12th of January, 2025
Luoyang, Chinese Federation
The Imperial capital was sunk in chaos. The news of the collapse of the Line of the North arrived in the city at around 2 a.m. and since then the citizens seemed to have completely lost their mind. People was now rushing to take the trains or the airplanes as fast as possible, before the arrival of the international forces. All this while the Boxers and the Imperial Guard had started a last desperate attack at the besieged Legations Compound, hoping to be able to conquer it and slaughter its residents before the arrival of the Europeans.
Yuan Xiquan and NN were rushing through one of the gardens of the forbidden city until a small square, where one of the helicopters of the Chinese Imperial Army was waiting for them.
"Quick, NN, we must leave as fast as possible, in a matter of minutes the Roman Air Force will make of this place a Hell on Earth!" Exclaimed Xiquan.
"Where are we going now?" Asked NN.
"To Nanking. There is where we will reorganise the resistance and strike back."
From her bedchamber, the Tianzi was looking at the helicopter carrying Xiquan and NN away from Luoyang and from the Roman Forces.
"Your Majesty, we should have another helicopter called for you." Said a staff officer entering the room. "The Europeans will be here in a matter of hours."
"Those cowards... they are fleeing and leaving their sovereign behind." Said the Tianzi with bitterness.
"Your Majesty..."
"No!" Replied the Tianzi. "I am not going anywhere... I will put on my ceremonial attire and receive them with dignity in the Throne Hall. I am destined to fall, so I will do it with the little dignity that is still left to me."
At the dawn of the 9th of January, the situation of the Legations Compound was growing increasingly desperate. Only three knightframes were left functioning and the soldiers were now using their last rounds of ammunitions. Most of those soldiers were by this point either dead or seriously wounded, leaving the amount of people capable of fighting around the 150 units. Even the commanders and even the young Hector Clément, despite his total lack of military experience had to pick up a gun and do his part.
He was now staying at one of the breaches in the wall, where a trench was set up using sandbags, tables and any sort of material they could find, using a FAL taken from a fallen Rhodesian soldier.
"To the Hell with all of you!" Shouted standing up and firing repeatedly at the mass of enemies rushing towards their position.
"Down Monsieur!" Yelled a French female soldier taking him down. "This is risky and we are about to use the Napalm."
"Uh... thank you soldier..."
"Céline Monsieur, Isabelle Céline."
"Thank you, Isabelle."
"You're welcome. Anyway, you did well for a businessman." Replied the girl smiling at him.
Depite the napalm, soon many of those Boxers were on them, with their swords and knives and they had to defend themselves using their own knives and bayonets.
"Not one step back! Defend the flag! For France! Montjoie Saint Denis!" Shouted Captain D'Estienne D'Orville while fighting the Chinese warriors with his sword.
Hector Clément, short of any respectable weapon for mélée fight, took up a baseball club that was involved in barbed wire and started hitting the enemies, aiming at their heads.
The fight was going well, as he was managing to take down many of the enemies, he felt possessed by some sort of savage impetus, as he kept hitting his enemies almost compusively.
Suddely, he felt a deep pain in his right leg and felt on his knees. As he turned back at were he guessed the hit must have arrived, he saw a Boxer raising a sword, ready to finish him off. The blade then fell on him. He closed his eyes and raised his mace. After a few instant during which nothing happened, he opened his eyes again and noticed that he was able to stop the attack, while Captain d'Orville had shot the enemy at the head with his Luger, from whose barrel was still coming out the smoke. All around, the Boxers were beginning to disperse and flee in disorder, while a couple of missiles fell near the Compound Walls.
"C'est fini, Monsieur!" Said the French nobleman with a smile they are fleeing.
"Thank God!" Exclaimed Hector falling on his back and looking at the sky. He was losing blood from his leg and before fainting he could still hear for Captain d'Orville calling for a doctor.
Prince Schneizel el Britannia was piloting one of the last Alexander T-04 that were originally destined to the International Police. He was not far away from the position where the French were fighting, but was defending a breach at the Northern Gate, where the last men of the Rhodesian Light Infantry had a truly hard time in holding against never-ending waves of Chinese soldiers. Now however, after a serie of missiles and artillery shots had hit the city, all the enemy units had fled in disorder and a spectral silence had fallen upon the city.
'This is not normal, there must be something...' He thought studying the battlefield.
He then gave the order: "To all the units, maintain position, repeat maintain position."
The silence was then broken by the noise of the motors of military airplanes at full speed.
A Rhodesian soldier near Schneizel murmured then: "Wait, but these are..."
He did not have time to finish his sentence that five Eurofighters flying in spearhead formation passed above the skied of the Imperial Capital and of the Legations Compound, releasing the Red-Golden colours, representing the HRE.
The view received an ovation by all the soldiers, while even women and children came out from their shelters to look at the scene, now everybody had the hope that perhaps the nightmare might be finally over.
