Li Xuancang set out for Peace Prefecture City to assume his post, bringing his parents, his eldest sister's family, a host of servants, and thirty-one elite, trusted soldiers under his command.
All thirty-one soldiers were veterans who had fought to the death alongside him. They were utterly loyal and highly skilled.
On this journey, they served as both guards and the core backbone for the thousand elite troops they would command in the future.
As he headed to Peace Prefecture City to take up his position, he needed people to support him if he was to swiftly take control of the army.
The group traveled slowly by carriage and horse. Li Xuancang, dressed in plain clothes, personally rode guard beside his family's carriage.
He remained secretly vigilant at all times. In these troubled times, there was never any peace on the road.
It was late autumn. Leaves drifted down from the trees lining the official road, while grass and plants had withered yellow.
After traveling only a few days, they began seeing corpses strewn everywhere along the roads.
A great many of them were civilians who had fled Mystic Sun City. In the end, they had failed to find a place to settle and died on the road.
After another ten days of travel, the convoy had already left the borders of Profound Sun Commandery, and the land grew ever more desolate.
White bones lay exposed beneath the sky; for a thousand miles, not even a rooster crowed.
The fleeing civilians along the way had eaten even the grass roots from the roadside clean, leaving vast stretches of bare earth everywhere.
After traveling for some time, they gradually began seeing refugees on the road.
These people were skin and bones, their faces sallow and yellow. Without food soon, they wouldn't