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189-208 AD... again Liu Bei's Adventures in Treachery: Part 1 To recap since my last China post was three months ago, in the late 2nd century AD Han China was on the verge of collapse. The government had withered away as it gave away more privileges and power to the increasingly wealthy and independent great noble clans and the court languished through 100 years with no strong Emperor. The Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 accelerated the central government's slide into irrelevance as volunteer armies ran around the countryside killing in the name of lords and generals. Then in 189 after Emperor Ling's death a series of coups ended up with the Emperor a captive in his own palace and a rebel governor in command of the government. When it was time for the great lords and generals of the realm to come to the Emperor's rescue, they instead fell into warlordism and civil war. I've already taken Cao Cao and the Sun family up to 208 AD, the year of the Battle of Red Cliffs. In this post I'm going to do the same for Liu Bei. If you want to know why it took this long blame a) AP classes for requiring a lot of prep work and b) Liu Bei for having such a drat complicated life story. Liu Bei, also styled Liu Xuande, was a nobody before the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Although he bore the Imperial surname and was supposedly a descendent from an imperial prince several generations back, his family line had fallen into poverty somewhere along the line and failed to pay the membership dues required to remain in the Imperial house, believe it or not. Thus Liu Bei was born into a poor family, which only became more impoverished when his father died young. Teenage Liu Bei wove reed mats and sandals to support himself and his mother. A more prosperous relative took pity on them though and financed Liu Bei's education. The Yellow Turban Rebellion was Liu Bei's big break. He gathered a volunteer regiment, joined up with the Han armies, and gained a minor reputation as a commander. Liu Bei's personal charisma and ability to lead will serve him well throughout his career. After the rebellion Liu Bei was rewarded with a minor post as a town prefect. In the late 180s when the Imperial bureaucracy was trying to get its act together again, the capital sent inspectors to replace unqualified military leaders appointed to civilian positions during the rebellion. Liu Bei was fired, though it's not clear whether that was before or after he tied the inspector to a tree and beat him half to death with a stick. Anyway the late 180s is when everything falls apart. After Liu Bei was fired he fell in with an old campaigning buddy Gongsun Zan* who gave him a job commanding a small detachment in his army. When the Guandu Coalition fell apart and Gongsun Zan returned to the north, he took Liu Bei with him. As described in Cao Cao's story, when the brothers Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu formed alliances against each other Gongsun Zan was on Yuan Shu's side, threatening Yuan Shao's northern flank. When Gongsun Yue was killed in that battle between Sun Jian and Yuan Shao's forces in 191, Gongsun Zan invaded Yuan Shao's Ji Province. The country as it stood in 191: again.  Liu Bei fought in that epic war, but it wasn't long before Cao Cao invaded Tao Qian's Xu province in 194 and Gongsun Zan sent a small detachment of about 1000 men under Liu Bei to assist his ally Tao Qian against Yuan Shao's ally Cao Cao. Gonsun Zan's war was not going so well and Liu Bei wasted little time in officially declaring himself for Tao Qian, though whether this really counts as a betrayal is open to interpretation. With his position more secure in Xu Province Liu Bei took over a larger force of about 5000 men and fought for Tao Qian against Cao Cao. In 195 Tao Qian died, and to everyone's surprise Liu Bei announced that he was now ruler of Xu Province. Tao Qian had a number of sons, and was a junior ally to Yuan Shu. All of these people might have been expected to have some say in who should succeed Tao Qian as ruler of Xu Province. None of them were likely to pick Liu Bei. This was a problem because Liu Bei really wanted to rule Xu Province! With his relatively small force in the capital, Liu Bei needed help holding off Tao Qian's family and Yuan Shu, so he switched sides to Cao Cao and Yuan Shao in return for their support. Betrayal Count: 1 This might have been a fairly straightforward story of betrayal, but no, because we have to have someone else show up and complicate the story. Remember Lu Bu, the guy who stabbed his adoptive father Dong Zhuo to death?