East of the River: Home of the Sun Clan sample -- TPMThorne.com

“Han’s mandate has passed! Yellow Sky, soon here! In this renewing year: prosperous all, at last!”
The words were repeated over and over by the intimidating mass of Yellow Turbans.
“They’re possessed!” one of Huang Gai’s men cried. “They’re possessed by a demon… or a god!”
“Stay calm! Please, stay calm!” Huang Gai said as his men started to falter.
“Damn them! We need to keep them busy for Lord Sun!” Han Dang despaired.
“…Interesting,” Sun Jian said as he watched the baying horde of Yellow Turbans. “But why are our men so disturbed? Don’t armies chant things anymore?”
“It’s what they’re chanting, and that they’re not an army as such,” Cheng Pu suggested. “Watching an army chant simple curses is one thing; watching an organised rabble of ordinary people - just like you, only with no experience of battle to speak of, and some of them women and boys at that - saying the things that they’re saying…? Tell me it doesn’t make you feel strange.”
“…Alright, yes, I admit that it upsets me,” Sun Jian replied. “But we have a job to do, and that’s that.”
“You’re a fool… a fool!” Wu Jing whimpered. “How can you ride through them? Look at them! Listen to them!”
“That’s precisely why I can ride through them,” Sun Jian retorted. “Are we ready?”
“…Yes,” Cheng Pu replied.
“Right, then!” Sun Jian said. “Forward!”
Sun Jian led his men in a sudden, swift - and some might have said ‘suicidal’ charge at the right flank of the larger Yellow Turban force. The gambit worked: many of the Yellow Turbans were relying on their chanting for strength in the face of fear, and Sun Jian’s force was able to stun the peasant army and pass through them with next to no resistance. The smaller Yellow Turban force around the village was far enough away from the main army for the morale-boosting efforts of Liu Pi to mean nothing, and they quickly scattered when Sun Jian’s small vanguard of horsemen rushed at them at great speed, hollering cries of support for the Han Empire as they did so.

“Well done, all!” Sun Jian said as his men coalesced. “Now the village is safe.”
“I bet they feel lucky that they don’t live in a walled city, if only this once,” Zu Mao noted. “The Yellow Turbans’d’ve been mad to try and hold a tiny village of thatched houses like this one.”
“It would have ended up being burned to the ground, one way or the other,” Cheng Pu supposed. “You’re right, Mister Zu; just this once, they might be grateful for their sorry lot, even though that’s what started this mess in the first place.”
“Enough of that, Demou,” Sun Jian sighed.
Grateful villagers started to gather at the entrance of their home; Cheng Pu looked at the weary, relieved people and smiled sadly, saying, “I just hope we restored their faith in order; all we can hope is that the wretched, insatiable thieves in Luoyang learn some sort of lesson and-”
“Enough, Demou,” Sun Jian pleaded. “Find some good men to stay here and manage the locals against any stragglers from the enemy army; the rest of us will pincer them and force them to retreat.”
Cheng Pu nodded obediently and rode away to find reliable men amongst the infantry.
“So now you want to attack that army of heretics head-on, Brother-in-law,” Wu Jing complained.
“Here he goes, whining again,” Zu Mao grumbled.
“Let him speak,” Sun Jian said. “Go on, Brother-in-law: state your case.”
“Rushing at them blindly just seems like madness to me,” Wu Jing explained. “Isn’t there some other way?”

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