Huiming Prefecture bordered Shaokang Prefecture to the southwest, Daye Prefecture to the northwest, Linwu Prefecture to the north, Fengli Prefecture to the east, and Jinan Prefecture to the south.
Before it was incorporated into the Xia Kingdom's territory, this too had once been a land fought over on all sides.
Though peace had endured for many years and people had grown somewhat careless of war, the bloodiness in the bones of Huiming's people remained.
Grand Fort City had suddenly fallen, and its war resources had been looted clean by the Qi Army... Whether through messages borne by flying eagles, the patrols of jade-platform dappled steeds, or the firsthand testimony of Grand Fort City's City Guard, the news had been confirmed time and again. A force of the Qi Army had indeed somehow slipped past Huyang Pass and entered the Xia Kingdom's heartland...
The whole of Huiming Prefecture was instantly swept up in storm and clouds!
The Xia Kingdom had, after all, once possessed the foundations of hegemony. Though it had declined in a single day, its momentum had not yet run dry. In Huiming Prefecture, there was a saying: "Huiming's elite soldiers are all at Huyang." Yet the City Guard of its other major city regions still retained considerable military strength.
Of Huiming Prefecture's seventeen cities, apart from the already fallen Grand Fort City and [Yun'er City], which was very likely to become the Qi Army's next target, the remaining fifteen cities all urgently deployed troops beyond their walls. They converged upon the Huiming-Shaokang border and, in the shortest possible time, sealed off every stretch of ground between Grand Fort City and Yun'er City.
The reason Huiming's cities had been able to react so swiftly, completing their deployments and blockade so cleanly in such a short time... was that Great