** In 195 he shows up at Liu Bei's court at the city of Xiapi and asks for a job. Like a dumbass, Liu Bei gives him a generalship. That same year, Yuan Shu invaded southern Xu and Liu Bei marched out with his army to meet him. Lu Bu promptly seized the capital and took Liu Bei's family hostage. Liu Bei ran back to Xiapi when he got the news and, with no good options, surrendered Xu province to Lu Bu. Lu Bu had not really thought this whole thing through though (classic Lu Bu) because Xu was still being actively invaded, so he sent Liu Bei to the garrison at Xiaopei*** rather than disposing of him permanently. It turns out Lu Bu also didn't think that decision through very well because... Liu Bei immediately ran away to Cao Cao to inform him of everything that had happened and ask for help. Although Liu Bei was previously Cao Cao's ally, he now had few soldiers and no territory so he became Cao Cao's subordinate. Cao Cao agreed to “help” Liu Bei win back Xu province, which Cao Cao had been trying to conquer anyway for two years at this point. Liu Bei and Cao Cao marched south with Cao Cao's army. In 197 Lu Bu, his new province being invaded from north and south simultaneously, pledged allegiance to Yuan Shu. With his southern flank secure Lu Bu attacked Liu Bei's division and defeated it but was in turn attacked and defeated by Cao Cao. Lu Bu was captured and beheaded, putting an end to this narrative nuisance. With Lu Bu defeated and Xu province finally pacified under Cao Cao, everyone went back home to Cao Cao's capital at Xuchang in 198 to clear their heads a bit. But the now 17 Emperor Xian was at Xuchang, and after three years of living under Cao Cao's thumb he was not too happy with the situation. (17 year old kid has a palace and a house full of concubines, what an ingrate.) Whether Xian was the motivator or not (unlikely) the Imperial court was mixed up in a plot to assassinate Cao Cao, and secretly enlisted Liu Bei's help. But before the plot could be enacted, Cao Cao summoned Liu Bei and sent him off with an army to attack Yuan Shu, who by now had committing political suicide by declaring himself Emperor and was trying to make amends with Yuan Shao as his subordinates deserted him en masse. At this point Liu Bei has not actually tried to murder Cao Cao but the betrayal count is hovering right under 2. While Liu Bei was out of Xuchang, Cao Cao discovered the conspiracy in the Imperial Court. He had several members of the court tortured and executed, including one of Xian's pregnant concubines. Liu Bei could hardly go back to Xuchang, so he did the obvious thing: he went back to Xiapi and took it over in Cao Cao's name, before defecting to Yuan Shao (by now Cao Cao's enemy) for protection. This is in 199, so Yuan Shao is being very menacing on Cao Cao's northern border across the Yellow River and Liu Bei had every reason to believe he was safe. But he wasn't because Cao Cao is a boss. Betrayal Count: definitely 2 now Cao Cao predicted that Yuan Shao would not be ready to cross the Yellow River until 200, leaving him with a narrow window to swing south and invade Xu Province (for the third time). Cao Cao rolled into Xu again and stomped Liu Bei's army, but didn't manage to catch the man himself. Liu Bei fled west to Yuan Shao's territory in 200 and presented himself as an ally. And wouldn't you know it, Yuan Shao gave him a job as a general. In 200 Yuan Shao suffered a crushing defeat at Guandu, as I already related in Cao Cao's story. Liu Bei took the opportunity to dispatch himself and his soldiers south to Jing Province on a “diplomatic mission.” It seems pretty clear that he had no intent of returning. Yuan Shao was dead by 202 and his state incorporated into Cao Cao's. Betrayal Count: 3 Liu Biao, governor of Jing Province, received Liu Bei with a warm welcome and gave him a job as a general. But Liao Biao was either cannier than Liu Bei's previous employers, or Liu Bei had developed a reputation for himself, because Liu Biao never gave him a job that would take him near the capital or give him many soldiers. Liu Bei was assigned a garrison in northern Jing province and remained in that post for eight years. Which is probably when he met Zhuge Liang. Accounts differ on whether the perfidious general sought out the gifted strategist or vice versa, but in any case during this eight years of loyal service Liu Bei accumulated some talented young people in his staff. Fast forward to 208, because that's when the situation in Jing Province suddenly upends itself. Cao Cao was approaching with 400,000 men. Sun Quan was preparing to attack the northeastern part of Jing as well. And as everyone's getting ready for that shitstorm. Liu Biao takes the opportunity to keel over and die from old age. And wouldn't you know who Liu Biao, on his death bed, secretly, chose as his successor to lead Jing Province through this troubled time? One of his beloved sons? His most trusted advisers? Or a frontier general who had never been trusted with any responsibility? That's right! It was Liu Bei! Betrayal Count: 4 Liu Cong, Liu Biao's eldest son and his almost-certain actual choice for a successor, found himself in the middle of a determined coup by Liu Bei and fled north towards Cao Cao's massive approaching army, hoping to throw in with the likeliest