The End of War and the Rise of the Chosen Empress

In the seventh month of the Dingmao year,
the war that had raged for two full months finally came to an end.

The Eastern Yi Kingdom, its sovereign vanished and its army scattered,
was left without command—
a land of dragons without a head.
With no choice remaining, they surrendered.

They paid heavy reparations to the Western Han Kingdom,
ceded territory, and begged for mercy.
The Empress of Western Han accepted their submission.

In that same year,
Gu Zhun—the imperial cousin of the late Emperor of Eastern Yi—
ascended to the throne.
He changed the nation’s name from Yi to Chang.

Thus, the curtain fell at last on this devastating war.

The toll was immense.
Countless soldiers lay buried in nameless graves,
and among the fallen was the Regent and Grand Marshal of the Western Han,
Qin An,
whose death was mourned across both lands.

He had been slain in the most tragic of ways—
his heart torn from his chest by a fox spirit that descended from the heavens.
The sight of his death was said to move even the gods themselves.
Thunder roared across the skies,
and lightning fell upon the demon fox in divine punishment.

The fox, grievously wounded and near death,
was moments away from annihilation
when a man in a green robe descended from the clouds.
He gathered the dying creature into his arms—
and together, they vanished into the storm.

Later, whispers spread throughout the land.
Some said that the man in green had been none other than
Gu Yi, Emperor of the Eastern Yi Kingdom.
But Gu Yi had been possessed by a demon months before the war’s end.
Whether it was truly him—or merely a mirage—no one could say.

The aftermath of that battle left both nations in ruin.
The Eastern Yi and Western Han kingdoms,
once prosperous and proud,
now lay broken and blood-drained,
their strength sapped for years to come.

The Eastern Yi had lost its emperor.
The Western Han had lost its regent.

And yet—
from the ashes of ruin rose a figure of divine grace.

Empress Haiqing, newly crowned,
hailed by her people as The Heaven-Chosen Empress.

Throughout her reign,
she worked tirelessly,
governing with clarity and compassion.
One by one, she resolved the crises left in war’s wake—
the famine in the western provinces,
the corruption within the courts,
the restless tribes along the frontier.

Her leadership rekindled faith in the weary hearts of her people.
Historians would later write that
she possessed her father’s wisdom,
her mother’s mercy,
and the will of heaven itself.

Under her rule,
the Western Han began to flourish once more.
From the blood of fallen heroes
and the tears of broken hearts,
she forged a new era—
a golden age destined to be remembered
as the Legend of the Western Han’s Radiant Empress.