Minutes after, coming from the North, what was heard was a sound of combined drums and trumpets, that the Rhodesians recognised immediately as playing The Saints, the Regimental March of the RLI. The sound came closer and closer and finally, from the mixed fog and dust appeared first two officer in the parading uniform, one holding a sword and the other the orange-white-blue flag of the Union of South Africa, after them the military band and then the men of the RLI.
"It's our lads! They came!" Shouted Colonel Walls, commander of the Rhodesian detachment, as his men rushed to greet their comrades.
The second to come were the Italian soldiers of the 1° Divisione Alpina "Tridentina" and of the 3° Reggimento "Savoia Cavalleria", who reached the Western Gate with their knightframes, playing the Alpine March La Trentatrè and bringing in triumph the Chinese flags they had captured in battle.
"I nostri! La nostra bandiera!" These were the shouts of the Italian civilians and soldiers as they rushed outside of the compound to go greet their boys, bringing flags and flowers.
From the Southern Gate the first to arrive were the Brazilian troops, who also came with all the pump and circumstance, playing the Cançao do Expedicionario.
"Chegaram gente! Viva o Brazil!" Shouted Major Nascimento flying a Brazilian flag from the top of the walls.
The Brazilians were followed by the Russian Cossacks of the Don Cossacks Division, who paraded through Luoyang on their horses, their ceremonial uniforms at the sound of the Don Cossack's Marching Song.
From the Eastern Gate then came the Japanese, at the sound of Hohei no Honryou, also received as heroes by the inhabitants of the Compound.
The last to reach the Legations Compound, from the Western Gate, were the Prussian of the 1st East Prussian Infantry Division "Kronprinz" and the Austrians of the 3rd Sudtiroler Kaiserjager Regiment, who came goose-stepping at the sound of Radetzkymarsch.
Any resistance in the city was dispersed and only the Imperial Guard was still willing to put on a fight, having barricaded herself inside the Forbidden City in order to protect the Tianzi.
Field-Marshal Friedrich Rommel entered the city on a Mercedes Benz, escorted by the Russian soldiers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, who were sent there after the Emperor had made clear his intention to enter in the recently conquered Luoyang, parade through it on his horse and order himself the destruction of the Forbidden City.
"Isn't incredible how quickly a war can be turned into a theatrical piece?" Asked Rommel to his assistant, Brigadier Oscar Hammel.
"Indeed Sir, still I would have advised the Emperor against parading through Luoyang."
"As if it would be of some use. That lad is stubborn and has little to no care for his own life."
"He is young and imprudent." Said Hammel, but Rommel shook his head.
"He is indifferent towards death. He is horrified by the idea of having to wait for it at an old age, so he has made D'Annunzio's motto Memento Audere Semper his own. He wants to dare, to risk his life and challenge the fate."
"Well, I assume you must know him better than I do, Sir. Still, I cannot help thinking that D'Annunzio died in a miserable attempt to take over Italy with a coup and proclaim himself Duce d'Italia."
"Well, in his case I believe we have passed this phase, now the main problem is making the realm surviving."
"Do you think it will, Sir?"
"He has made all he could to de-personalise his rule and he is right in doing so, yet there are still many things to happen, who knows..."
The Imperial Airplane arrived at the Luoyang International Airport in the afternoon, few hours after the occupation of the city had taken place and the last pockets of resistance were crushed. He was coming accompanied by his wife, Empress Anya, by Duke Amedeo of Parma and Piacenza and Duchess Ayano, by Admiral Scipione Valerio Borghese and by Baroness Anna Clément with her parents, Count Jean-Pierre Clément and Countess Madeleine, both them coming to see Hector.
At their arrival at the airport they were received by Generaloberst Friedrich Rommel and by the Preobrazhensky Regiment, who greeted them doing the Roman Salute and shouting "Roma Victrix".
"Roma Victrix!" Replied the Emperor also doing the Roman Salute.
"Field Marshal Rommel, my sincere congratulations!" Said then Giulio saluting him with the Legionary handshake, taking the forearm instead of the hand.
"Your Majesties, it's a honour. Would you follow me to the cars, so we will reach the city and begin the parade?"
"With pleasure! Had my horse arrived well?"
"Yes sir, your Bukephalion has arrived better than all of us."
"Perfect, so you will parade with me until the Forbidden City, where we will follow up with the blowing of its walls and the dethroning of the Tianzi." He then turned at the rest of his delegation: "Because today, we will teach the Chinese that only Rome is Caput Mundi!"
Giulio was euphoric and so were all the members of his group with the only exception of the Clément, who were instead worried about their son Hector.