victor and get his governorship back in the deal. Surrender was not an option for Liu Bei, however, as Cao Cao would not have forgotten his role in the plot to assassinate Cao Cao. Cao Cao created Liu Cong Imperial Protector of Jing and began his invasion of the province while Liu Bei hurriedly attempted to organize a defense. With no hope of holding back Cao Cao's huge, well-trained and well-supplied army, Liu Bei fled from his garrison at Fancheng south, deeper into Jing. Liu Bei retreated, sent messengers flying off to beg Sun Quan for help, and sent detachments ahead to prepare fortifications. He ran to the river fort of Xiangyang****, and then ran again to the Yangtze River port of Jiangling where Guan Yu was gathering as many men as he could. But Cao Cao caught up with him before could make it. And that's really getting into the battle of Red Cliffs. Red Cliffs is the turning point in the Three Kingdoms, where Cao Cao's reunification of the Han Empire is dashed and the Three Kingdoms period can finally get started getting started. I'll devote an entire post to that. And after that, of course, Liu Bei's Adventures in Treachery: Part 2. Notes: Uhhh, Liu Bei is a big jerk? He seems convinced that he should be the ruler of something, but he's not very good at ruling. I mean, leave a guy who's murdered two of his own dads in charge of your capital while you're away? What were you thinking? Liu Bei doesn't make the greatest decisions. We'll see this in part 2 of his story as well. Did he throw a baby? Maybe he threw a baby. Again, this guy is just more entertaining than Cao Cao. And he certainly had personal magnetism to get all these people to work for Lord Backstab von Fuckup all those years or convince people to give him a job. *Gongsun Zan is a sinicized barbarian name so he would have been a northerner descended from northern barbarians **Actually Lu Bu had already killed a previous adoptive father. In Romance someone calls him “Three Fathers Lu Bu” and it's a sick burn. *** I know it sounds like Xiapi, sorry. **** The fortress-city of Xiangyang would hold out against a series of determined Mongol sieges for 40 years before finally succumbing to a six-year investment in the Song Dynasty. Xian also officially recognized Liu Bei as a member of the Imperial House in 198. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jan 17, 2015 |
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Jan 17, 2015 05:56
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Smoking Crow posted:I think it was more about discriminatory draft practices, i.e. drafting citizens of Irish ethnicity more heavily than others The draft in and of itself wasn't all that discriminatory. The actual text of the draft included every married male under 35 and every single man between 20-45 to serve if they were not especially exempted. Irish Americans primarily objected to the exemption of a large number of freed slaves and the $500 direct tax to withdraw from the draft directly--about $9,400 today. Since tons of Irish immigrants had just gotten settled in the U.S.(NYC in particular) and become citizens, they were poor and couldn't pay the commutation fee so they got hit the hardest by the Enrollment Act. They were also worried their position in the industrial machine would be taken by (draft-exempt) freed blacks while they were gone at war. If the draft was discriminatory, it was against poor people in general like every draft, not just the Irish. Jaramin fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Jan 17, 2015 |
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Jan 17, 2015 06:06
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Arglebargle III posted:Lord Backstab von Fuckup Whelp, now I have a new mental title for Liu Bei.  Out of curiosity, if the Han HADN'T been falling apart, would Liu Bei have been prosecuted in any way for the whole "beating an inspector half to death" thing? Or would it have been figured to be more "Whatever, at least he left the office"?
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Jan 17, 2015 08:23
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Arglebargle III posted:I think he's the most metal emperor. Quite literally too. What with being full of mercury.
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Jan 17, 2015 11:43
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Hogge Wild posted:Quite literally too. What with being full of mercury. Mercury = Heavy metal
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Jan 17, 2015 15:15
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 Keep those coming! That was a very good read. Why is it that Liu Bei could show up on basically anyone's door step and be handed an army / responsabilities? Unless I suck at reading and completely misunderstood your text, it seems to me like that guy must have earned a bad reputation at one point. How do you get to betray almost anyone above you and yet still have people trust you times and times again?
