Nine months later, the Lulong Army of the Northern Frontier was massing troops on a grand scale.
More than a year had already passed since Heaven Will Continent invaded Donghua.
This army was, in truth, a prefecture, but because it was commanded by a military commissioner, it was called an army. It had originally governed eight counties, but had now been reduced to five.
Yet the authority of the Lulong Military Commissioner had not diminished because of this. Instead, it had grown considerably—for the sake of unified command over the Northern Frontier war, the Council of State Affairs and the Privy Council had taken the lead in granting the Lulong Military Commissioner the power to mobilize the troops across the northeastern front as one!
One had to know that this meant over a hundred thousand troops, including many elite soldiers. With such a foundation, the trusted Lulong Military Commissioner, Liu Hong, had voluntarily asked for the counties under his command to be reduced, both to set the court officials' minds at ease and to demonstrate his own ambitions.
Liu Hong had risen swiftly. The reason he had reached his present position could not, in the end, be separated from Qiu Yan. His stroke of fortune had come from knowing Qiu Yan in their humble days. He had originally been an ordinary officer in Wuxin City, but later gained real authority when Qiu Yan commanded Jiannan, following Qiu Yan through southern campaigns and northern battles. Later, the New Army had further aided him.
In peaceful years, the promotion of military officers required consideration of many matters. But now was a great upheaval unseen in thousands of years. The invasion from Beyond Heaven burned like wildfire, beacon smoke rising everywhere. That New Army was the main force resisting the invasion from Beyond