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Liu Yan is a Chinese name; the family name is Liu.
For the faction, see Liu Yan (faction)

Liu Yan is a unique legendary Strategist hero in Total War: Three Kingdoms. He is the leader of his own faction in 190 and 194. In the 200 start, his faction still exists but is led by his son Liu Zhang as Yan died in 194 from old age.

General Information[]

Attributes[]

Main Article: Attributes (Total War: Three Kingdoms)

  • Expertise: 43
    • -5% construction cost (administered commandery)
    • +7 melee evasion
  • Resolve: 51
    • +12% general's health
    • +2k population growth (administered commandery)
  • Cunning: 96
    • +38% ammunition (own retinue)
    • +9 military supplies (own army)
  • Instinct: 53
    • +7% melee damage
    • -2% recruitment cost (this army)
  • Authority: 59
    • +2 satisfaction (faction-wide)
    • +2 unit morale (own retinue)


Background[]

Main Article: Background (Total War: Three Kingdoms)

Opportunistic Ruler

  • +10 cunning
  • +5 instinct
  • +15 authority
  • +1 resilience
  • +15% income from peasantry (faction-wide)

Admires Power, Wary of Ambition.


Unit Statistics[]

  • Morale: 40
  • Melee Toughness: 10
  • Ranged Toughness: 13
  • Melee Power: 5


  • Hit Points: 9k
  • Melee Charge Bonus: 181
  • Melee Attack Rate: 30
  • Base Melee Damage: 345
  • Armour-Piercing Melee Damage: 80
  • Base Melee Evasion: 7%
  • Base Armour: 14%
  • Speed: 97


Traits[]

Main Article: Traits (Total War: Three Kingdoms)

Ambitious

  • +8 authority
  • +50% desire for higher office
  • +5% income from all sources (administered commandery)
  • Increases ambition to gain independence as administrator

Admires Power, Wary of Ambition


Superstitious

  • +6 resolve
  • +2 instinct
  • May randomly trigger superstition events for their owning faction

Indulges Superstition, Respects Caution.


Deceitful

  • +6 cunning
  • +2 instinct
  • -5 cover cost when performing spy actions

Disregards Honour, Disregards Trustworthiness


Skills[]

Main Article: Skill (Total War: Three Kingdoms)

Stifling Deluge

  • +4 cunning
  • +4 instinct
  • Ability: Stifling Deluge


Resourcefulness

  • +8 cunning
  • Enables: Flaming Shot (own retinue)
  • +10 military supplies in enemy territory (when commanding)


Precision

  • +8 expertise
  • +10% ranged armour-piercing damage (own army)
  • +10% ranged firing rate (when commanding)


Abilities[]

Main Article: Ability (Total War: Three Kingdoms)

Stifling Deluge (Passive)

  • Target: Enemy General
  • +5 increased cooldown of abilities
  • Range: 50m
  • Duration: 1s
  • Cooldown: 4s


Ancillaries[]

Main Article: Ancillary (Total War: Three Kingdoms)

Ceremonial Sword

  • Base Melee Damage: 321
  • Armour-Piercing Melee Damage: 80
  • Melee Attack Rate: 30
  • +6 authority


Liu Yan's Armour

  • Base Armour: 14
  • +16 cunning
  • +50% ammunition
  • +25% ranged damage


Black Horse

  • Speed: 97
  • Mass: 1.5k
  • +2 cunning


Guanxi[]

Main Article: Guanxi

Family

Friends

Acquaintances


Biography[]

Liu Yan was born in Jiangxia around 132 AD. He was a descendant of Liu Yu, a powerful prince of the early Han dynasty, and as such grew up with all the benefits of a member of the imperial family. He held some low-ranking administration positions when he was young, rising to higher ranks over the years. Eventually, he quit his career, moved to a small mountain village far away from Luoyang and started his own school where he would teach good morals to his students. By all means, Liu Yan had planned to spend the rest of his life here, turning into a character akin to Confucius.

He was eventually convinced to move back to Luoyang by the court, where he moved between extremely prestigious titles. Liu Yan was not blind to the growing corruption in the capital, however, and secretly resented the Ten Attendants' rise to power and Emperor Ling's inability to do anything about it. Eventually, he convinced the emperor to make him the governor of Yi province as the previous governor was supposedly a tyrant that levied extreme taxes upon the peasantry living there.

Once he made his home in Yi, Liu Yan immediately began planning to overthrow the imperial government. The collapse of the Han dynasty and the rise of Dong Zhuo was a surprise, but the chaos it caused came as an opportunity. With Han's power reduced to nothingness, Liu Yan started assembling a vast army to "liberate" the Han dynasty from all the tyrannical warlords that had risen up — naturally with himself in charge of this renewed empire. He did not join the coalition against Dong Zhuo, but neither would he fight for the warlord.

Over time, Liu Yan became more and more antagonistic to the Han. He conquered various lands around him and killed any Han envoys heading for his land, blaming it on one of his loyal generals who had supposedly turned on Liu Yan. To secure Yi province firmly for himself, Liu Yan started killing various powerful and influential people in the province, once again blaming it on rogue generals, bandits or Yellow Turbans. This all became too much for one lord, Jia Long, who rebelled against Liu Yan. Once he was defeated, his power over Yi province was secured.

Despite his rise to power, there was still one thing Liu Yan couldn't control: His age. The warlord was turning old, and deep down he knew he could never conquer all of China before his death. He looked to his four sons who could serve as his heir, hoping to groom a worthy heir. When travelling through Chang'an, Emperor Xian — who was not blind to Liu Yan's violent rise to power in Yi — ordered his youngest son, Liu Zhang, to deliver an official warning for his violence. Liu Yan was outraged and had his son imprisoned. Despite releasing him shortly after, this drove a permanent wedge between the father and his son which is what the emperor hoped to accomplish all along.

Eventually, Liu Yan allied with warlord Ma Teng, and together they rose in rebellion against the cruel regime of the late Dong Zhuo's successors: the two generals Li Jue and Guo Si. Their plan to march on Chang'an eventually fell into enemy hands and subsequently the combined armies of the two warlords were annihilated. Both Liu Fan and Liu Dan were captured and tortured to death. With Liu Mao dying of an unrelated illness some years earlier, this left Liu Zhang as the only heir to Yan despite their hatred of each other. This time around, Liu Yan had proved to be overambitious and he paid the price, having to settle on an uneasy peace with the two generals.

His bad luck would not run out yet, however. The capital of Yi province, Mianzhu was struck by lightning. One building erupted into flame, then a street, then the whole city was rapidly consumed by an unstoppable inferno as Yan and his court barely managed to escape the burning ruins. With tens of thousands of civilians dying and Mianzhu being reduced to nothing but rubble, the crushed Liu Yan moved the capital to Chengdu. Shortly after this, Liu Yan died from a combination of old age, grief over his dead sons, and stress. Yi fell into complete chaos before eventually Liu Zhang was appointed the new governor of the province. Unlike his father before him, Zhang didn't care about conquest and made no attempts to expand the territory he inherited, opting to try to stabilize and develop the province.

References[]

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