the land while the man's attention was diverted, a successful campaign for certain. Baihu once more drew up a plan to unite the province in one fell swoop, but his father insisted on leaving a few villages, the town of Pei, and the ransacked city of Changyi as a buffer region between Qi's Jiaoxi holdings and Shi Tong of Jiaodong.

After the campaign, Baihu assigned two military viceroys to look over Jiaoxi and protect it as he and Tian Rong left to go back to Qi. Their stay in Qi was short-lived, however, as Qing Bu launched a large attack into Jiaoxi, causing Baihu and Tian Rong to return to the province with a large army. Qing Bu parleyed with Baihu, but the parley was unsuccessful as Baihu was unable to promise him the ability to retain his army and the fighting continued, ending with the rout of Qing Bu's army and the capture of Qing Bu and his officers. Baihu spared Qing Bu's life and even allowed the man to watch the gladiatorial matches with him before they brought him back to Qi where his father allowed a trial to be held for Qing Bu's judgement. Baihu begged for the man to be saved, but Qing Bu's own confession to killing the Son of Heaven amongst other things caused for a brutal sentence to be carried out, with Baihu opting to watch over it.

Zhefu named himself Hegemonic King of Eastern Chu and made Baihu Duke alongside Tian Rong, only fueling the rivalry. Later that month, in a private meeting, Tian Rong resigned in order to go fight Xiang Yu directly, but he surprisingly acknowledged Baihu as something of an equal, saluting him and entrusting him with the safety of not only his homeland but his family, an honor Baihu accepted. Now looking to aid his father in building a new and stronger realm, Baihu marches his armies into foreign lands to conquer all who oppose Qi. To conquer all who oppose Eastern Chu.

[Cao Chao]

Name: Yi Zhiwen (易知温)
Style: Jianwei (建威, Establishing Prestige)

It is said the fate of the Yi family (would be forever intertwined with that of the state of Qi (齐国) and its lands. For generations, the Yi family had serve Qi faithfully and without question, tracing its lineage back to two families that were the core of Qi – the Jiang (姜) and the Tian (田). Through the Jiang, the Yi family could trace their lineage back to the great tactician that helped found the Zhou Dynasty (周朝) – Jiang Ziya (姜子牙) – and the original rulers of Qi. Through the Tian, the Yi family traced its lineage to the successors to the Jiang as rulers and included many of the ranking aristocrats of the state. Amongst their illustrious ancestors included the likes of Tian Ji the Qi Supreme Commander during the reigns of of Kings Wei (齐威王) and Xuan (齐宣王) of Qi. Tian Ji (田忌) was famous for his partnership with the crippled strategist, Sun Bin (孙膑), that helped transform Qi into the premier powers of the Middle Kingdom and especially in the two crushing defeats inflicted upon the state of Wei (魏国) at the Battles of Guiling (桂陵之战) and Maling (马陵之战) that resulted in the death of one of the premier generals of the era, Pang Juan (庞涓).

In a family of generals, there were no unworthy sons. That was the case for Yi Zhiwen.

At an early age, Zhiwen was adopted into the household of his youngest uncle, Yi Song (易松) when his parents perished in the fighting that spelled the death knell for Qi. With the fall of the five states of Chu (楚国), Hann (韩国), Wei, Yan (燕国) and Zhao (赵国), the Qin (秦国) and the First Emperor (始皇帝) turned their attention to Qi. The Qin general, Wang Ben (王贲), circumvented the Qi defenses and surprised the capital of Linzi (临淄), forcing King Jian (齐王建) to surrender.

Under his uncle’s tutelage, Zhiwen was schooled in the art of war and excelled as a military commander. He became skilled with the sword and was immensely comfortable leading cavalry and infantry in battle. While his uncle would be disappointed by the young man’s disdain for the more scholarly and intellectual pursuits, he grew to appreciate what his nephew had to offer. His uncle had worked to instill an everlasting loyalty to Qi, but Zhiwen was not so sure that he wanted to spend his life fighting for something that he believed was good and gone.

Alongside his uncle, Zhiwen journeyed around the Middle Kingdom, forging friendships and scouting out the lands – all for the goal of one day marching forth to battle and etching his name forever into the annals of history. With chaos and warfare returning, Yi Zhiwen readied himself to dive fearlessly headfirst into the conflict.