Outside Heaven-Answering City, in the direction of the Southern Wasteland, a lofty altar had begun construction months ago. Supervised by Wang Shouzheng, it had finally been fully completed in October after several months of work.
The altar stood atop Purple Splendor Mountain outside the city. The mountain rose more than three hundred meters high, and from there one could overlook Wu City.
On November 1st, the civil and military officials under Zhao Cheng had not slept all night. Before dawn, they had already climbed Purple Splendor Mountain and waited beneath the altar.
At the foot of the mountain, the foremost ranks were the two thousand armored soldiers of the Peace Camp. Behind them stood the Heaven-Answering Army, a full two hundred thousand strong.
Of these two hundred thousand Heaven-Answering Army soldiers, aside from the original seventy thousand, the remaining one hundred and thirty thousand had all been recruited in less than a year. Their backgrounds were complicated: there were sons of respectable families, as well as surrendered soldiers from the Feng, Chen, and Wu clans.
Both the respectable youths and the surrendered soldiers belonged to the Heaven-Answering Army reserve force. Only after earning merit and accumulating sufficient qualifications could they become regulars, and their treatment differed greatly from that of the regular army.
The surrendered generals were no different. Only by earning merit could they be promoted.
Naturally, the Heaven-Answering Army did not accept every surrendered soldier. At first, Zhao Cheng had sent all of them to mine. The Southern Wasteland was rich in mineral deposits; these mines had formerly been held by powerful local clans, but now they naturally all belonged to him.
As long as they mined continuously for two full months, they could choose either to take travel money and return home, or undergo assessment to become