Gu Yun

**Gù yún** (顾昀), courtesy name Zǐxī (子熹), is the current Marquis of Order. He is the commander of the Black Iron Camp, which is made of 3 main factions - Black Eagles, Black Cavalries and Black Armors, and the elite military force of the Great Liang Dynasty.

His childhood name is Shiliu (meaning 16), due to the fact that he was born on the sixteenth of the first lunar month. He is half-deaf, half-blind due to an attack on the Black Iron Camp when he was a young child.

## Appearance

Gu Yun is described as good-looking, with peach blossom eyes. He has 2 cinnabar-colored beauty marks, one at the lower corner of his eye and another on his earlobe, the color of these marks fade and intensify depending on his medicine's efficacy.

He sometimes wears a monocle made from *liuli* glass with a white gold chain attached to it that hangs behind his ear.

## Personality

As a child, he was spoiled rotten and refused to listen to anyone. He was also stubborn and prideful, when punished by the Old Marquis in front of others, he refused to show any weakness and cry.

As an adult, Gu Yun is shown to be sarcastic, carefree, and straight-forward, saying what's on his mind in front of others. However, he still retains a little part of the spoiled child he was and enjoys certain luxuries later in life.

He has a deep and abiding love for his men, country and people, and he's willing to put everything on the line in order to bring about peace.

As a general, he is extremely brave and has an uncanny ability to understand his opponent and predict the enemy's next action, which helped him to win so many battles. As the third generation "Marshal Gu" who has brought peace to their kingdom, the commoners have almost a godlike image of him, but he has never let it go to his head. Like all great generals in history, he does not shy away from bloodshed nor torture.

## History

### Early Years

Gu Yun was very mischievous as a child, and one of his pranks nearly killed his elderly teacher. As a result, Gu Yun was brought to the Black Iron Camp by his parents as a young child, where he got injured in an ambush, leading to his partial blindness and deafness. The late Marshal Gu trained him using harsh methods and no mercy after that to ensure he would not become a disappointment to the Gu name. While overly harsh and possibly cruel, it enabled Gu Yun to become the man he was later in life, and without his father's training, he would've likely ended up a helpless, weak and wastrel nobleman.

When he was 15, the Northern Barbarians attacked Great Liang. At a young age, he led men into his first battle. Young and arrogant, he was too eager and acted alone, resulting in a big loss of 30 heavy armors, even causing the old General Du to get injured. 2 years later, when General Du got a cold, his old injuries from that battle acted up and unfortunately passed on. This painful experience taught Gu Yun a lesson.

After General Du's death, Gu Yun commanded his first expedition at the young age of 17.

### Marshal Gu

At 17, when the Western Region was under attack, when the court was in a mess, the officials suggested searching for the retired General Zhong, instead Gu Yun stepped up to volunteer for the expedition.

> "Your subject is willing to go, the border area of the Western Regions, they are nothing but a group of clowns jumping about. Do they really think that the windslasher is so rusty it cannot cut down the heads of rats?"
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Gu Yun spent the next few years either fighting the Northern Barbarians along the Northern Frontier or based in the Western Region with the Black Iron Camp.

When Gu Yun was around 19, he was sent by the Emperor Yuan He to the Northern Frontier to look for the missing Fourth Prince and to also secretly look into the information of black markets. There, he chanced upon a 12 year old Chang Geng who was surrounded by wolves and saved him. From that point, he became Chang Geng's 'yifu'. While staying in Yanhui, he hid his identity and lived as 'Shen Shiliu'. After settling the attack on Yanhui village, he brought the entourage of Chang Geng, Ge Pangxiao and Cao Chunhua back to the capital to live in the Marquis Manor.

On his deathbed, Emperor Yuan He asks that Gu Yun officially foster Chang Geng until he comes of age, which he dutifully accepts. After Emperor Yuan He's death, his eldest son Li Feng ascends to the throne. Gu Yun remained in the capital for some time, his presence intending to keep the situation calm and to prevent the Second Prince from rebelling.

During the New Year celebration that year, he took Chang Geng's trio and his soldiers aboard a Giant Kite to watch the festivity. A tiger is brought out into the crowd below, for what seemed like a performance, the crowd surged, affecting the tiger, and it attacks people. Although the tiger was dangerous, the moment Gu Yun appeared, the crowd immediately calmed down. Gu Yun calmed it down and had the foreigner who instigated the entire situation arrested. The mastermind behind the setup later notes that:

> "In the heart of these Easterners, Gu and his family bear some sort of symbolic meaning, as long as the "black crow" flies through the night sky, even faced with a bigger crisis, these foolish people will be blindly stabilized like a herd of sheep who have found their shepherd dog."
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### Retirement

He then retired 18 years after Chang Geng assumed the position of emperor.