Mythical Three Kingdoms

With a clear answer from Xun Shen and others, Yuan Tan hesitated no longer and immediately began to lead his barbarians to construct Sizhao Giant City in the spring. Of course, in later generations, this city was often mocked as the City of Death Omen, and there were even incidents where they were ordered to change its name.

Subsequently, Yuan Tan started building lime kilns and brick kilns locally. These were essential items during the era of fiefdoms, and Chen Xi ensured Yuan Tan had all of them. As for technologies like iron smelting and sword casting, the level of the Central Plains had basically reached the current peak of the world.

Even though nurturing with materials was required after production, this was not a major problem. At least, after rows of standardized spearheads were made, those barbarians were successfully armed amidst cheers.

Of course, after arming them, it would still take about six months of nurturing for the materials to reach a level barely fit for combat. However, for these barbarians from the far north, this was not an issue. Ironware was a precious reward for them.

Therefore, after Yuan Tan bestowed weapons upon them, these barbarians started neglecting city-building and instead clamored eagerly to fight for Yuan Tan. They ended up getting severely beaten by Gao Lan leading his personal soldiers before they understood the difference between war and combat.

Fortunately, this group of barbarians was indeed stupid, but their respect for Yuan Tan was genuinely sincere. So when Yuan Tan ordered Gao Lan to train these barbarians hard, they actually endured it. It must be said that the extreme northern barbarians, who have long struggled against harsh environments, had physical qualities indeed slightly stronger than the Central Plains people.

At least as far as Yuan Tan could see, almost every adult barbarian had some degree of Inner Qi. If their tribes had been as large as tens of thousands, like the Northern Miscellaneous Hun, it would certainly lead to a major event.

But even so, Xuu You’s insight predicted that in the future, these barbarians would either perish or unite to establish their own country, and it would become a wild yet immensely powerful nation.

However, now there was no hope of that. Yuan Tan captured all the barbarians he encountered, and because the nearby land was quite fertile, Yuan Tan ordered people to teach these barbarians farming.

It was estimated that within ten years, the northern barbarians would all come to defect to Yuan Tan. According to Xuu You, these barbarians, who had no writing and communicated with fists, could be assimilated within three years into sincerely identifying themselves as the Yuan Family’s escort.

Well, Xuu You knew that if Chen Xi found out his actions, he would certainly become a target for retribution, so he only conducted cultural identity education for particularly strong barbarians. For the others, well, he provided a general Han culture education.

In any case, since Dong Zhuo’s disorder, the first fully organized legion where everyone possessed Inner Qi appeared under Yuan Tan’s command. A full five thousand particularly robust barbarians, who were previously among the top in their tribes, were trained into an army by Gao Lan.

Each barbarian’s arm was almost the diameter of Yuan Tan’s thigh. Among the five thousand barbarians, nearly a hundred had achieved Qi Refining to Gang, essentially capturing the essence of the Siberian barbarians in one net.

However, it’s slightly regrettable that their height couldn’t reach the level of the Great Halberdiers whom Yuan Shao selected from millions in Hebei, with an average height of 1.8 meters.

Although these people were also carefully chosen, unfortunately, their average height was about ten centimeters shorter. But because of this, Yuan Tan discovered a problem: it seemed that their Han side had a relatively high average height.

This wasn’t much of a problem; a height of 1.7 meters was already quite good. Moreover, they were so robust, Yuan Tan was inexplicably inclined to arm the entire five thousand as a Heavy Infantry Legion. After all, there were open iron ore deposits here.

Fortunately, Xuu You dismissed Yuan Tan’s impractical idea. Since they hadn’t fully become their own people, nor had they been tested in real battles, it was premature to upgrade them to a Heavy Infantry Legion that recognized Yuan Tan and followed him to the north, considering the hardships endured by the Yuan Family’s elite force.

After suffering significant setbacks, Yuan Tan’s temperament and will improved greatly. Thus, on Xuu You’s advice, he decisively rejected this proposal and simply had Gao Lan train the barbarians rigorously into an army.

After two months of intense training, Xun Shen, having completed the planning for the foundation of the entire city, led Sheni Pei and Xuu You to personally inform Yuan Tan. It was about time they went to Onion Ridge to meet with Li Jue and the others; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to explain to Chen Xi.

Speaking of which, Xun Shen, Sheni Pei, and Xuu You had already completed their division of labor. Xun Shen managed political affairs, Xuu You acted as coordinator and staff officer, and Sheni Pei accompanied the army.

Yuan Tan calculated the days and realized they couldn’t delay any longer, so he weighed his options, took Gao Lan, Sheni Pei, and others, along with the Yuan Family’s elite comprised of five thousand mixed infantry and cavalry, and five thousand barbarians in need of practice, and headed toward Onion Ridge.

