Destiny of an Emperor 2 Han Zhong
Oh my! Is this really Xin Ye? It is, with new weapons and armor to boot! Also, Chen Deng will join your active party again (and take a permanent seat in your billetting. Might as well of left him guarding the city). Chen Deng will always be a well respected general in Liu Bei’s army. Head north to the palace to recruit Ma Su and Ma Liang (both solid generals but both may be tough cuts; Huang Zhong is good and probably should be considered better than Ma Su. At the same time, Zhuge leaves the party here so you may want to use Ma Liang as your strategist and Ma Su to take Zhuge’s spot in battle, giving you 6 members with Wei Yan and the Zhao/Guan/Zhang brigade). So you are told to see Sima Hui, so go check it out. Sima Hui seems to want you to recruit Pang Tong and he hands over a bottle of “Jiu” that will do the trick.
Once in Xiang Yang, head for the house in the back of the town isolated by the lake. A bearded man will be here, go say hello.
He smells the liquor (“nice little item”) and after you give him some he will say he’ll deliver the Young Phoenix. However he wants you to stop the bandits in the northwest first. Naturally, go do so. It is in the forest (not the cave, that’s later), near the center (towards the upper left center of the forest structure, you’ll figure it out). Inside, head east for 231 gold pieces. A Copper Potion and 200 more gold are to the east here. A Revive is in the upper left, and head right and then up from here. You’ll enter an area with tents and Liao Hua in the back with three females. Fight him (he’s by himself, not hard) and show him what happens to men who kidnap women. After you work him he wants to join you, like you need the trash wasting away in your billetting. But nonetheless he must join, so let him. He is an ok general and you would have used him had you got him 4 hours ago and not now when you have several good generals. Leave now back to the man who spoke of Pang Tong.
Instead, Pang Tong will be sitting there and the other guy will be nowhere in sight. Odd, well Pang Tong joins you easily and then you are back in Xin Ye. There you discuss matters as Zhang Song comes in to ask you to invade and take over Shu. This is no easy decision due to his relative Liu Zhang being there. Ultimately the plan is to go but a Shu Map must be obtained so you are sent to the cave to the northwest of Xiang Yang. Get the Meng Da letter from Liu Bei. Use the Zheng Letter on Liu Bei here, and you can recruit Ma Su. Then talk to Liu Bei to recruit Xiahou Dun. Yup, strange. But true. Xiahou Dun is a beast (3600 soldiers 230 str 155 int 115 agi)
With Pang Tong available ( He is a very very solid general, with a 150 attack to go with a 245 intelligence) I would reduce the party to 5, with the usual 4 (Wei/Zhao/Zhang/Guan) representing the rest of the group unless you have Zheng Letter generals like Xiahou Dun, Lu Bu, etc.
When in the cave get the two treasures on this floor, one being 600 gold and the other a Silver Potion. As stated in the previous chapter, you can visit this cave early than right now to get the Flame Armor at the bottom, but otherwise there isn’t much you can do until you get the Liu Bei Letter. Anyway, the staircase to the left of the beginning (which also leads to the one in the upper left of the area) leads to 1000 gold coins. The staircases in the upper right and upper middle section lead to a Tactical Potion and another Silver Potion. Finally, go to the bottom left part of the first floor to get to where you need to go.
The Flame Armor down there is good, very good. Meng Da will allow you to proceed when you read the Liu Bei letter to him. When you try to leave he blocks you, asking to join. He’s a nice guy so let him; he brings his fat horse too! His agility is a whopping 185, which is fun to experiment with. Is he one of the top 5 generals you have? No, but putting him in your party won’t hurt that’s for sure. At the throne room, the plan of attack is being discussed. Fa Zheng from Shu runs in to tell you that the Han Zhong army has seized Xia Meng citadel and he requests your help. Zhao Yun and Guan Yu are dispatched to take care of the land you have already overtaken, so it is just Pang Tong and Zhang Fei in your party.
Now when you get control, talk to Liu Bei. He gives the same line as Yi Ji did when you go back to Xin Ye and can recruit him (“Oh Pang Tong, it is I Yi Ji…etc) and there is a prompt at the end to let him join you. Say yes, and supposedly you just recruited Yi Ji, but Liu Bei instead gets off the throne and turns into Zhang Lu. WHAT?! Everything I just said is true, even if it doesn’t make sense. Zhang Lu has 5100 soldiers plus 170 str 190 int 175 agi. Another strange but dominant recruit. Weirder yet, his attack is a strange fireball at the bottom of the screen….He will kill most of the people he hits with a few attacks, at least for a while once the generals are still weak and his soldier count is twice the size of anyone on your side (at least). Even at the end of the game though, Zhang Lu is still a force. Like Lu Bu and Xiahou Dun and Zhou Yu, they do not gain levels thus are stuck with their soldier counts. But 5100 is nice until the end pretty much.
At the Xiang Yang port, you will see Fa Zheng. He is a Zhang Song supporter and naturally he wants to join so let him, although I wouldn’t use him (115 attack 210 intelligence). The ship takes you to Fu Shui castle, where you will learn about the blood oath and of Ma Chao. There are really no weapons/armor here for you. Anyway, once you are done head north and then east quick.
