Snow fell across Liaodong. Whether it had come earlier than in previous years, no one knew, but it was truly bitter cold. The snow had fallen without stopping for a day and a night, turning Liaodong into a kingdom of white.
Across the untouched snow, a party of more than twenty riders galloped swiftly northward.
At the front were more than ten soldiers, naturally arranged in a cavalry wedge formation. They all wore light armor over thick fur garments, with fur caps and gloves, even silk cloth wrapped around their faces. Only their eyes were exposed, their eyelashes covered in frost.
More than ten riders followed behind them. Only two or three were dressed as well as the riders ahead, wearing brocade caps and sable coats. The riders farther back were also bundled warmly, but their clothing could not compare with the brocade caps and sable coats, much less the fur garments worn by the soldiers at the front.
The identities of these twenty-odd riders needed no asking.
The ten-odd riders in front were surely soldiers under the Grand Commander. Among the riders behind, those in brocade caps and sable coats were the Zhen clan's leaders for this journey, while the rest were Zhen family guards and servants, traveling to Tu River to see the General.
Zhen Sheng was a legitimate son of a collateral branch of the Zhen family—that was, the son born to the collateral branch's principal wife—and he was in charge of this trip to Liaodong.
Their party had numbered five hundred, driving more than a hundred carts here. They had arrived in Suizhong yesterday morning and received the General's reply in the middle of the night. They had immediately followed the local soldiers, bringing their trusted guards and retainers on a hundred-li night march to Lianshan.