Nanshao Prefecture governed four counties, with a registered population of five to six hundred thousand.
Including unregistered households and mountain folk, the number was even greater.
Yet in a local prefecture of this middling scale, the Exorcism Hall in the prefectural city had only a mere 127 Imperial Guards, with no ability at all to extend its reach into the counties below.
The reasons behind this were quite complex.
Although the Imperial Guard Department answered directly to the Imperial family, the previous Emperor had exalted civil officials and suppressed military men during his reign, leaving it in a thoroughly miserable state.
The Deer Faction, which controlled the Grand Secretariat, regarded the Imperial Guard Department as a thorn in its eye and a splinter in its flesh, doing everything possible to suppress it.
Most importantly, Great Qian's annual revenue had continually declined. Funding allocated to the Imperial Guard Department and Exorcism Halls across the land had shrunk year after year, while the guards suffered heavy casualties in the course of their missions. That was how the present situation had come about.
Zuo Yongjun, who headed the Nanshao Exorcism Hall, was upright and straightforward, with an intense aversion to crooked ways. That he could maintain things as they were was already no small feat.
Yet that was precisely what Wang Chen admired most about him.
A gale reveals the strength of grass; in troubled times, loyal ministers emerge.
A man like that was worthy of trust—and worthy of being entrusted with great responsibility!
After arranging the most important matters, Wang Chen dumped all the remaining work onto Xiao Wan.
He himself entered seclusion to comprehend the "Five Suns Dry Thunder."
The "Five Suns Dry Thunder" had evolved from the Supreme Clarity Heavenly Divine Firmament Thunder Method. It was the latter's foundational technique,