After eliminating Liu Bei's conspiracy, Yuan Shao ruled the capital Luo Yang absolutely. After elevating his favoured officials to occupy the vacant senior court positions, Yuan Shao began conscripting peasants and recalling his military commanders from across the northern plains. His generals began training the new armies for a full-scale invasion of the westlands.
However, in the sixth year of Jian An (A.D. 201), rumours reached the court of hordes of mounted bandits calling themselves the White Riders sweeping through the far northern regions. At their head, a fearsome warlord known as Gongsun Zan proclaimed to the peasants wherever he rode that he was coming for the head of Yuan Shao.
In his rise to power, Yuan Shao had crushed many other warlords and governors, among them the defender of the north-east, Gongsun Du. The entire Gongsun family in Liao Xi had been seized and executed as usual, but the governor's own son, Gongsun Kang, had escaped. It now seemed that Kang had ventured north beyond the Great Wall to find and bring the wrath of this most distant member of the Gongsun family upon Yuan Shao's head.
Yuan Shao sent his best cavalry commanders and as many mounted recruits as he could spare north to contest every li of land between Fan Yang and Luo Yang. The plans to conquer the westland would not be delayed even by the splitting of the heavens themselves.
This post has been edited by Path-Shaper: 04 June 2010 - 02:51 AM