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Jan 17, 2015 19:53
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Dalael posted:How do you get to betray almost anyone above you and yet still have people trust you times and times again? With a smile! 
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Jan 17, 2015 20:01
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my dad posted:With a smile! Anyone knows the address of his dentist? That is one killer smile.
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Jan 17, 2015 20:04
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JaucheCharly posted:How would one proof that he's a citizen? How do you? It's actually a pretty interesting question from country to country. I'd suspect it's inferred indirectly in most cases, with the exception of naturalized citizens, of course.
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Jan 17, 2015 21:05
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Groda posted:How do you? Passport and SSN. Pretty easy. Cross check against national database.
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Jan 17, 2015 23:33
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I just scream "I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN" and because I'm white and speak with a US accent it works fine. An ex-girlfriend of mine was not an American citizen and I had no idea until pretty far into the relationship. She lived in California since she was a baby, had an American accent, knew nothing but living in America. Her parents were foreigners, but there's plenty of immigrant families so that wasn't terribly remarkable. It never occurred to me that her passport might have been from somewhere else and it never occurred to her to bring it up.
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Jan 18, 2015 00:50
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sullat posted:Passport and SSN. Pretty easy. Cross check against national database. You don't have to have either if you're an American though. A lot of people from rural areas don't actually get an SSN until they move into cities.
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Jan 18, 2015 01:52
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Arglebargle III posted:I just found out that the Old Chinese name for Qin Guo would have been Dzin Gaagh. So King Yiing Deng of Dzin Gaagh with his black flag and black armor led his armies to conquer six kingdoms, burned their books, buried their scholars, and melted their swords into statues for his palace, before he went insane and died from drinking alchemical potions and they buried his stinking corpse in an underground palace of the dead with grave army and concubines and officials and then massacred the workers and buried them with him too. Then the tomb burned down. I think he's the most metal emperor. Wait I thought this was the guy with the mercury waterways tomb, is that a different one? I want to see the inside of that tomb so bad. Arglebargle III posted:In the same vein, why did Liu Bei or Yuan Shu trust Lu Bu? This is going to sound exceptionally dorky and nerdy, but was Lu Bu regarded as a particularly dangerous opponent, in war or personal combat? I ask out of my love of Dynasty Warriors and the cheesy dialogue about running away from him. Synnr fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 02:15
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Dalael posted:Why is it that Liu Bei could show up on basically anyone's door step and be handed an army / responsabilities? Unless I suck at reading and completely misunderstood your text, it seems to me like that guy must have earned a bad reputation at one point. How do you get to betray almost anyone above you and yet still have people trust you times and times again? That's a good question. People describe Liu Bei as a hypocrite. I suppose he must have talked a good game. Silver tongue maybe. In the same vein, why did Liu Bei or Yuan Shu trust Lu Bu?
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Jan 18, 2015 02:22
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Synnr posted:Wait I thought this was the guy with the mercury waterways tomb, is that a different one? I want to see the inside of that tomb so bad. He was one heck of an archer, at least.
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Jan 18, 2015 05:39
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Is the common depiction of a Roman soldier accurate to a specific time period or is it an amalgamation of several different time periods?
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Jan 18, 2015 06:47
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mornhaven posted:Is the common depiction of a Roman soldier accurate to a specific time period or is it an amalgamation of several different time periods?  I think that's more a result of putting on fancy dress uniform type stuff with a simulation of battle armor. Like if you strapped combat bulletproof armor and a military backpack on a modern armed services dress suits. I you did it with say a modern US Marine, you'd have bits and pieces from these 4 major styles of uniform slapped together:  Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 06:59
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Depends on what you mean by common depiction, yeah. The segmented metal armor that shows up a lot in movies existed but was never really standard issue for a particularly wide segment. HBO's Rome is pretty drat accurate in portraying gear from that time period, and that same sort of gear would have been in use for a lot of what people typically think of when they think of Rome, the late Republic until.. what.. the 2nd or 3rd century AD? Most common depictions draw from what's on Trajan's column, so, yeah, most movies and such are generally based on a rough, somewhat stylized idea of what was happening in the 1st century AD, whether or not that's accurate to whatever time period the story is supposedly taking place in. hailthefish fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 07:01
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HBO's Rome was pretty period accurate I think, in so far as I remember everyone was largely wearing a kind of chain mail shirt. The emblossed pecs breastplate that was the popular depiction in Hollywood for awhile would have been for show and not actual battle use, keep in mind I Am Not A Mil His Poster. If anything is depicted its almost always going to be late Republic, early Principate as that's where most movies/TV shows take place.