Currently in the Central Plains, if there was an elite force that could fight desperately with Liu Bei’s elite troops, it would be none other than Dong Zhuo’s or the Yuan Family’s. Back during the Yuan Liu battle, no matter how many talents Liu Bei revealed, his soldiers could only reach a stalemate with the similarly talented soldiers of the Yuan Family.

There’s no way around it; after all, in the beginning, these three were in perpetual war. The elites from the three factions were genuinely forged in battle, especially now that Gao Lan has regained his spirit. His force of five thousand includes many who survived the Battle of Jieqiao.

If the people Gao Lan leads now had not come together as a single legion through continuous experiences, they would undoubtedly be genuine Dual Talent Super Elites, rather than failing to achieve such a status due to their lack of coordination.

In reality, this is why the Roman legions hold their designations as paramount. Even when heavily damaged, as long as they aren’t completely wiped out, they don’t discard the numbers and only supplement newcomers. This system allows for continuous warfare under a unified structure, which is far easier for developing Dual Talents than constant splitting and merging.

In the Central Plains, it’s hard to maintain such conditions. Continuous large-scale battles often result in a legion being destroyed, and in a bid to maintain combat effectiveness, two legions of similar rank merge. However, it’s hard to erase each other’s attributes, making it significantly harder to achieve Dual Talents.

Such as the five-thousand-strong mixed elite infantry and cavalry legion that Gao Lan leads; the soldiers come from more than ten elite legions. Now creating a new legion talent amidst such diverse elite talents is a high difficulty task indeed.

Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to everything. Yuan Shao had long explained that the Central Plains is like a Gu cauldron, whatever you throw in, the outcome will always be the strongest of its era.

The disorderly compilation of the Central Plains means that either you fail to forge anything, or what you do forge will ultimately be stronger—albeit slightly—than anywhere else, even if they are also Dual Talent Super Elites.

That slight advantage on the battlefield translates into more than a small gap, when your soldiers are overall just a tad stronger than the enemy in will, quality, and strength.

This is why Rome, even with fourteen legions of Dual Talent Super Elites, couldn’t match the peculiar strengths that arise in just three true cases from the Central Plains.

A case in point is when the Eagle Banner Legion led by Ganasis encountered Li Jue. Ganasis directly declared that Li Jue would require a Military Spirit Legion to defeat. Although the Central Plains’ method of nurturing might be harsh, the resulting monsters cannot be denied.

Though they lost two Military Spirit Legions and two Breakthrough Level figures, nurturing Gu like this only guarantees that the strongest will survive. Those who die, no matter how promising, were either flawed or simply not strong enough.

In any case, Gao Lan plans to rigorously train his cobbled-together elite legion, preparing to forge it into a Dual Talent Super Elite. Such a level of legion might be unheard of to some.

But for the Yuan Family, which has faced down Dual Talent Legions and Military Spirit Legions and even produced its own, despite recent decline, their solid foundation is undeniable. In Yuan Shao’s day, Juo Yi and the Four Courts of Hebei were sworn brothers.

Thus, Gao Lan has access to detailed Military Spirit Legion training processes, though after recalling the methodology, he discarded it over the wall, acknowledging that it requires more than ordinary ability to execute. Hence, Gao Lan opted for the second-best means, choosing Dual Talent Super Elite.

While this is still difficult to train, it is more reliable than Military Spirit endeavors. Juo Yi had great confidence in his ability to train Dual Talents based on his process for creating Military Spirits. He even bragged to Yann Liang and others about crafting the desired talents.

However, nowadays, such tales are practically just wisps of the past.

"[These elites from different legions, given their inherent strength and the intuition forged by constant wars, have spontaneously coordinated to form their first talent. It really is as Zhengli supposed. Given this, training should proceed according to Zhengli’s plan.]" Gao Lan thought to himself.

In fact, Gao Lan didn’t realize that his impression of this thing was an extrapolation by Juo Yi when he was training Great Halberdier escorts for Yuan Shao.

Simply put, it was Juo Yi’s preparation for Yuan Shao in training a Dual Talent Super Elite Heavy Infantry Legion. Following Juo Yi’s experience with Military Spirit Legion training, this approach would definitely yield the strongest defensive legion.

According to Juo Yi’s concept, under Cloud Suppression, this assembled and trained legion would remain standing even against Inner Qi Manifestation generals like the powerful ones, who could only down one soldier with a single stroke—purely a super-strong defensive legion.

Originally, Juo Yi intended to train five thousand to stand guard beside Yuan Shao for his protection. However, his estimations were barely completed before the Battle of Yuan Liu erupted, otherwise, killing Yuan Shao would have been nearly impossible.