As by schedule, the Emperor took his horse at beginning of Tienanmen Avenue, which led all the way to the square that had the same name, Generaloberst Rommel instead, would be parading at the side of the monarch, but on a black horse. They would come escorted by the Preobrazhensky Guards, with its Regimental band and by detachment of the "Savoia Cavalleria". To sum up at the theatrical atmosphere, Giulio was wearing an Austrian-styled dark blue ceremonial uniform, with golden buttons, a white mantle and a dragoons-styled helm, while also bearing the insignia of all the Dynastic orders and Excalibur. Rommel, who originally would have preferred to dress in a more sober manner, was nonetheless forced to put on his ceremonial uniform of the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, with the bicorne hat and all the decorations.
The two paraded until reaching Tienanmen Square, where they stopped in front of the Gates of the Vermillion Forbidden City. The place was besieged and the allied forces could have broken in at any moment, had not the Emperor requested them to wait in order to allow him to make his triumphal entrance. There Giulio went closer to the gates, the cold wind was hitting his face, he gazed for a moment at the huge gates, from which no sign of life came, then spoke:
"Sons of China,
We are Divus Augustus Julius I, Imperator et Rex Romanorum, Pontifex Maximus et Rex Italiae. You are guilty of betraying and challenging Rome and as such, you are condemned to receive a punishment that will remain in history, like we did in the past with Carthage, Gallia and many enemies. If you surrender, however, We will show mercy and spare your lives and those of all the others inside those walls. If you don't, then prepare to face the might of Rome."
No response came, until a soldier, from the top of the gate shouted at them.
"If you want to enter the Forbidden City, you impure devil, then you will have to first pass on our corpses."
Giulio laughed and then drove his horse back into the lines.
"General Rommel." He called. "Time to begin the fireworks."
The Roman artillery fired and in less than five minutes reduced the walls that protected the Forbidden City, that since 1915 was symbol of the rule of the House of Shikai, into dust. As this happened, an immense curtain of dust covered for a few instants the Forbidden City, it seemed almost as if the city herself, aware of the loss of her sacrality, was making a last, desperate try to cover herself before the unwanted foreigners that were about to violate her.
The dust dissipated and the delicate but majestic lines of the palaces and gardens of the Forbidden City revealed themselves before the Europeans. That was a place in which for over a century nobody, except few privileged could enter, as it was where the connection between the material world and Heaven lied, personified by the Tianzi. Now however, all this was at the mercy of the hated foreigners. Only a dozen of Imperial Guards in their knightframes, stood now between the Romans and the Tianzi.
"Let me take care of them." Said Anya arriving in her knightmare frame, the Mordred. Without waiting for any response, she activated the Hadron Cannons and fired at them, annihilating all of them and incinerating few nearby buildings in less than a minute.
"Thank you, darling!" Said Giulio smiling at her.
"My pleasure!"
Minutes after the sacrilege was completed, Giulio and Friedrich Rommel entered the Throne Hall on their horses, followed by their soldiers. The Tianzi was sitting on the throne and looked at them without showing any emotion, around her, the last advisors and courtiers who did not wanted or could not flee. As they entered the Hall, Rommel stopped at the centre of the room, while Giulio, always on his horse, went on until facing directly the Empress of China.
"Nice try." He said. "But poorly done, that's why it will cost you the Empire. For your people, it will cost their nationhood."
"If you think you can colonise us, then you will soon be proven wrong. We are an ancient people, with longstanding traditions, just like yours."
"And so?" He asked. "Your armies are crushed and your country is under invasion. With your overthrowing, the last forces loyal to you will surrender and this land will finally know its place, among those who revolted against Rome, in the Pax Romana."
"Please, be realistic." Insistent the Tianzi. "The Chinese are a tough and resilient people, they will never let you strip them of their dignity and right to exist."
"Then we will exterminate all of them." Said Anya, who had now left her knightframe, entering the room. "And we will colonise this land with Europeans."
"Anya... Giulio... Please, be reasonable, don't do something like that, in name of our old friendship..."
At these words, Giulio slapped her face.
"There is no friendship with the enemies of Rome. Lihua of the House of Shikai, I proclaim that from this moment onwards you are deprived all of your titles and privileges as Tianzi and that the Chinese Federation, from now onwards, ceases officially to exist as a political entity. Roma Victrix!" Pronouncing these last words, he turned at his soldiers and raised Excalibur, as they replied shouting twice "Roma Victrix!". After that, Lihua in tears was stripped all of the regalia identifying her royal status and was carried away by two soldiers.
Press Updates
LVX News, 11th January, 2025
Luoyang Delenda Est!
Following the successful occupation of the city and the dethronement of the Tianzi, our Emperor has ordered that the Vermillion Forbidden City is to be rased to the ground and its remnants are to be covered with salt. "China will still participate to the Pax Romana, as a colonial province." Has declared Our Emperor in a speech. Japanese Prime Minister Ohgi declared himself concerned by Roman ambitions.