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Jan 18, 2015 07:10
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JaucheCharly posted:How would one proof that he's a citizen? Testimony, basically. Roman society had a lot of complex social relations surrounding the patronage network. If someone claimed to be "Quintus the Goat-fucker from a good plebian family who's lived on the Aventine Hill in such-and-such neighborhood and a client of Big-nosed Sextus and of course I'm a citizen" and it was important that this be verified, it was a matter of going and asking people in that neighborhood if they've ever heard of you, asking Big-nosed Sextus whether you're his client, asking Big-nosed Sextus' patron whether Big-nosed Sextus is a real guy, etc, until they're satisfied. (This is another reason why people in bad situations didn't generally pack up and leave. Nobody knows you wherever you're going, and so you'd have to convince people that you're not a criminal, that you have skills, etc. It's not like today where I could pack up and move to Timbuktu and still be easily able to prove that I'm an American with no criminal record and qualifications in some particular fields. But even then it's not a big leap to imagine that the people in Timbuktu would think I'm really a CIA agent or a drug dealer or whatever.) For things like citizenship from the legion, I imagine there were some records of names, or similar testimony from a former centurion or some other people who were trustworthy and could verify you. Even if it's obvious you were a Roman citizen, being one didn't protect you if the authorities didn't want to protect you. One of the stories about notoriously corrupt governor Verres is that he liked young women. Early in his career, he was in Greece as a legate (the governor's right-hand man, essentially), he found a girl that he liked who happened to be the daughter of an important local man who was not a Roman citizen. As part of a scheme to seduce the girl, Verres arranged that one of his lictors (official bodyguards) be housed with the man's family, and eventually there was a feast at the house and the lictor had a pretext to invite Verres and his crew. At the feast, they attempted to strong-arm the family into letting Verres have the girl's virginity. The father resisted, the legate threw boiling water into his face, there was shouting, and the neighbors who rushed to the family's defense killed the lictor and wounded some of Verres' slaves who were involved in the brawl. Even though it was a Roman official who had been slain, the governor hemmed and hawed for quite some time and took a lot of persuasion before he tried the father and another local man for murder - and if Verres hadn't insisted on it because of a desire for revenge, nothing would have happened. So as far as citizenship being a kind of magic talisman which guaranteed that Rome would avenge you if you came to grief in some far-flung place, I doubt it was always so. If you happened to already be someone who Rome would avenge, or if doing so happened to be convenient for other reasons, maybe it served as a pretext.
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Jan 18, 2015 07:40
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I always think of it kind of like US citizenship, where if you find yourself abroad in a bad scene and yell out "I am an American citizen" at best (if you're really in trouble) that will buy you some time and a trial, at least, but it won't get the entirety of the American state coming down to get you. This of course, also relies on the right person overhearing your status at the time. Also for Romans it comes down to the social networks the society was built on. If you were actually important you could pull enough strings (or have your patron/network do it) and settle things at personal expense. Joe Citizen Publius was probably hosed and the best he could hope for was his death to be a causus belli or something though.
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Jan 18, 2015 07:55
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Yeah, or how if you're a foreigner and involved in something like a traffic accident or a bar fight in many countries, the police will hold you at fault unless the locals stick up for you and one of them is important enough that he can make trouble for the cops. People in those kinds of societies know who's who, or at least they know who can cause trouble for them, and that matters more than the fact you have an American passport. The most that will probably do for you is a visit from some bored guy in the embassy's consulate who will give you the name of a lawyer who speaks English and let you know that the Marines are not, in fact, coming to save you. e: Though, in those kinds of situations it's more likely that the cops would just take your foreigner money and tell you to get out of town and don't come back whereas a local might be jailed or given corporal punishment, so I suppose there can be some situations where being a foreigner gives you an easier outcome. But that's not always a guarantee, like the American in the 90s who was tried, convicted, and lashed with a cane in Singapore for stealing road signs and defacing cars with graffiti. fantastic in plastic fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 08:16
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sullat posted:Passport and SSN. Pretty easy. Cross check against national database. That's still indirect inference. The National Database only contains name, hair color and pasta sauce preferences. Nothing about citizenship.
