Eastern Continent.
Mang Mountain.
The cultivators of Tianyong City had sallied forth in full force. Now, in the forty-ninth year of Tian Nian, those left behind to guard this place were all Mortal Martial Cultivators.
It was dusk. After the patrolling soldiers changed shifts, they camped where they stood amid the wilderness, gathering around braziers to warm wine.
A freshly hunted wild boar sizzled over the coals, grease bubbling from its flesh.
"Old Man Li, is that true? You're not just bragging, are you?!"
"Yeah, with only your Meridian Opening cultivation, you actually survived all those great battles?"
A group of young soldiers gathered around an elderly veteran in his sixties, jeering good-naturedly.
The old man's surname was Li. His current military merit rank was Senior Third-Rank Light Chariot Commandant, but due to his insufficient cultivation, his official post was not high—merely a newly ranked Sixth-Rank Loyal Martial Captain.
Yet according to him, he had been an old soldier who came out of Poyang. From the Longqing era of the former dynasty through the Tianwu era of the Great Han's Jianyuan reign, he had personally taken part in every battle, great and small.
"Old Man Li, if what you said is true, tell us all about it!"
"Tell us about Four Crossings of Hongze River."
"And the thousand-li raid, Seal Wolf Ju Xu!"
The soldiers gazed at him expectantly, as though they were not in a Military Camp but in a teahouse awaiting a storyteller.
Old Man Li put on no airs at all. Pride colored his voice as he chuckled. "All right, then this old man will tell you about His Majesty's Four Crossings of Hongze River, which shook the world!
"It began on that day, when His Majesty led the Reserve Camp soldiers into Ming Province..."
He launched