The atmosphere was deeply oppressive, as though an enormous vortex of primordial energy were slowly pressing down from the sky.
Fang Yun jumped down from the carriage and stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the people before him.
Fang Yun carefully scanned everyone, matching their faces to the portraits in his intelligence reports. Before long, he had grasped detailed information about them all.
Before coming here, Fang Yun had already made preparations, but only upon arrival did he discover that the situation was even more complicated than he had imagined!
The Pearl River Army had two hundred thousand combat troops, divided into five armies: the central, vanguard, rear, left, and right armies. Each was commanded by a Hanlin Academician general.
Today, all five Hanlin Academician generals were present, standing at the very front of the welcoming party. Yet in the end, only the vanguard and central army generals saluted him!
That was not even the worst of it.
Each of the five armies numbered forty thousand. Under each army's general, every ten thousand troops were led by a titled Metropolitan Graduate general of the Principal Fourth Rank, making twenty in total.
Yet of those twenty Metropolitan Graduate generals, only six had saluted him!
The Hanlin Academician generals of the left, right, and rear armies had not saluted Fang Yun from the outset, so it was only natural that the Metropolitan Graduate generals under them had not saluted him either.
But the Hanlin Academician generals of the vanguard and central armies had clearly saluted him, yet among the Metropolitan Graduate generals under each of them, one had refused!
This was a very bad sign. Even if the vanguard and central army generals supported him, neither could fully control those eighty thousand troops.
Of the Pearl River Army's two