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Jan 18, 2015 17:39
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In case you were wondering, here's what some person thinks would happen if the Roman army met the forces of Sauron in battle.
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Jan 18, 2015 21:57
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brozozo posted:In case you were wondering, here's what some person thinks would happen if the Roman army met the forces of Sauron in battle. Lot of talk about tactics, not a lot about strategy or logistics in there. Also a lot of the arguments seem to be the military equivalent of "assume a perfectly spherical orcish army in a vacuum."
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Jan 18, 2015 22:35
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Tomn posted:military equivalent of "assume a perfectly spherical orcish army in a vacuum." WAAAGH?
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Jan 18, 2015 22:44
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Tomn posted:Lot of talk about tactics, not a lot about strategy or logistics in there. Also a lot of the arguments seem to be the military equivalent of "assume a perfectly spherical orcish army in a vacuum." I haven't had time to read the whole thing yet, but I think it assumes all the logistic and preparation is already dealt with. You have 2 armies maybe 1 day away, scouts reporting poo poo.. Battle the next day, what happens? But like I said, didn't read it fully yet, so that is just assumptions.
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Jan 18, 2015 22:45
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brozozo posted:In case you were wondering, here's what some person thinks would happen if the Roman army met the forces of Sauron in battle. "It is unreasonable to assume they would not do the same for Mumakil etc" Oh yes, THAT would be unreasonable! 
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Jan 18, 2015 22:52
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brozozo posted:In case you were wondering, here's what some person thinks would happen if the Roman army met the forces of Sauron in battle. tldr seems to be "Assume the forces of Mordor adopt the disposition and tactics of the various barbarians the Romans defeated. The Romans defeated those barbarians, so they will defeat Mordor."
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Jan 18, 2015 23:06
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Additionally, assume that the Romans assemble every legion in one place when losing just a few is a disaster and they are normally spread throughout the entire empire.
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Jan 18, 2015 23:12
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Tomn posted:Lot of talk about tactics, not a lot about strategy or logistics in there. Also a lot of the arguments seem to be the military equivalent of "assume a perfectly spherical orcish army in a vacuum." At the level of military hypotheticals where one of the parties involved is a literal fantasy army, I think it's fair to stop thinking so hard about the "big-picture" elements. What I'm saying is, let nerds have some dumb fun!
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Jan 18, 2015 23:27
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Jazerus posted:Additionally, assume that the Romans assemble every legion in one place when losing just a few is a disaster and they are normally spread throughout the entire empire. Like Slim Pickens said: Slim Jim Pickens posted:At the level of military hypotheticals where one of the parties involved is a literal fantasy army, I think it's fair to stop thinking so hard about the "big-picture" elements.
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Jan 18, 2015 23:34
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It's better than the usual 'what if knights fought samurai' garbage. Sort of.
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Jan 18, 2015 23:41
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So is Jupiter Eru, or just a Valar? This is important.
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Jan 19, 2015 00:04
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Tao Jones posted:tldr seems to be "Assume the forces of Mordor adopt the disposition and tactics of the various barbarians the Romans defeated. The Romans defeated those barbarians, so they will defeat Mordor." Who's leading the Romans because Valens would get his rear end kicked by Sauron
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Jan 19, 2015 02:16
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Smoking Crow posted:Who's leading the Romans because Valens would get his rear end kicked by Sauron Caesar. So the Optimates would go with Sauron as the lesser of two evils.
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Jan 19, 2015 02:23
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Smoking Crow posted:Who's leading the Romans because Valens would get his rear end kicked by Sauron El Cid magically transported through time to learn to fight in the legions.
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Jan 19, 2015 02:24
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Smoking Crow posted:Who's leading the Romans because Valens would get his rear end kicked by Sauron Let's be honest, Sauron would become Emperor in under a month.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:29
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Key element of Mordor's strategy is deception and treachery. Hard to imagine a scenario where one or more Roman generals don't switch sides mid-battle, under the promise of eternal power.
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Jan 19, 2015 03:35
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Marius would totally have become a Nazgul.
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Jan 19, 2015 04:01
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