For the past few months, Zhang Tie had been staying in Torch Dragon Territory with his wives. Everything there had been blessed with favorable winds and timely rains. Some of the Blood Men who had entered the Swallow Return Mountains from Passage Province last winter had already been intercepted, killed, or captured by Iron Dragon Sect disciples and the defensive forces of the various cities within Torch Dragon Territory. Apart from looting and massacring a few scattered hunting households and one or two small villages in the mountains, causing several hundred casualties, those Blood Men had not brought much trouble to the whole of Torch Dragon Territory. This summer, while crops had failed everywhere across Great Xia, Torch Dragon Territory enjoyed a bumper harvest. The situation in Torch Dragon Territory and that in Great Xia's other provinces and commanderies were utterly like two different worlds.
After the Blood Men entered the Swallow Return Mountains and caused some casualties, Zhang Tie had ordered all the remaining hunters living in the mountain range to relocate out of it. Land was specially set aside to build fortified settlements near the cities. All the hunters received salaries from Torch Dragon Territory far more generous than what they had earned as hunters, and one by one, they became mountain patrolmen for the Swallow Return Mountains of Torch Dragon Territory—Zhang Tie's "men." Some seasoned old hunters were even invited to the Torch Dragon Legion's garrison and hired as instructors, specializing in teaching the legion's Warriors the skills of fighting and surviving in the mountains and forests.
With grain prices soaring by the day, Torch Dragon Territory's abundant summer harvest filled its people, the prominent families of every city, and the local elders with delight. The entire territory was thriving in a scene of flourishing prosperity.
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