A house is there and Li Qi lives there. When you reveal yourself he will go in detail about his situation and about the blood oath between Ma Teng and Liu Bei. He marks the spot of where it is buried on your Shu Map, so check it out and find it for him (you cannot go here, even if you know the location from playing through the game previously, until you talk to Li Qi). You’ll wish you never had to go to this damn place…
So you go to where it is (it is obvious when you are in range, it’s the non-forested area). This is a difficult dungeon and a lot of people have problems with the stone walls on the lower floor. Really, most of it is a trial and error issue, you’ll figure it out eventually. Use the FCE Emulator and ~ to speedup the game, that helps the annoyance factor.
I’ll try to list your options as best as I can. As you enter head west and north when you can. A Dragon Sword is here, good for Zhang Lu or Pang Tong. South of here is a revive and 232 gold coins are to the east. Now go all the way back to the beginning and head north and east for a Copper Potion. Take the upper-most west path now that leads down and take the staircase at the end. Now you are at the stone wall area. East of the entrance is blocked (this is the area that you circle around to when you pick the wrong choice and get blocked off and sent back to the beginning) so head west and north.
Go east when you can for 284 gold coins and a Steel Shield just above it. Two rows up is a Silver Potion and a Flame Armor above that. As you head further north from here you will be blocked off, so head east and south to get back to the beginning of this maze. You need to enter and re-enter the staircase to reset the stone walls. When you are ready to advance, remember the words of the man in north-east Fu Shui; take the east path 3 times and the west path 4 times. This translates to going north through the eastern-most path 3 times and then going all the way to the west wall and going north 4 times through that one. You already got the treasures on the east wall but there is a tent that is all the way to the east after you pass the western-most north path 3 times (ie the east path BEFORE the staircase). So get this Tent and walk all the way back to the west and go north, and then all the way east to the staircase. If you go too far north, you’ll have to walk ALL THE WAY AROUND. Count to four and then head east and you won’t have a problem. The bottom floor is a little odd also. It has things at the middle of the four-ways to invert your path.
You can still get everywhere on the map, it’s just a matter of where you come at the paths. As you head west and then south to enter, advance to the right while staying to the north. You will come across a chest of 596 gold coins. If you take the path going right that is just under this one, you will come to the Blood Seal! You can Suo Di if you want but there are more treasures so I’ll guide you to them quick. Under the Blood Seal route is a Smoke Bomb and a few paths under this is a Silver Token. Now Suo Di out.
After returning to Li Qi, he will be pleased and will visit Ma Chao on your behalf. Then, he will say Ma Chao requested to see you. Ma Chao wants to test you when you get there, so let him! Well, him and his cousin Ma Dai are tough, but just the two of them can’t best you unless you fight irresponsibly. Take the two of them down with Luo Shi and recruit both. Now you may want to head back to Fu Shui to put these two in (over Huang Zhong and Meng Da), they are dominant and you will use Ma Chao for the rest of the game probably.
North of Xia Meng Citadel is Yang Ping Gate. Yang Ang is here, with Yang Ping, Cheng Yin and Yang Ren. Yang Ren is an average tactician while the other three are standard brutes; take them out and rest. When you are ready, continue past Yang Ping citadel to the cliff area.
Take the left passage for a Silver Potion, and then take the right one. At the next hook, take the lower path for 592 gold coins. Again when you get another hook, take the lower one for a Tent and return to the upper path. Continue on for a while and another two-way fork will emerge, with the upper path leading to 250 or so gold coins, and the lower path leads to another fork (take the lower one as you can see the treasure below you, it’s a Dragon Sword) so head down and then up. After this there are no longer any forks so continue on, lead and head for Nan Zheng Gate! Here Yang Bai will greet you, although he is not the cause for concern. The man named Pang De, as your math skills probably pointed out to, has much higher stats than anyone else on their side. Obviously, go at him with your fighters and have Pang Tong throw a Da Re or Tou Shi at him and he should be down in a round or two. Then, you’re fighting against three garbage generals. There is an Inn here so blow all your tactics if you saved them.
Inside you have two options. A man named Wang Ping says he can bribe Yang Song for 10,000 gold pieces and he will open the Han Zhong gate. Say yes or no, although YOU WILL need to pay him the 10,000 to capture Han Zhong, trust me. If you choose not to, go there and you will notice you can’t take off more than 3 or 4 soldiers. You can retreat and attack again, but nothing will change. What you must do (and you could just bribe him first without attacking, the smart way to do it) is go to Wang Ping and give him the money, then when you go to Han Zhong you will be snuck in by Yang Song, only for Zhang Lu to find out and slay Yang Song. Now this battle is much easier despite a solid army on the other side. Zhang Lu is a good character (although again no match for YOUR Zhang Lu, which coincidentally you can use as your top character in a matchup between two Zhang Lu-led armies) and the three generals he has below him all have around 180 attack power with 100 agility. Nothing you can’t deal with and this battle again is very easy once you find the gimmick to get inside. There isn’t much to do inside besides talk to the people, so leave.
Upon returning xin ye castle after settling Jingzhou having Ma Su in the party makes alot more sense then Wei Yan. Northeast of castle between 3 – 4 bonzai trees i guess they are is a nice Dragon Sword that make Ma Su’s attack power 120 Grab the steel armor 3-4 bonzai trees along the south wall in the southeast corner of Xin ye castle